Sugar Turned On Me

One of the biggest problem with diet drinks is getting them sweet without leaving an aftertaste that stays with you for a fortnight(1). The penance that most diet sodas make you pay by coating your mouth with flowery bitter saran wrap is the main reason I avoid most of them. The people at Steaz, who went on a mission to produce better healthy drinks, came up with a great idea which eliminates the issue of aftertaste: use sugar, just less of it.

The line of Steaz sodas is composed of fruity sodas that count amongst their short list of ingredients green tea. They come in a rainbow of flavors including Key Lime, Root Beer, Grape and of course Cola. On the down side, the regular sodas have about as much sugar as most sodas do: about 20-25g of carbs per 8oz. serving.

The Diet line has four flavors: Raspberry, Orange, Blueberry Pomegranate, and Black Cherry.  They lower the sugar content, provided through organic evaporated cane juice, to about 9g per serving. That means that 1.5 serving bottle is about equivalent to a slice of bread in carbs. They also throw a little vitamin C in there and two of the flavors also have a appreciable amount of Vitamin A.

All the health benefits in the world don’t matter if the soda sucks, though. Fortunately, these don’t, though you may have to warm up to them if you’re used to regular soda. I had been bombarding my taste buds with Coke, Pepsi and Dr Pepper for three decades when I first tried Steaz Diet Sodas and I found the diet drinks to be a little under-sweet. After I was diagnosed and stopped drinking soda cold turkey, I went back and tried one and found that my tongue could taste them and they were plenty sweet for my current tastes.

The idea of a green tea infused beverage may turn some people off, but I recommend letting your inner hippie go on this. Aside from the antioxidant benefits of the green tea and being a mild caffeine source, the tea in no way impairs the taste, but is present only as a slight earthy note in the background.

I’ve tried all four flavors and my favorite is Blueberry Pomegranate.  The others are good too, though I found the Orange to be just a little more bitter than I’d like. But I’ll take any of them on a hot day or with a hot dog.

I salute the people at Steaz for proving that there’s a better option to the sugar water found in most vending machines.  They turned me into a customer and an advocate.

(1)For the non-geeks in the crowd, a fortnight is twenty days.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t include a link to the Steaz website.

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