I Got Duped By Sweetened Water!!

I’m stunned, annoyed and mystified. All I really wanted was some water, but I ended up having a disconcerting experience instead — one involving hidden sweeteners!

You see, I’m in Atlanta at the annual convention of the National Speakers Association after attending the Million Dollar Author Program earlier in the week. Anyhow, after dinner tonight, I went to the hotel gift shop and quickly picked up a bottle of water to drink this evening.

Anyhow, just a few minutes ago, I thirstily took a swig of the Dasani water. What a shocker! It was disgustingly sweet. It had this strange taste! Ick!

I immediately turned the bottle around, pulled out my brand new pair of glasses to read the tiny print, and lo and behold, it didn’t just contain H2O.

Yuck! My allegedly simple bottle of water contains all kinds of hidden chemicals — citric acid, sodium polyphosphates, potassium sorbate, potassium benzoate “(to protect taste)” — whatever the heck that means! — and “natural flavors” (those are dubious additions, too).

Wait, that’s not all — lo and behold, this bottled water includes not one, but TWO different artificial sweeteners — sucralose and acesulfame potassium — both of which I always fastidiously avoid. (While working on my book, SUGAR SHOCK!, I researched the subject of artificial sweeteners, interviewed a number of experts about them, and because of what I learned, I now completely steer clear of them.)

Now I have this horrible aftertaste in my mouth, and I need to go brush my teeth to get rid of it.

Yikes, was I taken by surprise!

Shame on me! Here, I claim to be the Saavy Sugar Sleuth(TM), yet I sure didn’t act like one. I simply did NOT practice what I preach!

I was so in a rush (because a friend was waiting) to get my water that I didn’t bother to read the food labels, as I always, always urge others to do!

So, learn from my really, really stupid mistake — and always inspect those ingredients before buying a bottle of water or any other product that comes in a bottle, package, jar, or can! It’s always important to be on the lookout for hidden sweeteners!

Have you, too, been duped? Tell us your experiences getting trapped by “hidden sweeteners” — whether they’re sugars or artificial sweeteners.

7 thoughts on “I Got Duped By Sweetened Water!!”

  1. I did that once. Thinking I was buying a sugar-free bottled drink I just grabbed and ran. Later while drinking it, thought this is awfully sweet for sugar-free. Finally looked at the label, only to discover I’d purchased the full-sugar version of the drink. Very frustrating when you’ve made such progress. It has taught me that I need to always look at labels. Always. 🙂

  2. I got duped by, believe it not, multivitamins. While in large print on the front of the label it said no added sugar, it sparked my hypo. I couldn’t understand why until I read the small print on the back of the label. Under inactive ingredients there were five — count them five — forms of sugar. Okay it didn’t have sucrose, but it still had other forms of sugar. Talk about mislabeling!

  3. I am surprised about the sugar in water and yet, I am not surprised. No food is sacred anymore.
    I have never had this happen with sugar but I have with alcohol (I am a non-drinker). I was at a conference and I grabbed a dessert which happened to contain sherry. When I asked the waitress about it, she confirmed that it was not flavoring but the real deal. Most ironic was the conference I was at was on alcoholism and drug addiction awareness!

  4. I have heard about this sweetened water, they have it up in Canada too, like in citris flavours and sweetened, supposed to encourage people to drink more water!!?? I was thinking of trying it but now I know a little more about it, I will stick to the good ol’ H20! Thanks for the “heads up”!

  6. This sweetened water phenomena is a sneaky one, I agree. I believe Dasani is the hidden product from Pepsi or Coke into the competitive water realm. I know it is one of them, for when I heard of it as they first came on the market…I realized, how clever to hide in the water. Thanks Connie, for putting this out there again…nothing is really ever as it appears, and the marketing and branding can be blinding to finding out the truth.

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