Artificial Sweetener Packets

Right off the bat, I feel like I should let you know some things:

1. This post will not be about the "evils" of artificial sweetener.
2. This post is not about artificial sweeteners as a whole.
3. I really, really dislike artificial sweetener packets.

Okay, now that that's done.  So yeah, about these packets. You know what they're good for? Getting moved out of the reach of children when you're out to dinner. That's it. I kid you not, these things are magnets to tiny hands.  If we ever go sit down for dinner at a restaurant, my 2-year old will have these packets overturned and spread out around the table in amount of time it takes for me to sit down and start looking at my menu. Ultimately, this leads to me spending so much time cleaning them up that I don't get to read the menu and I end up ordering the chimichanga for the 235,915th time. I mean, you know, hypothetically.

Also, they're just gross.  And this isn't an indictment on artificial sweeteners, as I said above.  In full disclosure, I drink enough diet coke to quench the thirst of a small village.  Honestly, I'm a case study on artificial sweeteners, because if they really caused all the health ills that some people attribute to them, I'd be a walking formaldehyde tumor with Alzheimer's. I'm clearly not ripping sweeteners. No, I'm ripping drinks sweetened with packets of artificial sweetener.

You know why diet sodas are awesome?  Because the level of artificial sweetener is predetermined.  A bunch of company scientists in a lab somewhere figured out the best ratio of sweetener-to-beverage, and made a drink.  This drink then went to focus groups and taste tests.  Then, if it passed with approval at that stage, it gets bottled/canned/bagged, and hits the market.  When you drink a can or bottle or fountain diet soda, you're literally drinking the best product that whichever soda company produces, in terms of diet soda.

Sweetener packets?  Not so much.  You basically have to guess.

"How many packets of 'Sweet-n-Equal' is it going to take to make this water with lemon taste like delicious lemonade?"

Let me save you some time: All the packets of sweetener in the world won't make that lemon water taste like anything but lemon water and butthole. 

Making "ghetto lemonade" is an art.  Even when using sugar, nothing is certain.  And you're just not going to do it with artificial sweetener.

Spoiler alert: This is not going to go well.

Finally, what good ARE artificial sweetener packets?  No one orders a soda and then adds their own sweetener.  Why mess with perfection?  You can only use artificial sweetener packets in 3 things: Water, coffee, and tea.  Water we've already been over.  Now, I don't drink coffee or tea, so I can't testify as to their use in those drinks.  However, I DO live in the South, and sweet tea is practically a religion down here.  I'd imagine someone offering artificial sweetener packets to sweeten someone's tea  is liable to get smacked in the mouth.  And coffee?  When have you ever heard "I'll take my coffee with cream and 3 packets of sweetener"?  Sugar?  Sure.  Sweetener?  Nope.

p.s. Def Leppard didn't sing "Pour Some Sweetener On Me" for a reason.

So, in short, artificial sweetener packets are worthless not because they CAN'T be used, but because, when they ARE used, they make whatever they're used in worse. And that's just worthless.

So, to artificial sweetener packets!  The Geraldo Rivera of restaurant drink additives!