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Is That Soda Really Sugar-Free? Test It With Tes-Tape Before You Drink
Please enjoy this Archive Favorite, originally published on November 1, 1992. Have your BG's ever skyrocketed after you drank an ostensibly "diet" soda from a soda fountain? Read on and let us hear your comments.
Carol Whitton of Coral Springs, Florida, discovered that her blood sugar often increased sharply after she drank a diet soda while dining in a restaurant. So she started to test her diet drinks for sugar, a practice she learned from watching the “Living With Diabetes” television program.
Carol found that many times her sodas contained traces of sugar. Worse still, in one two-week period, every “diet” soda she ordered in several different restaurants was not a diet soda at all, but the real thing--full of sugar. This explained why she was having problems controlling her blood sugar.
Carol now tests every fountain soda she buys using Tes-Tape, a glucose test strip designed to detect excess sugar in urine. The strip turns green in the presence of sugar. By placing a small drop of her soda onto a Tes-Tape strip, Carol easily determines whether or not the drink is sugarless.
Sugar Traces Are No Surprise
Studies have shown that finding traces of sugar in diet sodas served at restaurants is not uncommon. This puts people with diabetes, such as Carol, into a potentially dangerous situation. In 1992, Diabetes Health published an article on a study conducted in North Carolina that assessed the incidence of sugar in fountain diet sodas. The researchers found that 42 percent of drinks tested contained traces of sugar, and two percent of them contained sugar in a markedly high concentration.
People with diabetes need to be assured that their diet sodas contain no sugar. But what is being done to solve this problem? Is any type of quality control being implemented at restaurants to assure people with diabetes that their health is not at risk?
Presently, the stance that most restaurants seem to be taking is one of indifference. Because most customers who order diet sodas are more concerned about calories than they are about raising their blood sugars, restaurants don't consider sugar in their diet sodas to be a serious health issue. But for the large number of people with diabetes who enjoy drinking diet sodas when eating out, it is a serious health issue.
Carol Takes Action
After consistently finding sugar in the diet cokes from a McDonald's restaurant in her area, Carol Whitton decided to blow the whistle. She called the McDonald's headquarters in Illinois, but found the company unresponsive to the problem. The only assistance McDonald's gave Carol was to advise her to contact the Coca-Cola Company instead and ask it for help.
When the Coca-Cola Company received word from Carol about the problem in South Florida, it sent its Field Service Manager, Dennis Salatiello, down from Atlanta to look into the situation. He spent a day with Carol testing diet cokes in the South Florida area. Over the next few months, Carol also mailed samples of diet coke that had tested positive for sugar back to Atlanta.
The official word from the Coca-Cola Company is that this is not a widespread problem. Even so, the company is now sending field representatives all over the country with test strips to routinely check the diet coke served at restaurants. The Coca-Cola Company maintains that if a mistake is found, its field representatives take immediate action to correct the problem.
While the Coca-Cola Company claims to be dealing with this problem, the advice its representatives give to people with diabetes is to continue testing their diet sodas when eating out – a practice most people with diabetes weren't doing to begin with.
Employees Could Be the Culprits
Although no single explanation of the presence of sugar in diet sodas has been uncovered, it is generally thought to be a result of negligence on the part of restaurant employees, not the soda manufacturers. Most restaurants receive their sodas from the manufacturer in containers that are labeled correctly. It is when the sodas are being served through a fountain dispenser that the errors occur.
The official statement from the Coca-Cola Company for the presence of sugar in diet sodas is that there are three possible causes: 1) The wrong soda container is connected to the diet line; 2) the counter-person accidentally serves the wrong drink; or 3) the diet soda is combined with regular soda.
Though the Coca-Cola Company claims to be handling the situation with its own methods, the real solution lies in educating restaurants about the seriousness of this problem. Strong standards need to be set to ensure the health of all customers, including those with diabetes. If restaurants continue to consider this a non-issue, then nothing substantial will be done to solve the problem, and the health of people with diabetes will continue to be at risk.
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18 comments - 1 May 2008
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This article would have been more useful if it provided information on where to find Tes-Tape. I also googled it have not been able to locate it yet. I know I have been served regular soda a numerous places when I specifically asked for diet. I suspect the real problem is the person that serves the drink. To most people diet versus regular soda is just a taste choice or deals with diet issues. Very few bartenders and waitresses that I have spoken with even consider the fact that people order diet soda because of diabetic issues.
This is outrageous! It's the same for every other allergy in the food industry; "If it doesn't affect me, why should I worry about it." One day it's going to be that way for all of these people and then maybe the rest of us will stand a chance. Look at how long it took to get labels to say it has peanuts in it.
Those of us who have to "live" with diabetes and food allergies count on labels, menus, and restaurants to be honest with us. If they can't do that, then please post a sign to let us know. Everyone out there with diabetes and allergies should be outraged by this. And for those who are already laughing at this comment let me put it to you this way: imagen yourself calmly eating your meal when you suddenly feel your throat tighten. You wonder what's going on since you were only eating a salad. As you lie in your hospital bed wondering what happened, the doctor tells you that the salad you were eating had sulfides in it (a preservative for the lettuce) or a mushroom was put on your salad and removed (instead of remade). These are the "little" things that the rest of the world has to face.
As for me, I stay away from fountain drinks of any kind. The water tap on them comes out of the same spigot as the sugar filled lemonade. I haven't been to McDonald's since I was diagnosed with diabetes.
The restaurant industry should seriously consider changing its tune when it comes to food allergies and diabetes. One of these days, you too will be looking for answers. Make it easy and healthy for everyone, find the solution now so we can all live healthier.
By the way: the scenario above was real and very scary!
Another explanation that should be obvious to anyone who's ever worked in food service: if the soda comes from a gun that dispenses several different kinds of soda — both diet and regular — the diet drinks will pick up trace amounts of sugar from residue left by non-diet drinks. This leaves only small trace amounts of sugar. The article briefly mentions, but does not examine, the fact that only 2% of 42% of the drinks they tested - that's 0.84% in plain English — contained a "markedly high concentration" of sugar. That means that 99.16% of the drinks they tested only contained trace amounts. Thus this has nothing to do with employee or manufacturer error. It is more likely an easily explained phenomena; and a relatively innocuous one at that.
I'm not saying that the effects of this are entirely negligible, but in 18 years of being diabetic (and testing at least eight times a day), I have never found such a small amount of sugar to be cause for alarm.
Also, I am AMAZED that someone who was served a regular soda couldn't tell that it wasn't diet. Do these people have functioning taste buds?
I'm sorry, but this article seems incredibly sensationalistic to me.
Diet Coke tastes nasty to me and I can't handle caffeine later in the day so I always drink water when I'm eating out. I drink mostly water at home, too. Problem solved.
Never had problems with coke because I don't drink soft drinks at all. Only water, coffee or tea with no sugar. I've not tasted soft drinks for the past 14 years since I found out that I have type 2.
Some people have more sensitive taste buds than others. I can't tell the difference between beverages sweetened with Splenda and beverages sweetened with sugar. Diet Coke tastes just fine to me.
The diet coke with splenda tastes fine and the coke zero with a blend of sweeteners tastes fine. The regular diet coke sweetened with aspartame only is undrinkable.
What Coca Cola needs to do is use a different size adapter with diet drinks and regular sodas. Kinda like the nozzles at the gas station for gas and diesel. If a restaurant employee can't hook a regular box of syrup up to the diet hoses, no errors could be made...except by the bottler.
bw7841
What Coca Cola needs to do is use a different size adapter with diet drinks and regular sodas. Kinda like the nozzles at the gas station for gas and diesel. If a restaurant employee can't hook a regular box of syrup up to the diet hoses, no errors could be made...except by the bottler.
bw7841
Test Tape. How cool. You must be as old as I am (remember when they invented DIRT?).
I did, a few years ago, purchase some glucose test strips just so I could measure the glucose load in "diet" soft drinks. I never did find any glucoes in them. Darn.
So, remember, YOU are the one who is responsible for what you put in your mouth. The restaurant only "helps" you. If it were something that was "really" important then it would be ANOTHER thing. But, hey, YOU are responsible, not them.
NT
did anyone find out where to get the test strips?
My wife and I first started testing any "strange tasting" diet soda at restaurants when we thought the drink tasted to "sugary." Sure enough it pegged the meter. The manager checked; and sure enough, they had reversed the tanks. (I don't know if any "full sugar" folk complained about the diet soda they were drinking or not.)
I have had 'funny tasting coke', asked if it was diet and was told yes. With experience I asked for another coke because all the sugar in a real coke could make me pass out.I won't, but this usually works. I AM highly intolerant of soy products and always ask about salad dressings in restaurants. After too many false assurances and the consequences, I take my own in a small bottle.
So... where are glucose test strips available (assuming these are not the test strips used to test our blood but instead to test liquids)? Does anyone know where to purchase them or if they even really exist?
Hello... anyone know where to get those Tes Tape? I remember it from years ago, but thought it was dicontinued long ago...
Any diabetic drugstore workers, reps, pharmacists reading this? Hellooo!
Thanks
c
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