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| More adventures from the never-ending soda aisle. This week there's been a scandal regarding carcinogenic properties of caramel color, a ingredient in most colas. |
If you must drink caffeine, coffee and tea are a better choice than soft drinks. If caffeine isn't your thing, but you still want something with more flavor than water, look for iced herbal teas. They are becoming much more available. (An example is the Starbucks iced passion tea, which has no caffeine at all.)
2)Pick another alcoholic drink of choice
Several of my readers responded to my last blog post on this topic that their alcoholic beverage of choice is made with soda. If this is you, a great way to reduce your soda consumption is to start sampling other mixed drinks-- eventually you'll find something you like that is free of soda.
3) Simply drink soda less often
If you drink soda every day, try drinking it every other day instead. You won't be depriving yourself of the treat, but you'll be reducing by HALF the number of chemicals and sugars you are consuming.
4) Drink a spritzer
If you're at a restaurant and want something to wet your whistle, but are trying to avoid soda, ask the bartender to make you a spritzer. You can just tell them to put ice in a cup, a quarter of the cup with a juice of your choice, and the rest of the cup with soda water. Or you can find a recipe for an even healthier version here.
5) Drink more water
Most people who have a hard time cutting out soda simply don't drink enough water. A simple way to make water easier to drink is by adding natural electrolytes. You can do that by taking a glass of water (or even a pitcher in your fridge), squeezing in the juice from a fruit of your choice, and adding a dash of sea salt. You'll find that you can drink the water much faster and that it's easy to absorb. It can also help to keep the water at room temperature instead of cold in the fridge.
Glad to know about the iced passion tea and the spritzer. I actually find that soda is usually too sweet for me anyway, but as you know I can't have caffeine, even though I love iced tea. I appreciate alternatives.
ReplyDeleteI started drinking water at room temp out of laziness, but now I find I generally prefer it. I have no trouble drinking lots of water, but one thing that might help people who do is to have a glass of water with each glass of flavored drink. Sip your drink, then take a sip of water before you take another bite of your food. You'll increase your water consumption without even trying. I actually do this anyway because I like the flavored drink to wash down the flavor of my food, then water to clear my palette.
That is a great idea. Drinking enough water is something that most of us don't do.
ReplyDeleteI love idea #5 of adding some fresh juice and a dash of salt! I don't mind plain water, but I sure enjoy the experience more when there's some sort of juice/flavor involved...I am definitely going to try this.
ReplyDeleteAnother idea for increasing water consumption: When I worked in an office, I found that keeping a medium-sized pitcher/bottle on my desk, rather than going to the water cooler every time I wanted to fill my cup, made a big difference. I had a half-gallon-sized glass bottle that I'd usually fill once or twice during the day, which kept me hydrated while preventing the "let-me-just-finish-this-draft-before-I-refill-my-cup-ohwaitit's45minuteslater..." thing that tended to happen otherwise.
I find that now that I am working at home a lot, I am drinking less water, so I think I need to implement my own pitcher advice for my home workspace...
-Veronica
Clearly I need to write a post about hydration and drinking more water.
DeleteVeronica, I have the same problem working from home. The glass next to my computer is empty right away and if I don't refill it, It's an hour later and I realize that I'm thirsty.