alt Hacker NewsAspartame has a pretty strong, weird metallic flavor to it, and a lot of the sugar alcohols taste... idk, like a belch after a slightly sweet chemical cocktail? Some taste... airy, or dusty, like an absence of flavor, like there's a gap where you'd usually taste something. Hard to describe but very unpleasant. And the flavor lingers for quite a while. Xylitol is mostly alright tho, sadly it's usually blended with other stuff nowadays.
Personally though I think stevia might be the worst, and it's getting added to everything lately, even stuff with more than enough regular sugar.
Honestly I'd prefer to not taste that, since I think most probably are pretty safe and fine (though I would be glad to see a reduction in sweetness in general). But it's really not a choice, nor have I "gotten used to it" in 40 years, despite it being extremely common.
This summarizes pretty well the three main problems I have. Most things are already way too sweetened, the trend of adding artificial sweeteners to something already naturally sweet ruins something that could be good, and many artificial sweeteners taste metallic and have weird aftertaste.
Its one thing for soda or other sweet items, I get the reduction in sugars there. Its just boggling how many foods people, particularly americans cant eat unless its sweet enough to be dessert