Are you looking to stop drinking so much soda?
Even if you don’t have a “cola addiction,” too much high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners like aspartame are not good for you. You may read the headlines “It’s OK in Moderation,” but because High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is found in so many foods and beverages, it’s very hard to practice actual ‘moderation,’ because it keeps showing up in so many unexpected places. Eliminating or reducing the consumption of soft drinks for any reason is a good measure to improve health, lose weight, improve digestion and much more. But then why is it still so popular?
Tasty and fun:
Denying the facts won’t work: soda and cola are tasty and fun to drink. The bubbles make it more enjoyable and the range of flavors and brands can satisfy everyone’s tastes. Therefore, if you want to reduce cola consumption, you must avoid feeling deprived. Having to ‘get lost’ and deal with disappointment every day is not the path to success or even satisfaction. It makes it all too easy to go back to less healthy drink options. Replacing soft drinks with water or tea may not be enough to succeed if they make you feel deprived.
Avoid the fruit juice trap
Many people reach for fruit juice in the hope that it will be the best option for weight loss or to help with blood sugar. Perhaps replacing the orange soda with orange juice would solve the problem? After all, orange juice ads tell you how healthy you are at all times. But…a typical 8-ounce glass of orange juice has 22 grams of sugar while 8 ounces of several different soft drinks have around 26 grams. She might as well be serving breakfast sodas, with the amount of sugar in OJ. Apple juice has 24 grams. High fructose corn syrup, cane juice, and sugar cause inflammation when eaten in excess and feed bad bacteria in the digestive system. It doesn’t matter if it’s “Fortified with Vitamin C and D,” it’s still too sweet and will sabotage your efforts if you skip the soda and replace it with bottled or carton fruit juice.
The power of flavor to the rescue:
So what are you supposed to do? Learn how to mix up something else to drink that’s quick, tasty, and better for you. There is no single solution, because everyone’s tastes are different, but here are the recipes to the rescue. When you choose the aspects you want (fizzy + flavors + caffeine or not etc) you can make a drink or drinks that taste as good or better than soda so you don’t feel like you’re depriving yourself. Something delicious will make it easier to switch to a healthier snack.
Source of Fizz: Club soda, lightly flavored carbonated water, and simply “carbonated water” will give you the fizz and bubbly you crave for texture. All you need to do is figure out how to avoid diluting it too much when adding more flavor…with a few handy tips.
Fresh Juice: You don’t need 100% juice when you’re using real fresh (or frozen) fruit. All fruit juices on store shelves must be pasteurized for safety when packaged. This means that the juice is heated to kill the bacteria, but this also kills the flavor! Heat-treated juices are much less flavorful and vibrant than raw fresh juice that you squeeze yourself, so you need a lot more (or HFCS-treated juice) to get the flavor out. Example: Fresh lime juice tastes very different from bottled.
Add-ins – When making your own drinks, you can use ‘impossible’ add-ons like citrus zest and drops of freshly pressed ginger root that bottlers never can. These give an intense boost of flavor that you can control. They are also strong enough not to dilute bubbly base water too much.
Tea time… but not really. Do you like traditional tea like green, black or Earl Grey? That’s great and it will make it easier to quit soda… but what if you don’t? There are many flavored tea bags that don’t really taste like tea on the shelves these days. Apple-Cinnamon, Hibiscus-Mango, and Wild Raspberry are all in tea bags for hot or cold use, but they don’t have the ‘traditional tea flavor’, so even tea haters can enjoy these new flavors. All it takes is a trip down the aisle of the grocery store to see what ‘non-tea flavor’ flavors are on offer.
Satiety factor: Soft drinks can help you feel full between meals, which is why some people rely on them to replace a snack. This does not have to be the case when you add chia seeds to your drink. Chia seeds are tiny, tasteless seeds. They don’t affect the taste of the drink, but they are so high in 2 types of fiber (soluble and insoluble) that when you drink them, you feel full. They are as easy to use as “just stirring” so anyone can make a chia drink. Once soaked in the beverage of your choice, they form ‘chia gel’, tiny jelly-like blobs. It is similar to “tiny-boba” from the popular fun drink “boba-tea” or “bubble tea” (although it is made with tapioca starch). Adding chia not only curbs hunger, but also adds nutrients like calcium, healthy omega-3 oils, B vitamins, and much more.
A touch of sweetness: You don’t need artificial sweeteners to have a sweeter drink. Now that stevia is available in many brands and formats (leaf powder, squeeze drops, etc.) it is always ready to use. It doesn’t make Hungarians like canned aspartame. Monk fruit is also becoming more common, and xylitol, derived from birch bark, is another way to sweeten it. Another option is raw local honey. Raw honey can help stop allergies and contains many nutrients, including minerals, phytonutrients, beneficial enzymes, and antioxidants. Adding it to a cold drink will not cancel its benefits. Do it carefully though, as it is still a real sweetener on the glycemic index.
Time to combine:
With these elements in mind, it’s time to combine them to experiment and make substitute drinks for soda that are just as delicious, but much healthier. Brewing wild raspberry tea very strongly, then adding a splash to a club soda with a few drops of stevia for a bubbly raspberry drink. Pressing pomegranate arils and adding the juice to ice water and then using fresh lime zest/juice and chia seeds will make a tangy drink that can replace a snack and help you feel full. Pressing ginger juice can really turn this drink into a wake-up call. Honey, lime and chia in ice water make the traditional drink since ancient times “Chía Fresca”. You don’t need a powdered mix for strawberry lemonade when you have lemon zest, fresh or frozen berries, and some stevia powder. These are just some examples; Of course, by combining the above principles, you can get countless more ideas.
Quitting soda can be so much easier when you have a flavor you really enjoy and that’s easy to mix. If you start to feel better, too, with less sugar or artificial sweeteners in your life, it becomes a much simpler task…because the rewards are something you can feel every day. All it takes is a little effort to find a mix you enjoy, that also has all the effects you want, and you’ll be on your way to cutting back on soda.