Water, Ginger Ale, and Green Tea
Posted September 1st, 2004 @ 02:13pm by Erik J. Barzeski
It seems that I can't get ahead. I've successfully weaned myself from Coke - cold turkey - but consoled myself with ginger ale and Sprite/7-Up. They lose the caffeine but still have "high fructose corn syrup." I've tried green tea and don't care for it much, but I have enjoyed these Arizona drinks. Guess what the #2 ingredient is? High fructose corn syrup!
What am I to drink? I know that "water" is always the correct answer, but I need something with a little more kick than water + lime or lemon flavor. I'm going to go back and re-read the comments left on the Coke article I linked to above.
Posted 01 Sep 2004 at 2:44pm #
I did it with grape and apple juice (the latter will go down *real* fast if you don't blindly chug a glass of water first) and about a quart of lightly sweetened iced tea a day. I sweeten it with either sugar when I need to stay up/have energy or Stevia when I don't. Avoid artificial sweeteners, they all eventually cause problems in high amounts (2+ drinks/day).
(Yes, even Splenda -- which is chlorinated sugar.)
Posted 01 Sep 2004 at 3:09pm #
Gatorade. Lemon-Lime, the only true flavour. You can buy a canister of mix for about 10$ that will last a normal person a month.
Sucrose, Dextrose, Citric Acid, Salt, Sodium Citrate, Monopotassium Phosphate, Natural Lemon and Lime Flavors, Yellow 5
only 50 calories. Drink three glasses and you'll be hungering for it all the time.
Posted 01 Sep 2004 at 3:09pm #
One of the more refreshing drinks quite popular in Germany is apple juice mixed with carbonated water. Tasty and good for you.
Posted 01 Sep 2004 at 5:24pm #
Erik, I had the same issue a few years ago. Quit drinking Coke cold turkey because I was finding that I "needed" it to function. Turned out that everything I wanted to switch to had high fructose corn syrup as its second ingredient. So I tried losing those too, which left pretty much nothing available.
I'm still not drinking Coke, but I gave up on avoiding high fructose corn syrup. I mainly drink coffee, mochas and organic fruit juices sold at our local "hippy store". They're good because they taste yummy and are generally pure fruit juice, not sweetened blends. Mixing 'em with carbonated water is also good.
Another suggestion is to drink Emergen-C drinks. These are packets of drink mix - mix with water to create uber-vitamic-C fizzy drinks. They're super-tasty and also work well as a hangover cure. Raspberry is yummy.
I find it tough to write good code without strong doses of caffeine and sugars.
Posted 02 Sep 2004 at 9:09pm #
Green tea has very little caffeine. Try black tea.
Posted 03 Sep 2004 at 9:53am #
It's surprising the number of people who are trying to kick Coke. I wrote a post about trying to do just that last year on my site and people are still adding their comments to it... it just shows me that everyone knows Coke is bad as hell for you, but they just can't help themselves. Honestly, I don't blame them.
Posted 03 Sep 2004 at 3:04pm #
A good way to find foods and drinks that are relatively free of sugar are to check diabetic resources.