Grown-up Soda
Soda, soda pop, pop – I gave them up years ago. I use to love Pepsi and tolerated Coke. I moved to ginger ale in my thirties thinking it had less sugar (and after someone told me how Pepsi and Coke can dissolve teeth). A lot of people I knew were switching to diet soda, but the after-taste lingered. And it seemed odd that many people drinking diet soda were heavy.
Sometime in my late thirties, I started drinking flavored seltzer. But I didn’t quite understand “natural flavorings”. Did you know there is no lime juice in lemon-lime seltzer? So I invented Grown-up Soda.
Grown-up soda is real fruit juice added to plain seltzer. And even though there may still be fifty or so calories (depending on your juice-to-seltzer ratio), I’m happy. It’s got to be healthier than soda, there’s some vitamin C in there.
My favorite grown-up soda is grapefruit, but my local supermarket stopped selling bottles of grapefruit juice, and real grapefruits are pricy. So now my two go-to’s are cranberry or concord grape. My standard ratio is 1/4 juice to 3/4 seltzer plus ice. If I want to be bad, I change the ratio to 1/3 juice – but don’t tell anyone.
Want to take the calories down to nothing? Use a few tablespoons of Lemon or Lime juice. This will quench your thirst without a single calorie or chemical.
Give it a try.
