By now you may have heard of the latest food
scare du jour and, if you’re like me, you ran through your kitchen looking
for evidence of the purported threat to your health.
This one is sodium benzoate, a preservative
used extensively to stabilize soda and soda products. It’s been in use for
a long time, but now research from scientists in England shows that the
substance apparently damages cells to the point where it accelerates
aging. It may be contributing to the increase of diseases such as
Parkinsons and cirrhosis, even to cancer.
Oh rats. Who doesn’t love soda? It isn’t
called “liquid candy” for nothing (one study called soda the number one
source of calories in the American diet.) I have a lot of soda in my house
and it’s there for a reason – we like it.
But I also have quite a few bottles of
carbonated water, also called seltzer water, soda water or sparkling
water. DO NOT use tonic water. It isn’t the same thing.
I make sure to buy the waters that are
unsweetened, either by sugar or by artificial sweeteners, since I use the
carbonated water to replace the sugary sodas. I’m trying to lower
calories.
Oddly, it is outrageously easy to add plain
or flavored carbonated water to regular soda – grape soda and raspberry
water, say – and get not only a tasty “exotic” flavor, but half the
calories of regular soda. You’ll soon like the taste as well as the sweet
sodas and it is even more refreshing, being less “heavy” with sugar (or
its euphemism, “high-fructose corn syrup”). You can eliminate half the
sugars and still get the soda “zing”.
So I tried making soda for myself, out of
carbonated water and juices. It won’t taste like Coca Cola made it, but
these homemade sodas can fulfill the craving for sweet that soda
satisfies, and will lower calorie and sodium benzoate intake as well.
Half the fun and quench in a soda, after all, is the bubbles. They’re the
refreshing part.
The
trick is to start with 100 percent, unsweetened fruit juice (why
substitute one sugar for another?) and add carbonated water. You can get
different effects with flavored or plain waters. I’ve added
strawberry-flavored seltzer water to peach cider, unflavored water to
grape juice and cranberry-lime flavored water to white cranberry juice.
All were successful and quite good.
You will have to try your own mix a few
times to get a feel for how much soda to juice you like (I do about 60-40
seltzer to juice but some flavors, like pineapple juice and orange
seltzer, do better at 50-50 for my taste.) You can even make the mix in a
large bottle with a screw top and keep it in the refrigerator, just like
soda. It won’t keep as long, however, before losing its bubbles.
For more sodas, try these
recipes, and don’t be afraid to experiment.
