Soda Alternative

Today's post is going to be short and sweet. Literally. It is sweet. I want to share a drink recipe with  you. My husband and I discovered and/or invented this drink about four years ago when we were doing a diet that had us completely off of sugar.

Neither of us were big soda drinkers, but there are times when you just want something besides water. Since juice was off the table due to our diet we were looking for other options. Somewhere we read about buying seltzer water and flavoring it with stevia, so we gave it a shot. I am currently doing a detox with a group of friends of Facebook and one of the guidelines for the detox is to avoid sodas. Whether you go with regular or diet, they are both full of unknown ingredients that have negative effects on your health. The sugar in the leaded versions isn't good for you, and the artificial sweeteners in the unleaded versions are even worse. I know for some of my fellow detoxers, giving up soda is one of the hardest parts.

I have a solution that can help in the transition away from sodas. My husband and I rarely drink these anymore, but our kids still like to have them from time to time.

The primary recipe only calls for two ingredients. Buy a bottle of carbonated water. There is a whole section devoted to this in the grocery stores. I buy whatever is cheapest, but make sure it is not flavored. Avoiding the artificial flavorings is the whole point of what we are trying to accomplish with this drink. The other ingredient is liquid stevia. THIS is the brand we  use.

Some people who have used the powdered stevia say they don't like stevia because it is bitter. I agree. The powdered versions do have a bitter aftertaste. I never use it. However, don't let that stop you from trying the liquid version. It does not have the bitter taste at all. It comes in plain, and in several flavors. We always have plain and vanilla at home. In fact my husband orders it twelve at a time. One bottle lasts a long time, but it is cheaper that way. He uses it daily in his hot teas that he makes. We also use it to sweeten plain yogurt.

All you do is pour a glass of the seltzer water and add a dropper of the vanilla stevia. It tastes like a vanilla creme soda, without any of the artificial sweeteners or other misc. additives.

But wait... isn't stevia an artificial sweetener? No, its not. It is just an extract from the Stevia plant. Last year Leslie and I ordered some seeds for some new plants and split up the packs. I planted stevia and attempted to grow it. It was in a little pot in my window sill. After six months it was only one inch high and sometime this fall I let it go too long without watering and it died.

My friend Sue had a plant at her home that flourished. One day she brought me a big stem from it. It was about thirty inches long! I pulled off a leaf and nibbled on it and it tasted EXACTLY like the extract we use. I was so excited. The next day I gave my youngest son a piece and told him to eat it and tell me what it tasted like. Surprisingly, he obeyed. His eyes lit up instantly as he recognized the sweet taste and said STEVIA!

I stripped the leaves and dried them and then ground them up in my handy dandy little spice grinder and put them in a spice jar. It was the first time I had done anything like that, so I enjoyed the process. This year I will try my hand at growing Stevia again, but I will do it outside this year.

Liquid stevia does come in some other flavors including lemon, so you might try that too and make your own healthier version of Sprite.

Have you ever tried anything like this? How did it turn out?

Kristy