Question:
From Danville, Illinois, USA:
My 11 year old daughter has diabetes and travels with us a lot. I read once where they were researching a way to test whether a soft drink is diet or not by using a stick. Is there something like this on the market? We would like to be sure because there have many times where we've had to send regular drinks back.
Answer:
Any urine test strip can be used to check other liquids (such as diet soda
pop) for the presence or absence of sugar. In the past, a very convenient
product was TesTape (made by Eli Lilly): it was a paper tape that was
yellow, and turned bright green in the presence of sugar. I'm not sure if
it's available any more: if there's any left in your drugstore, buy a
bunch: it really doesn't matter whether it's past the expiration date for
this purpose.
I warn my patients not to trust any "diet" soda pop unless they can see the
original container from the factory (either the original metal can or the
original plastic bottle). There have been way too many situations where the
soda pop that's served might have been mislabeled or otherwise confused
between whether or not it contains sugar or not. And don't trust anyone's
ability to accurately taste the presence of sugar.
(For many adults, it's simpler to order beverages that obviously don't have
sugar in them, like tea, coffee, or water, and add your own sweetener. Or,
for any age, bring your own can of diet soda pop.)
WWQ
Original posting 23 Oct 97
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