Tab Is No Fad, It’s An Addiction – IOTW Report

Tab Is No Fad, It’s An Addiction

Friday, 19 October 2018, 14:45 Dr. Tar Uncategorized 41

As someone who knows a Tabaholic, I can attest to the addictive nature of the saccharine sweetened diet soda. The person I know can’t function without it and tries to hold herself down to just 6 cans a day. This Tab fiend travels with the beverage, being known to pack an over night supply in a cooler for short trips and dedicating a whole suitcase when on vacation, if the hotel doesn’t have it on hand.

Now the New York Times is warning that the bottler, Coca-Cola, is trying to phase-out production and those who are dependent on the soda pop are fighting back. More

41 Comments on Tab Is No Fad, It’s An Addiction

  7. They still make that stuff? I like Diet Dr. Pepper every once in a while. Did you all know that the secret ingredient in Dr. Pepper is prunes? I have a friend whose addicted to Pepsi – the full Monty stuff.

    15

  13. Tab is not for everybody but the secret for it to taste its best is that it has to be absolutely ice cold, like barely above the freezing point. Any warmer and it tastes as fake as it is. But very cold, it’s very good.

    4

  15. I have always tended to be heavy, so decades ago, in an effort to cut calorie consumption, I tried Tab. It was a vile drink; one you had to choke down and pretend was a soda while enduring “kind of a soda” taste. But I stuck with it, and after a relatively short period of time it became my soft drink of choice. When I got into running sometime later and no longer really had to worry about calorie intake, we would still go to McDonalds and I would order a Big Mac, cheeseburger, large fries and a Tab.

    Now, years later, I again have to restrict liquid calorie intake and I chose to also eliminate artificial sweetners so I switched to La Croix. I was buying some at the store and another customer asked me how it was – I said it was essentially a Tab experience. Once you suffer through the first several cans of La Croix, it turns into your carbonated drink of choice. The customer I was talking to knew exactly what I meant when I said it was a Tab experience.

    Tab was addictive, and I quit drinking it only when it became almost impossible to find. But once in a while I will run across it and still enjoy that occasional Tab.

    7

  19. It’s a gateway drug. Used to drink 2-3 cans of diet soda decades ago. Stopped when I realized it was giving me unforgiving headaches. Diverted to the sugary stuff. Became diabetic.

    Went to seltzer water. That gives me acid reflux if I drink it too close to a meal.

    Tea and coffee make me jittery.

    Went to drinking reverse osmosis water. More heartburn.

    Now I’m happy as a clam drinking plain old bottled, chlorinated city water when I get it.

    Happier still, when sipping a good bourbon.

    6

  27. Rumor on the street is that production is shutting down because Coca-Cola is unable to import he necessary number of diabetic Chihuahuas. The Mexican Government, citing an emergency, has decided to devote the country’s entire supply to domestic beer production.

    12

  28. Moxie has been around since 1885. I’ve been addicted to it since 1958. Since I moved to AZ from ME, I have to drive 14 miles and pay $1.69 for ONE 12 oz bottle. (They will not sell it in bulk!)

    Coke Zero keeps the DT’s at bay, but it’s nothing like the real thing. (Kind of like comparing Portnoy’s slab of liver vs. a romp with Sofia Vergara)

    https://www.drinkmoxie.com/

    Go Sawx!

    4

  29. Coca stands for cocaine which was actually in the original cola recipe. Although it became illegal to be made that way in the US, it didn’t get deleted from the product in other countries. My guess is that it isn’t the saccharine that makes Tab addictive, but the “other” ingredient? Saccharine has been used as a sweetener for decades with no addiction problems noted. A fishy conclusion fad going round? Really, would anyone lie about it?

    1

  30. Always hated Tab. Used to drink tons of Diet Dr Pepper, but I quit cold turkey. I didn’t quit because of the potential harm the sweeteners might cause, but because I was spending a fortune on them.

    4

  31. Zevia soda tastes pretty darn good [if cold], the doctor pepper knock off is the only gross flavor.

    It’s made with stevia leaf too, so it’s actually one of the best ‘diet’ soda’s out there, health wise.
    [I would recommend the the cream soda and the ginger ale.]

    2

  32. There’s an element of enjoying the whole experience when it comes to Tab addiction. The chinckle of the ice in the glass, the sound of the soda pouring into the container, the sound of the bubbles fizzing away.

    It’s much like cigarettes smokers and the sensation of lighting and holding a cigarette. There’s pleasure in the hands and the sent of smelling the Tab that makes it an easy habit to not want to give up.

    I don’t know if Coca-Cola ever intended that to be part of the whole experience, but I’ve seen it at work.

    3

  33. Nostalgia flash. My Mom drank Tab in the 70s, when it came in frosted glass bottles. Later a girlfriend drank it, until it became impossible to find.
    Surprised it’s still available, I haven’t seen it in a store in at least 20 years.
    I never acquired the taste. Saccharine is horrible stuff. Splenda and the other newer sweeteners probably are just as bad for you.

    If you’re trying to quit the Brown Formaldehyde colas, try basic generic seltzer or clear tonic water with a few drops of lime or lemon concentrate. Cheap, tasty and harmless.

    4

  37. True story:
    One night I was watching TV at my BIL’s place and a commercial for Stevia sweetener came on. I looked over at him and said, “Boy that’ll be the day when I start using that stuff.”
    Later that night my Mom, an RN, asked me when was the last time I had my blood sugar checked. I didn’t recall exactly but it was OK 10 or fifteen years previously.
    She got a monitor and we checked my sugar.
    380.
    Went to the doctor asap and found my A1C was 14.
    Yikes. I had no idea.

    So be careful.

    5

  38. I just finished reading Gary Taubes’ book, “The Case Against Sugar”. Wherein he writes in 1963 Coke & Pepsi released Tab & Patico no calorie or low calorie soft drinks. Sales of diet sodas increased from 7.5M cases in 1957 to 59M cases in 1962. Becoming 15% of soft drink sales. Analysist predicted they could reach over 1/3 of the market. Not bad for a product originally sold in pharmacies to diabetics.

    Of course Big Sugar would not stand by and let that happen. They launched a multi-million dollar campaign – claiming that artificial sweetened sodas failed to meet the nutritional needs of growing children, as sugar sweetened sodas would do. And that, ” trying to lose weight by drinking them is like trying to lighten an airplane by emptying the ashtrays.”

    At the time Royal Crown held 50% of the diet soft drink market with Diet-Rite soda. RC responded with ads rebutting the ‘sugar daddies’ with, ” If it’s wrong to do millions of people a favor by taking sugar out of cola. Diet-Rite pleads guilty.”

    Big Sugar looked for ways to diversify by using sugar in products like paints, detergents, water purification, and of course looking for addition ways to sugar soaked tobacco used in cigarettes, which made it possible to more deeply inhale the smoke.

    But none of those products held the promise of higher profits of sugar in soft drinks. So the Sugar Assoc created the International Sugar Research Foundation to find ways to compel the FDA to remove the various artificial sweeteners like saccharin & cyclamates from the GRAS, generally regarded as safe, List.

    Saccharin was discovered in 1879. A derivative of coal tar, 500x sweeter than sugar, and could be purchased at one tenth the cost of sugar. Sodium cyclamates & calcium cyclamate were discovered in 1937, Abbott Labs marketed it as a pill in 1950. It was 30x sweeter than sugar without the bitter after taste of saccharin. Big Sugar got it banned, off the GRAS list in the USA. But apparently still legally sold as a zero cal sweetener in many other countries.

    Teddy Roosevelt, was over weight and getting heavier, was a fan of saccharin sweetened drinks, consuming it on advice of his doctor. TR disagreed with Harvey Wiley, chief chemist at USDA, who said saccharin was unsafe, and that anyone consuming it was deceived and thought they were eating sugar when in fact they were eating a coal tar product, totally devoid of food value & injurious to health. TR responeed, ” anybody who says saccharin is injurious is an idiot.” Case closed ending the argument.

    8

  40. Tsk. All this fuss over a first world “problem”. Pathetic. Especially as “reported” by the New Yawk Slime.
    My soda of choice is “Mexican” Coke in the glass bottle, made with cane sugar, about once or twice a month. I try to avoid the HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) stuff. And yes, I can taste the difference.

    2

  41. @Moxie Man (at 2:35 am): You are most welcome. Incidentally, I have done business with Beverages Direct (I am with Triple XXX Root Beer like you are with Moxie) and I had no problems dealing with them at all. Check out their inventory – they’ve got every soft drink I’ve ever heard of, and a crap ton more that I haven’t. Chances are, if you can’t find it there they don’t make it any more.

    https://www.beveragesdirect.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-MjBkoCV3gIVSLXACh30JQFdEAAYASAAEgLOh_D_BwE

    The drinks aren’t cheap, mind you, but the biggest deal killer is the shipping. That’s why I suggested ordering a case, because over $35 you get free shipping.

    Hope you like it.

    🙂

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