Friday, June 14, 2013

Guilty Pleasure



I have a confession to make.

I like carbonated drinks.  Yes, yes, I know they aren't particularly 'good' for a person, but....see today's blog title...

However, I have over the past few years, been feeling more and more guilty about the number of plastic bottles of pop or soda I buy.  It's been niggling at the back of my mind but I just can't seem to 'enjoy' a plain glass of cold water in quite the same way as I do a carbonated drink.

For the past 5 years I have been mostly drinking a beverage I buy at Costco called "Ice", which is sweetened with sucrolose.

Last night I read a news item that said that sucrolose was now on the 'caution' list (while the rest of the artificial sweeteners are on the 'do not use at all' list.)

I read that article a few minutes after paging through a sale flyer, something I almost never do.  My eye fell on an appliance called Sodastream.  An at-home carbonated beverage maker.

This morning I went to the store, read through the tiny bit of information on the box, saw the options for making flavoured drinks - all of them sweetened with sucrolose - noticed that they also had unsweetened flavours, added up how much it would cost per liter to make drinks at home - and look - no plastic bottles! - and bought one.

Yes, it has a plastic bottle for actually making the beverage, but it is reusable.  As for the sample packs of artificially flavoured sweetened packets that came with it?  I will use them, but will probably switch to the unsweetened flavours, or better yet, make my own flavoured syrups.  Fruit season is coming soon, isn't it?

Otherwise today has not been a particularly productive day.  I have 'lost' the binder for the lace workshop and after looking high and low for it, finally emailed one of the students from the workshop in March who has kindly agreed to photocopy the binder and give the copies to Doug in Alberta.  Of course you know what that means, don't you?  I will find the binder when I get home.

Nor did the yarn arrive from Brassard.  So if I'm going to get any warps wound for the dyer, I can only hope the order arrives on Monday, at which point I will become a warp winding fool.  Or not.  We'll see if the box actually arrives...

4 comments:

Sandra Rude said...

No more guilty pleasure! For that reason, although I don't mind the plain old tap water, I always reuse the best of the plastic drinks containers. Not the ones that "crinkle" when squeezed, but the more structurally sound ones. I'm seeing ads for flavor drops one adds to plain water - gotta try them! The fizzy drinks aren't my fave.

Laura Fry said...

I bought a package of unsweetened flavour drops and will likely use them if I don't make my own. ;)
Cheers
Laura

bibliotecaria said...

Do let us know how it goes. I've thought about this, but I don't quite miss the carbonated drinks enough to spend the money to find out if I would like them.

Laura said...

I bought one about 8 months ago after giving up Diet Pepsi. I decided that I really missed the bubbles... I love it. I've now gone through 2 of the carbonating bottles... I like the idea of homemade syrup - don't know why I never thought of that... I mostly drink it plain over ice with a little lemon juice. Makes a great mixer too.