The obvious move when you are cutting back on sugar is a diet drink. Zero sugar, zero calories, a cleaner-looking label. Except the sugar does not disappear. It gets replaced, usually with aspartame, sucralose or acesulfame K. Whether that is a better deal is genuinely contested. What is not contested is that they are there.
What is actually in a diet drink?
The three most common artificial sweeteners in diet sodas are aspartame, sucralose and acesulfame K. Aspartame is roughly 200 times sweeter than sugar. Sucralose is made from sugar that has been chlorinated. Acesulfame K has a bitter aftertaste on its own so it is almost always blended with one of the others to smooth it out.
None of them are hidden. They are on the ingredients list. Usually in small print on the back.
Are artificial sweeteners a problem?
We make soda. We are not going to tell you aspartame causes cancer. The science on that is contested and we are not qualified to settle it.
What we will say: more people are reading labels than they used to. The number of shoppers who would rather have a little real sugar than a mouthful of synthetic sweetener is growing year on year. You can draw your own conclusion from that.
So what should you actually look for?
Three things worth checking on any fizzy drink:
Sugar content. The UK sugar tax threshold is 5g per 100ml. A standard cola sits around 10g. Anything under 5g puts you well below that. Anything close to zero with no sweeteners replacing it is genuinely rare.
Artificial sweeteners. Check the ingredients for aspartame, sucralose, acesulfame K, saccharin or stevia. If any of them appear, the sugar has been swapped out, not reduced.
Ingredients in general. Fewer, simpler, things you recognise.
Where does Life Blood come in?
So if you want great taste without worrying about artificial sweeteners and still only 39 calories a can, it has to be Life Blood!
It is not a diet drink and it is not a health drink. It is a fizzy drink made with real ingredients that tastes of something. If you are reading labels and trying to find something better than the usual compromise, we think it is worth trying.
The common-sense version
You have three options. Full-sugar soda, honest about what it is. Diet soda, which replaces the sugar with sweeteners. Or something like Life Blood, which uses a little real sugar, no synthetic substitutes, and real ingredients throughout. That is the whole comparison.
Some people would call the third option a health choice. We call it common sense.
Keep reading
How much sugar is in kombucha?, kombucha vs soda: the honest comparison, why we use no artificial sweeteners, and what UK drinkers actually want in 2026. Or try the Life Blood variety pack and see what you think.
