Oh, sweet nectar of life!
Mmmm soda! Love soda! Tasty, tasty caffeinated sugar water!
I have to admit to being a soda drinker for most of my life. Cherry Coke, Dr. Pepper, heck, even my all time favourite Crystal Pepsi (doesn’t that take you back?), I love those fizzy drinks. In the last year, learning more about how much we ingest High Fructose Corn Syrup, we decided to try and cut HFCS out of our lives as much as possible. This meant giving up our sugary drinks. Sigh.
Still, I needed bubbles. I love the carbonation that soft drinks have, so we switched to diet drinks, both with Aspartame or with Sucralose. Our drink of choice has been carbonated flavoured water, store brand, at less than a dollar per liter. They taste awesome and are caffeine free. The downside? Chemicals. Double sigh.
What’s a newly awakened health-conscious person to do? I want the best of soda without all the icky stuff that comes with it. Sounds impossible? I’ve snooped around the interwebs and found a few ideas, like juice and seltzer water. Some have suggested I should just be happy with plain water with lemon (ew, the water here at the house is fairly unpalatable). I make myself liter bottles of sweetened herbal tea, but I’d like to get away from processed white sugar. Maybe try an alternative sweetener, like agave or stevia? It’s all so confusing.
Tonight I tried a mixture of 2 parts seltzer water and 1 part sweetened white herbal tea. It wasn’t bad. Not quite sweet enough for my liking. I liked the bubbly-ness of it, especially the coldness of it, it was pretty refreshing. I think I can fudge with this “recipe” a bit, especially if I experiment with new sweeteners, to find something I like. I’ll most likely try this mixture with fruit juice as well. Cranberry might be nice?
Question Of The Day:
Got any ideas for good alternatives to soda? Think carefully, you’ll have to consider sugar intake, caffeine and chemicals when weighing your options!
