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The Soda Situation - Succulent Drinks w/o the Sweets?
Ticron asks: "Like most of you, my job and lifestyle revolves around drinking lots and lots of caffeine - usually in the form of soda. I've been trying to cut back on my sugar intake lately, and am interested in what some of you drink that isn't loaded down with the sweet stuff. Diet drinks have little to no flavor, and fruit punches have almost (sometimes more!) sugar than sodas themselves. Is there anything out there that maintains the convenience of a canned drink, but without all the sugar?"
I write this as a suck down the sweet sweet taste of Diet Dr. Pepper. Did you know it tastes more like regular Dr. Pepper? I'm sure you have heard that, and from the sounds of it, you don't agree. I tried diet sodas on and off but, like you, I found them repulsive. Then with nothing else in the house (other than water, YUK!) I committed to finishing the case of diet that I bought. By the time I finished consuming it I honestly couldn't tell it was diet. It was as if a switch in my head went off. Ever since then regular sodas syrupy and too sweet. So, while I cannot recommend an alternative, I do encourage you to give it another try. And if you're like me, you'll stop consuming 1/2 your daily caloric intake from soft drinks. (8 sodas X 110 calories each = poking new notches in belt)
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Coffee. Black.
Tea. Black || Green.
Easy, convenient, and zero sugar.
Crisp refreshing and good for you. I recomend Perrier or San Pellegrino which you can also get in various citrus flavors. Some people also like Apollinaris but it tastes muddy to me.
You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep.
Giving up soda (really, caffeine in general) is really a great thing. You feel better overall, and your waking hours feel much more... Awake. But, I'd also suggest tea. No sugar at all. Iced tea is really refreshing, and you get your caffeine (if you want, unlike sodas there is no taste sacrifice for decafe).
Propel Water tastes good with very little sugar. It's what I drink.
you buy product shillings by the pound.
If other reasons we do lack, we swear no one will die when we attack
Diet Coke with Splenda has all the sickening sweetness of regular Coke.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Buy a home soda maker from Soda Club. It's basically a plastic case around an aluminum CO2 canister. There's a good selection of flavors with near-replacements for the big ones: coke, dr pepper, mountain dew, root beer. You screw the bottle of tap water on, press the button a few times until it buzzes, unscrew it, and pour in a capful of syrup.
I bought one because the drinks are flavored with Splenda and have 1/3 the calories. The regular ones still have some high fructose corn syrup in. Because you're mixing the syrup and selzter yourself you can adjust the carbonation and sweetness to your taste. I make it quite a bit less sweet and with less carbonation than store-bought, and I've been really happy with it.
There is also a cost savings argument. I haven't sat down and checked it myself, but it's on the site somewhere. Cheaper or not, I'm glad I don't have to deal with recycling two-liter bottles and aluminum cans all the time. Although I mostly drink the diet mountain dew flavor, it's nice that I can make some root beer, orange drink, or something obscure when I feel like it.
Anyway, I love the thing. But let me assure you they are not kidding when the warning says to add syrup only after carbonating the water. God help you if you put any syrup in first. You get a real nice soda fountain when you unscrew it to the great and undying hilarity of everyone around.
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I second this opinion. Several soft drink companies here in the eastern US have perfected some very tasty flavored carbonated waters. (I'm inferring from the use of 'hospital' instead of 'the hospital' that the submitter is British; I have no idea if these sorts of drinks are available in the UK.)
Here are some links:
Poland Spring makes some of the best flavored seltzer I've ever had. Raspberry Lime kicks ass and has become a staple of my diet (at least two litres daily). Lime, lemon, orange and plain are the other flavors and are good in decreasing order, IMHO.
Adirondack is what I drink when I can't find Poland Spring around. They have a great raspberry lime and lemon-lime and are truly delicious. (And they're certified Kosher, if that makes a difference to you.)
The best part is that the flavors are more of an essence than a true additive, so they have -0- Calories, -0- sodium, -0- cabohydrates, and -0- fat.
They are awesome. I love them. As far as I am concerned, they are the perfect substitute for sugared sodas, but YMMV.
How bout... nothing?
Seriously, I have never understood the thing that IT people have for sucking down caffeine all day long. I don't drink coffee -- EVER -- and I rarely drink hot tea. Even when I do drink tea, it's decaffeinated (Tazo Passion is my favorite), or it's the once a week or so that I go to a restaurant and get iced tea. I drink maybe eight cans of soda per week, and that includes the five that I have with lunch, which are usually things like ginger ale. I'm cutting down even on that in favor of Gatorade that I buy in powdered format, mix up at night, and take cold to work in the morning in a Thermos. On random occasions, I'll have a Dr Pepper or a Coke, but by and large, from the time I leave my apartment to the time I leave for lunch, I don't drink anything. The same goes for the time from the end of lunch to about the time when I get home, around six hours later.
At one time, I drank a couple of cans a day per eight-hour shift, but then about five years ago, I just decided to not do it. That was it. Productivity isn't hurt, and I don't find myself needing another pickup later in the day (or in the morning, for that matter).
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Like you, I never cared for diet soda. Then I developed Type II diabetes and had no choice. I soon learned to love Hansen's diet sodas. All Handen's sodas use all natural flavorings and no coloring. The diet ones all use Splendra for sweetining, and that's my preferred non-sugar. They have a great taste and zero calories. Alas, they also don't use caffine, but you can't always have everything. If you have to drink a diet soda, I reccoemend theirs. If you don't need a diet soda, try their regular mixtures, they're just as good.
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Get yourself a kettle {NB, this will need a supply of about 10 amps; and if you're outside the UK, it will have to be earthed [if you're in the UK then it already is earthed]}, a filter jug, a china mug {with parallel sides or a temporary narrowing just below the mouth}, a steel teaspoon with the stiffest shank you can find, some teabags and some full-cream milk {not skimmed, not semi skimmed, it must be blue top for the authentic taste}. The milk must be as close as possible to 0 degrees and as far as possible from its expiry date.
Pour one litre of filtered water in the kettle. This will make up to three cups of tea {a standard mug holds 250ml but you should never empty the kettle completely}. Start the kettle boiling.
Whilst the kettle is heating up {use the formula: time in seconds = ([100 - T] * 4.17 * V) / P, where V = volume of water in litres, P = power of heating element in kW and T = initial temperature of water}, place a teabag and a stiff-shanked teaspoon in a china mug. This should ideally have a wide base, then a constriction before belling out; this shape works to minimise evaporative cooling losses and hence maintain OST {optimum sipping temperature} as long as possible. Failing that, a traditional, parallel-sided mug can be used.
The very instant the kettle boils, pour about 200ml. of boiling water, as close as possible to 100 degrees, over the teabag. Leave alone for 15 seconds, then begin mashing the hell out of the teabag with the spoon. Keep going until the tea stops getting any darker. Finally, crush the teabag hard between the bowl of the spoon and the wall of the mug to remove as much liquid as possible, and hike it out. It's biodegradable and can be composted.
Replace the spoon in the mug {it's acting as a heatsink} and add about 50ml of ice-cold milk to the tea. Stir immediately. Remove spoon and sip gently. Feel sensation as though you are receiving kind words and a hug on a tropical beach with crystal-clear water and silver sands and everything is generally all right with the world or better.
NB: Add more cold water to the kettle as soon as possible after boiling. This will cool it down, so slowing the rate of heat loss and minimising TTNM {time to next mashing}. Don't keep the filter jug in the fridge, you're already paying to heat it, you don't want to pay to cool it so you can heat it more.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Another big differenc is sugar. In the US, the main form of sugar is usually high fructose corn syrup. In most of Europe it seems to me they use plain old sugar. This makes the European versions taste better to me. Same with Snickers bars, they taste much better with real sugar.
When I was in the service, we just called them hookers ;)
Specialization is for insects. -Heinlein
I actually like Crystal Light Orange drink and lemon drink. They are fairly sweet tasting, but the sugar intake isn't so bad. They also come in neat single services that you can put in bottled water.
I'm curious what the infatuation is with at least Americans and hummingbird types of refreshment.
2 or 3 generations ago, soft drinks were more like a luxury or occasional beverage. Children used to drink more milk than soda.
Now, it seems like these void of nutrition, unhealthy, and weight/diabetes creating drinks are required to be at our side during waking hours.
I believe that even diet drinks cause weight gain due to the change in metabolism due to the body's perception of their actually being real sweet (fructose or sucrose) content in there. (Its common perception to give the diet drink to fat people and a regular drink to a thin person.)
Believe it or not, your body is thirsty for water, not a hummingbird solution.
Sweets are appealing because a few years ago, sweet fruits were those that were at the peak of their ripeness and had the most nutrients in them. Now, sweets are meaningless and unhealthy.