Why I’ve Personally Chosen to Cut Back on Diet Soda

This isn’t a declaration. It’s not a warning label. And it’s definitely not advice. It’s simply me explaining a personal choice I’ve made, and why it feels right for me. Over the years, I’ve found myself thinking more intentionally about what I put into my body. Not obsessively. Not perfectly. Just with a growing sense of curiosity and responsibility. One of the things that kept coming up for me was diet soda.

I don’t hate it. I’m not afraid of it. I’ve enjoyed it plenty. But at some point, I realized something simple: I don’t actually know what most of the ingredients are. And more importantly, I don’t really know what they do. That’s when I started asking myself a question that has quietly guided a lot of my choices since: Is this actually food? For me, food is something I can recognize. Something I could, at least in theory, make from other things. Flour. Chicken stock. Vegetables. Fruit. Ingredients with names that don’t require a chemistry background to pronounce.

Diet soda doesn’t really fit that category for me.

Now, I want to be very clear, I am not saying diet soda is evil. I’m also not saying the science is settled. In fact, I know there are studies that argue both for and against its safety. Some people drink it every day and feel great. Others rely on it to reduce sugar intake. That matters. But here’s the honest truth: I don’t personally know what the long-term effects of ultra-processed consumables like diet soda are. And that uncertainty is exactly why I’ve chosen to limit it.

I’m not a doctor. I’m not a scientist. I don’t claim to understand biochemistry or long-term epidemiological trends. But I do notice that as our food supply has become more processed, more engineered, and more disconnected from basic ingredients, serious illness seems to be more common. Is there a direct relationship? I honestly don’t know. And that “I don’t know” is the point.

For me, not knowing doesn’t mean panic—it means caution. It means choosing less, not because something has been proven harmful, but because it hasn’t been proven harmless in a way that feels personally reassuring. I want to know what goes into my body. I want to recognize it. I want it to come from things I could buy and combine myself if I needed to. That doesn’t mean I eat perfectly or avoid all processed foods. It just means I try to be intentional where I can. Cutting back on diet soda is one small expression of that intention.

It’s not about purity. It’s not about fear. It’s about alignment, between what I value and what I consume.

If you love diet soda and it works for you, that’s genuinely okay. This isn’t a judgment, a recommendation, or a moral stance. It’s just me explaining why, given what I don’t know, I’ve decided that less feels better than more. Sometimes, for me, making healthier choices isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about listening to the quiet discomfort that says, “I’m not sure this belongs here.”