Trop 50 is light but not tasty orange drink

Trop 50 Orange Juice Beverage. Pulp Free, Some Pulp, and Pulp Free Calcium & Vitamin D. $1.69 per 12-ounce bottle of Pulp Free Calcium & Vitamin D, or $3.59 per 64-ounce carton.

Bonnie: Why would Tropicana want to add a low-calorie sweetener and water to its otherwise pure orange juice? To appeal to weight watchers, obviously, but also to join the stampede of food manufacturers who are rushing to add stevia to their products since it became GRAS — generally recognized as safe — by the FDA. This in-vogue sweetener is extracted from a South American shrub and is about 200 to 300 times sweeter than sugar, so very little is needed to achieve the desired sweetness.

Although stevia is natural to a shrub, it's not natural to orange trees, and it changes orange juice's flavor, leaving an off aftertaste. If you want to save calories, just mix carbonated water with Tropicana Pure Premium.

Carolyn: Tropicana and Minute Maid have been making half-calorie, half-juice, full-priced orange juice drinks for years. Sure, it's a rip-off compared to just drinking less of the 100 percent juice, but how many dieters can do that?

Trop 50 is Tropicana's old Light 'n Healthy Orange Juice Beverage, except with the natural sweetener stevia replacing the artificial old Ace-K and sucralose. Like Bonnie, I found the almost bitter aftertaste stevia lends to these drinks hard to swallow.

Aspartame, Ace-K and sucralose also all have aftertastes, but those are ones that people who buy diet drinks (like me) are used to and don't notice or mind.

Trop 50 has got me wondering how many other food companies will be using stevia and if I'll like it better once I get used to it. Or will stevia be like the natural version of saccharine — the first in a category of sweeteners that is eventually usurped by newer products that taste much better.

Honey Kix. $4.38 per 12-ounce box.

Bonnie: Honey Kix is a sweetened version of regular Kix, a puffed corn cereal that's been part of General Mills' lineup since 1937.

Like regular Kix, this new version contains no artificial flavors or preservatives, and is a good source of calcium, vitamin D and fiber. A "good" source, by the way, contains 10 percent to 19 percent of what's recommended daily. These contain 15 percent, 10 percent and 12 percent, respectively. Honey Kix contains twice the whole grains as in the regular, with one full serving instead of a half serving.

Even with the additional 3 grams of sugar to sweeten this new version, it's still moderately low in sugar, or low enough for me to be able to recommend it.