My husband Shane and I are trying to drink less soda these days. Soda is difficult to resist on nights where we have Pizza (or any kind of good ol' fashioned junk food), but there are just too many unhealthy and health risky ingredients in that bubbly pop. Diet soda has aspartame which causes headaches and other bad stuff. Regular sodas are better but they have ton of sugary calories.
True story: Shane used to come home almost every night from teaching with migraines. We both just assumed it was probably from him dealing with students banging on drums and whatnot. However, once we stopped having sodas in our home, we noticed that Shane stopped getting headaches. Soda was the ONLY thing that changed from his diet and lifestyle!
There are three different drinks we use in our home to replace sodas. Honestly, I prefer to drink these over anything else now. Here they are...
True story: Shane used to come home almost every night from teaching with migraines. We both just assumed it was probably from him dealing with students banging on drums and whatnot. However, once we stopped having sodas in our home, we noticed that Shane stopped getting headaches. Soda was the ONLY thing that changed from his diet and lifestyle!
There are three different drinks we use in our home to replace sodas. Honestly, I prefer to drink these over anything else now. Here they are...
1. Iced Tea
Now here in Alabama everyone likes sweet tea, but I grew up drinking the unsweet stuff... which is 0 calories. I just add a little lemon to mine and it's perfect. Another option to avoid sugar is to sweeten it with honey or stevia.
Tea is pretty basic... Ingredients:
Instructions:
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2. Foolaid (fruity herbal iced tea)
I once read about a mom who made fruity sweet tea and supposedly tricked her kids into thinking it was good ol' Kool Aid. I don't think it tastes like Kool Aid, but it is a refreshing fruity drink. "Foolaid" is actually my favorite beverage!
Ingredients:
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3. Lemonade
Now this one is sugary, but it costs less than $1 to make an entire gallon! I actually fill my glass half way with water before adding the lemonade to give it a less sweet taste (just my preference).
Ingredients:
Instructions:
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Note: Fresh squeezed lemon juice from lemons does taste better in lemonade, but I like to save time and the mess by buying lemon juice from the store. Costco has two GIANT bottles of lemon juice for a little over $5. I can make 8 gallons of lemonade from that!
Thirsty now? Enjoy!