Gut-Healthy Prebiotic Sodas, Tested And Ranked
Pepsi also recently announced the launch of its own line of prebiotic sodas.
Even with these big shifts in the industry, Diet Coke still dominates the soda zeitgeist for having a certain je ne sais quoi to it. There was even a TikTok trend last year about the divine combo of Diet Coke, Caesar salad, and French fries. My love for Diet Coke runs so deep that I don't even call it by its government name. Instead, I'll mention needing to go get a 'DC,' or will shorten this nickname even further to 'deec.' Diet Coke is a regular part of my week and how I find joy in this life. To put it simply, it's just really good.
So the question to me was: Is there a 'gut healthy' soda brand out there that comes close to the satisfaction of a crisp, cool can of DC? I lined up five options to find out.
Before we begin, let's start with a disclaimer. I judged these sodas purely on the drinking experience and their likeness to Diet Coke. Though I can read a label, I'm not a dietitian who can make profound comments about nutritional content. (There are also disputes about how beneficial these sodas are anyway, but that's a discussion for another time.)
I'm not vilifying traditional soda or suggesting that anyone, myself included, needs to cut it out of their lives. Rather, I'm fascinated by these not-soda sodas and am curious to see how they compare to my all-time fave beverage.
For my contenders, I went with colas made by the most popular and widely available 'gut-friendly,' prebiotic/probiotic soda brands. I chose the traditional cola flavors these brands carried, with the exception of SunSip, Health-Ade's prebiotic soda brand, which only carries a cherry cola.
Let's break the brands down: 1. Olipop Vintage Cola ($2.49) 2. Poppi Classic Cola ($2.49)3. Slice Classic Cola ($2.29) 4. SunSip Cherry Cola ($2.49)5. Cove Classic Cola ($2.49)Side note: I love how the stacked sodas look like an incomplete cheer squad pyramid. I can just imagine Abby Lee Miller saying, 'On the bottom…'
I tried every brand from the can, cold from the fridge, for optimal taste and drinking experience. You'll also see I put some of each in a glass with ice for the ✨visual ✨.
I used three factors to determine my ranking, using a Diet Coke as my baseline to rank each gut-friendly soda against. The first was taste, meaning how good the soda was, how 'normal' it tasted (compared to a regular DC), and if it had an unappealing artificial taste. The second was the 'Diet Coke quality,' which is the indescribable satisfying quality that Diet Coke has. IMO, even if a soda doesn't 100% taste like a DC, it can still have some of that quality. The final factor was fizz, aka the carbonation level. One of the best parts of a Diet Coke is the crisp bubbles.
Now, onto the results.
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5. Poppi
This flavor had such a strong artificial taste that it was hard to ascertain the flavor profile outside of it. When I made an effort to focus, I noticed there was a note of lemon and a cola-like flavor.The soda did have some fizz, I'll give it that. However, the flavor was largely overpowered by what I presume was the taste of Stevia — like the Stevia was the actual flavor of the soda, and the cola taste was the aftertaste. I couldn't see myself trying it again.
🥤 THE RATINGS
4. Slice
Slice's soda wasn't as artificial-tasting as Poppi and had notes of cinnamon and lemon, similar to a Coke or Pepsi with a low amount of fizz.It was a bit sour and also had this out-of-place taste in the background, like curry or tamarind. To quote the scene in The Sopranos when Charmaine tells Carmella she once had an affair with Tony, 'Really…it wasn't for me.'
🥤 THE RATINGS
3. SunSip
I was especially curious to try this brand as the only cherry-flavored soda in the lineup. This soda had a strong artificial cherry flavor, like a cherry lollipop, that caused a puckering sensation in my mouth. The artificial taste was on and off — on some sips, I could really taste it, but in others, I almost felt like I was drinking a regular soda. The strong amount of carbonation also gave this soda that satisfying edge.That said, the soda was very concentrated with the sour cherry taste. If it had been diluted with seltzer, it probably would've been more passable for a Cherry Coke, in which case, it may have been a good alternative for either a regular Diet Coke or a Cherry Coke.
🥤 THE RATINGS
2. Cove
This is a controversial second-place ranking because the soda tasted like…nothing?! I felt like I was drinking Diet Coke on a plane, or like the times I've drunk it when I've lost most of my sense of taste from a cold. From what I could taste, it had more of a Coke flavor than a Diet Coke. That said, it also didn't have any unappealing artificial taste. It also had a certain DC quality thanks to the strong carbonation.
🥤 THE RATINGS
1. Olipop
Going into this taste test, Olipop was the 'gut-healthy' soda brand I was most familiar with. Though this one wasn't as good as some of the other flavors I've had (probably because it's directly trying to capture a more complex flavor), it was solid.The soda had a fruity profile, with strong notes of cinnamon and marshmallow. It also had a lemony taste, which reminded me more of Pepsi than Coke, and more of a Coke than a Diet Coke. This flavor did have a slight artificial taste, but overall, it was much better than the other three previous brands. The biggest downside for this brand was the fizz level; it's like the Olipop fizz was on half-speed. While drinking it, I sometimes wished I had a SodaStream to pump some more carbonation into it.
🥤 THE RATINGS
That's all she wrote! As you can see, Diet Coke is safe from extinction. If you've tried any of these "gut-friendly" DC alternatives, let me know your favorite in the comments!
For dishes that pair perfectly with a crispy Diet Coke (or Diet Coke alternative), download the free Tasty app to browse and save thousands of recipes — no subscription required.
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