I’ve been on the Fruit Guys mailing list ever since I started at my current job – they deliver fruit to our office once a week and offer a CSA type delivery to employees as well.  Although I don’t participate in their service, they recently sent an article about trying to make this summer a soda-free summer.

Personally, I stopped drinking soda almost two years ago, right around the time I was training for my half-marathon.  I had recently decided to stop consuming any artificial sweeteners – Splenda gave me horrible headaches, and I always found myself overconsuming drinks with aspartame because they were “calorie-free”.  As part of my training program and diet, I became more aware of what I was putting in my body and came to the conclusion that if I wanted to have sugar, I would need to earn it by working out.  It was generally easier to give up that can or bottle of soda than going for that extra mile or two of running and eventually, I had removed soda from my diet.  I’ll occasionally have root beer or gingerale, but I am very particular about the ingredients in the product, and I save it for special occasions.

I thought I’d share some of my favourite summertime beverages I reach for instead of soda:

1. Green tea lemonade (2 parts brewed green tea and 1 part unsweetened lemonade – my favourite tea bag for this is Mighty Leaf’s Tropical Green Tea – it also tastes great with a few fresh mint leaves added)
2. Passion tea lemonade (I use Tazo Passion Tea for this – after brewing the tea, I’ll add concentrated or fresh lemon juice.  I’ve grown accustomed to drinking these two unsweetened, but you can always add sugar or honey to taste)
3. Nimbu Paani – Indian Style Lemonade – you may find the sweet and salty flavours unappealing, but I absolutely love it – in a glass, add the juice of 1 lime, 1 tsp of sugar, a pinch of salt and pepper and top off the glass with water/ice)
4. Kachi Lassi – 1 part milk, 5 parts water with sugar to taste – growing up, my mom used to add rosewater to it as well, but I don’t feel like I need it
5. I love mixing cranberry and orange juice – I’ll sometimes add in club soda for some fizzies
6. Don’t forget good ol’ fashioned H2O! Sometimes, it is my only option in social gatherings, but I’m ok with that.