This Is An Odd Development

[sandsurfgirl]

Since I went gluten free a couple of months ago I went to a simple diet and only lately have been adding some things back.

I decided the other day to try some Pepsi at a restaurant. I got it from the machine and it tasted awful, like soap and chemicals. I figured they didn't wash the lines properly and got something else instead.

Then at another place to eat, same thing. Bad tasting Coke this time. I thought it was so strange that two places would have soap in their lines.

Well today I tried Pepsi from a bottle at home and the same thing happened! It tasted just awful like soap and chemicals. So now I'm thinking that detoxifying my system is making my sense of taste more sensitive and I'm tasting all the gross stuff that's really in there.

I tried Hansen's natural root beer and didn't have the same taste at all. Weird huh?

[David in Seattle]

I decided the other day to try some Pepsi at a restaurant. I got it from the machine and it tasted awful, like soap and chemicals.

SSG - I don't know about the SOAP part, but let's face it, pop pretty much IS just chemicals. As far as the machine being dirty/recently cleaned, I recall some years ago when I worked in a very nice restaurant, they had one of those automated dispensers for the soft drinks. Basically a spray head like you have at your sink, but with a small touch pad on the back. The wait staff would key in a code for whatever beverage the customer ordered, the machine would select it from one of the tanks attached, then they'd squirt it into an ice filled glass. It was not unusual at all for lumps if mildew to come out of the hose periodically, and float on top of the soda. Ironically, the floating fungus was probably the only thing NATURAL that ever came out of that machine!

Mildew or no, if celiac keeps you from drinking that junk, you're better off.

[AlysounRI]

Colas always made me sick and gave me stomach problems.

When I went gluten-free for those three weeks (getting ready for tests no so I am back on the stuff ...) all things that were sweet tasted extra sweet to me.

I tried some ginger ale in that time and it was cloyingly sweet and metallic tasting.

I also found that I didn't crave sugar as I have always seemed to have done.

It was very interesting.

Then again I have always found confectioners sugar to taste cloyingly sweet and metallic too.

Every body is different.

Real root beer is tasty though, isn't it, as is real ginger ale.

I think it has something to do with "natural" sugar sources being used.

Or maybe not

~Allison

[jerseyangel]

Oh yeah! I noticed this with soda as well. Before being gluten-free, I used to drink a lot of Pepsi--loved the stuff.

After getting sick, going gluten-free, and then figuring out my additional intolerances, I decided to "clean up" my diet and started drinking Boylan's Cane Cola once in a while--a more natural product made with sugar.

Now Pepsi tastes like battery acid to me (or what I imagine it to taste like )

Our taste buds are more refined now

[MagpieWrites]

I have to admit - since going gluten free my tastebuds are SERIOUSLY going wacky on me. In a good way - but still odd enough that for the first few months I honestly went through about half a dozen pregnancy tests because I thought I HAD to be pregnant to be feeling/tasting/craving like this!

To my mother's eternal shock and joy - my tastes have grown up. (Took me to almost 30!) Most sodas taste, well, off as you describe. Candy bars? Yeah, no. Too sweet anymore, a whole one will actually make me ill if I eat one. The gal who ate vegetables merely to stave off scurvy?

Well. Let me put it like this. I'm typing this will my now "normal" lunchtime snack - raw broccoli, orange segments, and red bell pepper strips. The last time mom stopped by my home she opened my refrigerator door and started cackling - what was once full of soda bottles and pudding cups looks like the produce section at Whole Foods exploded into my home!

I DO think it has to do with going gluten free. I'm the one with the celiac diagnosis - but at home, my husband has chosen to eat gluten free as well. And HIS tastes are changing for the healthier too. Once you get a lot of the processed crap out of your system it's hard to put it back in.

[jenngolightly]

Congrats on dumping soda from your diet for a little while.

I decided to completely cut soda out at the first of the year and it was oh-so-hard! I went from drinking a can a day (not too much compared to some) to drinking IZZE's. They are juice+sparkling water. I really missed the fizziness of the soda so I had to find something to replace that. I went from IZZE's to flavored water. That's what I drink now. The IZZE's are really sour - so they weren't really a soda replacement, I was just trying to step down gradually.

Now if only I could cut out chocolate. I am really addicted to that.

[AlysounRI]

I never liked soda, and if I drank soda, it was always ginger ale, sprite, fresca, stuff like that.

Cola always just gave me the big D so I always avoided it.

Congrats to those who are kicking the soda habit!!

You know you can always add fizzy tonic water to juice - boom, instant soda!!

If I drink soda, it's real ginger ale, with lots of extra ginger but I can't drink the whole bottle at a time.

It's just too sweet. But at least it's got real sugar in it and not high fructose corn syrup!!!

Cranberry juice is sweet to me, even the 100 percent juice, no extra sugar added to me.

It's great that other people started noticing that sweet things were very, extra, too sweet when they went off gluten.

There has to be a chemical/biological link, right??

I have to agree with Magpie: "Once you get a lot of the processed crap out of your system it's hard to put it back in."

Amen to that!

~Allison

[kayo]

My taste buds went all wonky after I went gluten free. Nothing tasted normal. Soda tasted horrible. Foods I used to love like peas and asparagus tasted like dirt. I felt like nothing quenched my thirst. My appetite was so low. I'm happy to say it passes. I have no scientific proof to gauge this but I felt like my my mouth, tongue and taste buds were healing and therefor not really working. Food still tastes different than it did before the gluten-free/sf diet but in a good way. I can't tolerate anything too sweet. Fruit tastes better and more vibrant oddly enough. I can have the occasional soda but it doesn't taste like it used to. I try to stick to Hansen's or Izzie's natural sodas to avoid all the chemicals but you can't beat an ice cold coke/pepsi every now and then.

[newgfcali]

I kicked the soda habit a few years ago. Was drinking caffeine free diet pepsi before. Then I read how the artificial sweeteners can cause joint pain, so I switched to seltzer water. Comes in cans, very cheap, no sodium (like club soda has) and still has that fizzy quality I need to really quench thirst. Just plain water doesn't cut it for me. Pretty easy transition.

[sandsurfgirl]

I kicked the soda habit a few years ago. Was drinking caffeine free diet pepsi before. Then I read how the artificial sweeteners can cause joint pain, so I switched to seltzer water. Comes in cans, very cheap, no sodium (like club soda has) and still has that fizzy quality I need to really quench thirst. Just plain water doesn't cut it for me. Pretty easy transition.

I gave up all artificial sweeteners a couple of years ago when I read how evil they are. They truly are poison. I craved sweets less and my weight didnt' change from it.

David, you're freaking me out!!! That is so gross about the mildew in the lines. You are SO right that it's just nasty chemical water, but it used to be good tasting chemical water. Now it's just chemically chemical water. Blech. I'll never drink it again.

[BigDogz]

OMG! I thought I was the only one who found sodas to be distasteful after going gluten-free!! And, for me, that's saying A LOT. I was an absolute soda junkie for 10 years. I was working in a high stress job and the sugar and caffeine in the sodas seemed to give me the "jolt" I needed to maintain my energy level. I was drinking as many as 5 or 6 20 oz. Mt. Dew's or Pepsi's in an 8 hour period! At the time, I thought they were the greatest tasting beverage on the planet.

I went gluten-free after getting my diagnosis last May and figured it was a great time to kick the soda habit, too. I'd been trying to quit for some time but I was never able to sustain it for more than a week or so without all of the usual side effects...headache, exhaustion, nervousness, etc. This time, kicking the soda habit was absolutely painless and withdrawal-free. Not sure what is was about the gluten-free diet that made it easier, but it did!

About 6 months after quitting the sodas, I was out with a friend and they suggested we stop by a small, local restaurant and talk over coffee. I've never liked coffee so I decided I'd order a small Pepsi. Thank God I didn't waste my money getting a bigger serving because it was AWFUL!!!! It was bitter, very acidic and almost had a metallic taste. I tried a bottle from a vending machine about a month after that and the same thing! And here I was worried that having that one, initial Pepsi would cause me to fall off the wagon and get hooked on sodas again. No problem there! YUCK.

I really do think that going back to a simpler diet...one like our grandparents ate that didn't have all of the chemicals and preservatives...does help to 'rejuvenate' our taste buds. I wasn't gluten-free all that long when I noticed that foods just tasted so much better than they had been. I guess that's why the Celiac diet restrictions never really bothered me because what I *can* eat tastes so AWESOME now!!

[newgfcali]

I guess that's why the Celiac diet restrictions never really bothered me because what I *can* eat tastes so AWESOME now!!

Except perhaps broccoli.

Yuck.

[sandsurfgirl]

Except perhaps broccoli.

Yuck.

[tarnalberry]

I didn't find the taste of soda really changed for me, going gluten free, but I never liked drinking a lot of it anyway. What I really like doing, when I want something fizzy, is combining half a glass of orange juice with half a glass of San Pelligrino. Smaller bubbles than most carbonated beverages (even seltzer water, though it'll do in a pinch) and way tastier!

[serenajane]

Since I went gluten free a couple of months ago I went to a simple diet and only lately have been adding some things back.

I decided the other day to try some Pepsi at a restaurant. I got it from the machine and it tasted awful, like soap and chemicals. I figured they didn't wash the lines properly and got something else instead.

Then at another place to eat, same thing. Bad tasting Coke this time. I thought it was so strange that two places would have soap in their lines.

Well today I tried Pepsi from a bottle at home and the same thing happened! It tasted just awful like soap and chemicals. So now I'm thinking that detoxifying my system is making my sense of taste more sensitive and I'm tasting all the gross stuff that's really in there.

I tried Hansen's natural root beer and didn't have the same taste at all. Weird huh?

My sense of taste is a bit different as well. I found some gluten-free snicker doodles in the cookie/cracker/bread isle I thought they were great my husband not so much he feel like they are gritty. I am finding more gluten-free signs at the grocery store every time I visit. I hope this means that the more that is sold the better the taste and I hope it will pass on some savings to us as well.

I had 2 apples yesterday and a grapefruit still feeling okay not a ton of bloating. I'll take it.

Do you have a problem with weight gain? I can't loose a lb..

About the fountain soda when I managed a rest. the heads are taken off and soaked and sanitized nightly. Really they run non stop..

[Reba32]

I gave up on pop almost entirely when I moved from Canada to the US, (don't like the high fructos corn syrup in "regular" pop, and even the diet is sweeter here) and then only had it occasionally when I was out in a restaurant. Then one day last summer I had a pepsi and took one sip, it was so disgustingly sweet I handed it to my husband. Haven't touched it again since.

Recent studies have shown that drinking colas (diet or sugared) can contribute to kidney disease, so I'm quite happy that my taste buds have given it up!)

I drink seltzer water now (unsweetened) when I want bubbles.