From the US FDA:

Calorie content claims.

(1) The terms "calorie free,'' "free of calories,'' "no calories,'' "zero calories,'' "without calories,'' "trivial source of calories,'' "negligible source of calories,'' or "dietarily insignificant source of calories'' may be used on the label or in the labeling of foods, provided that:

(i) The food contains less than 5 calories per reference amount customarily consumed and per labeled serving.

To a dieter watching his/her calories, this basically means that they can have a field day with these drinks without having to worry about additional calories in their diet. H2OH! has just recently entered the Malaysian market, and I'm loving it already.

If you're wondering what is it that makes these drinks calorie-free, the secret lies in the sweetener used. In this case, the manufacturer of H2OH! uses aspartame (it says so on the label), which is a low calorie sugar alternative, sometimes branded as Nutrasweet.

I'm glad that H2OH! has joined Malaysia's existing range of diet soft drinks. Previously, we were pretty much limited to Diet Coke and Pepsi Light (both being colas). With the addition of H2OH, I now have a refreshing alternative of a diet drink I can incorporate into my diet.

Interestingly, if you manage to get hold of a can of H2OH, notice that the nutritional information provided at the back of the can says that H2OH contains 4.5 g of Vitamin C per 100ml. Now.. that can't be right for sure.. as even a tablet of Redoxon Vitamin C contains only 1g of vitamin C. Is H2OH trying to say that a full can (250ml) would contain 11.25g of Vitamin C = 12 tabs of Redoxon? Impossible. Now that's overdosing! Something tells me that they meant 4.5mg and not 4.5 g.

Cheers people!