Vitamin Water has been in the news lately with some contretempts over the caloric content of their brightly colored, somewhat nutritious beverages. So it's fortuitous timing that they're coming out with 10-calorie versions of several flavors. Up for the dietetic treatment are Energy (tropical citrus/yellow), XXX (acai-blueberry-pomegranate/magenta), Multi-V (lemonade/white) and Essential (orange/orange).
Can you tell the difference between the 25-calorie bottle and the 125-calorie bottle? Well, the Essential lo-cal version is, weirdly, sweeter than the original, while the Multi-V is about the same. Along with the lighter revisions. Vitamin Water has also come out with two new standard-calorie flavors: Tranquilo (tamarind-pineapple/chartreuse) and Sync (berry-cherry/lavender).
I've already covered the cheap and environmentally-friendly way to indulge in your sparkling water and soda whims with a home carbonater. But what about bubble-free beverages?
Lemon-scented H20 may have ticked off some restaurant goers out there, like Slashfood's Annoying Restaurant Trends revealed, but it's still a great way to get flavor in your beverages without spending a lot of money and downing a lot of artificial flavoring and sugar.
Just fill a carafe with water, and add one slice of lemon. Almost immediately, you'll be able to taste the lemony scent to your water. The neat thing is that you can keep filling it up and having more, so one little slice of lemon can fuel many glasses. The most I've left one in my carafe is 4 days. After a day or two, the water tastes almost like lemonade -- just a sweet-flavored, lemony water, without the tart bite and sugar needed to tame it.
In a world where we need to cut back and watch our spending, something like this can save our cash for other foodie areas. Why spend $1-$5 a pop for a bottle or two to drink when you can save that cash and get that great cut of meat, fish, or other tasty ingredients?
Enfant terrible (bad boy) of French fashion Jean Paul Gaultier has designed his own glass Evian bottles, due to be released in 2009. Secretly? I love this. They have pretty snowflakes. Other reasons:
I can't afford very many Jean Paul Gaultier things, and here we have a solution for when I need to feel fancy and also need to pay rent.
They are a great host's gift for when you're going to a dinner party at the home of non-drinkers.
Glass bottles, so, you know, your insides don't get Saran Wrap'd.
A case of Christian Lacroix (current featured designer) Evian bottles is $118 on the website, so I expect the Gaultier bottles will be around the same price.
Seven special Evian Haute Couture Bottles will also be made, and auctioned off to benefit the Evian Water Protection Institute. Click here for more information.
There has lately been a lot of negative pressure on bottled water producers. A lot of attention is being focused on the environmental impact of the bottles and transportation, as well as the possibility of wasting a natural resource. Environmental groups and government officials alike have been working to get consumers to drink tap water from reusable containers.
The three biggest bottled water producers in England have gotten together to form the Natural Hydration Council to fight back. One goal the Council has set for itself is "to undertake new research and communicate the facts to ensure fully informed consumer choices."
According to the article, the European bottled water market has actually grown over the last few years and is expected to stay healthy, so the Natural Hydration Council seems to be more of a preemptive strike and more of a response to what's happening in the US. What do you think of the new bottled water council?
I think it's so strange that a tobacco company is making a supposedly breath freshening bottled water. That's what a Japanese firm is doing, though.
According to Trends in Japan, Japan Tobacco has come up with this product, which is geared for men (it actually has "for men" printed on the labeling). I guess all the cigarette smoking is causing a nation-wide masculine bad breath crisis. Hmm, I guess Japan Tobacco wants to be the solution as well as the problem.
I guess this situation is not so strange after all. Do know of any other companies with problem/solution products?
Wow, the confusion when buying water! These days, when you enter a grocery store and look on the shelf, you can view about 10 different flavored waters, each promising to be the perfect antidote to a specific ailment. There's Vitaminwater, Propel Fitness Water, Function Drinks, Sobe Life Water, Snapple Antioxident water, 24c Vitamin enhanced water, and much more.
Yesterday, I read an article from New York magazine about the entrepreneurs that started Function Drinks. And, for a brief moment, I thought that perhaps all these drinks were not bogus. Dr. Alex Hughes, one of the founders of Function Drinks, uses different dietary supplements to concoct beverages that help with a hangover, reduce stress, fight colds, improve memory, and even sustain sexual health. But, at the same time Hughes admits, "At the end of the day, we are not a pharmaceutical company. We're not trying to live up to those standards."
What's with the trend? Personally, when it comes to drinking water, I stick to non-flavored H2O that's not loaded with sugar.
Why are we so disgusted by the simple fact that all the drinking water on earth is recycled wastewater? Unfortunately, the natural recycling process, involving evaporation, condensation, and precipitation, does not deliver enough drinking water to the drier parts of the world. This Sunday, the New York Times Magazine had an article about Orange County's new facility where it's purifying 70 million gallons of recycled water a day.
Many people are skeptical and revolted by the idea that their drinking water is simply purified toilet water. But, if we were to analyze the general water infrastructure in the U.S., we'd realize that sewage enters all our waterways. The majority of us drink tap water that is disinfected at drinking-water plants far less sophisticated than the ones built in Orange County.
The water coming out of the Fountain Valley plant in Orange County is cleaner than many bottled waters, such as Poland Spring. However, to appease peoples' concerns about the water being unnatural and dirty, Fountain Valley puts the water back into nature (ponds, streams, lakes, etc.). Ironically, the water's purity dwindles when it goes back into the wild where it's exposed to bacteria, pharmaceuticals, and agricultural and industrial chemicals.
Should Fountain Valley care if people view their water recycling process as natural?
There is a book that came out recently about our obsession with bottled water called Botllemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It. In it, the author talks about our reliance on bottled water and how tap water is generally as pure or more pure than bottled water.
Americans are getting away from bottled water, but it isn't because of this new book. Apparently bottled water is just too expensive, and in an economic downturn it's one of those luxury items that gets cut. This report from CNN.com interviews several people who have switched to tap water as well as a few calculations of how much you can save by cutting out bottled water.
The report also briefly mentions the environmental aspect of this trend. Refusing to buy bottled water helps cut down on the plastic bottles, which we've been told for years is what we need to do. Are you cutting back or cutting out bottled water for economic reasons?
These days, there's all sorts of talk about the environment, about eating fresh and local. However, there's not a lot of talk about what we drink. Cans, plastic bottles, glass bottles -- we go through these at a huge rate. But we don't need to -- at least, not totally. We might not be able to quickly whip up our own beer or wine at home, but we can make all of those tasty carbonated beverages.
As soon as I heard about the Soda Club over at The Kitchn in February, I wanted one. Sparkling water at my finger tips? Without having to pay a buck a bottle? It seemed to good to be true. Then, a good friend of mine got me one for my birthday last month. I don't know how I ever went without it, and I really don't know why everyone isn't doing this.
It requires no electricity -- just a CO2 carbonator. You attach a bottle of water, push the magic button a few times, and there's some fizzy seltzer. You can also put in flavoring for flavored water, or a number of other syrups to make your own soda/pop. I've tried the root beer and lemon lime varieties so far, and I was completely happy with them. There's no walking to the store. I just walk over to my kitchen, pop on a bottle of cold water, and seconds later, I have the perfectly fizzed drink.
I'm always cold. My mom worries that this is do to some circulatory problem. I think this it is due to me being a woman.
I have often wondered why ice comes in every drink I order. In the winter I've typically just come in from the outdoors and I'm freezing. The last thing I want is ice. In the summer, air conditioning is often so strong that I'm freezing indoors and again I don't want ice.
I'll tell you when I want ice - when it's hot! I like ice when I'm working or playing outside and sweating.
Mark Twain was quoted as saying, "The only distinguishing characteristic of the American character I've been able to discover is a fondness for ice water."
Do you like ice? Why do you think Americans like their ice so much?
I had heard about this project and completely forgot about it until I was looking at some other food blogs tonight. I'm glad I was reminded though, because the Tap Project is worth remembering and supporting.
If you plan on dining out this week, until March 22, look for a restaurant that's supporting this project. Participating restaurants will collect a $1 donation for each glass of water ordered. All the money goes to UNICEF, the United Nations group which works to help children. The collected donations will be going toward getting clean drinking water for children in disadvantaged areas around the world.
If you're not sure where participating restaurants are you can always donate directly to the drive. Hopefully you can have a nice evening out this week and help make the world a little better at the same time.
If the posts that Ellenand I wrote earlier this week about the International Berkeley Water Competition got you thinking about the quality and taste of your own local water, then our friends over at Green Daily have a whole bunch of stuff for you to read. They have put together a feature that tries to answer the question, "What's in our water?" They explore what's safe, what's not and what you can do about. If these are questions that have been plaguing you, head over and give their piece a scan. I'm certain that you'll find it enlightening.
Yesterday, Marisa told you about the 2008 Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting this past week (what - you didn't attend?), Los Angeles and Clearbrook, British Columbia beat out 120 other entries, including ones from Macedonia and the Philippines, for the title.
Here's a closer look at the competition: the 10 judges based their selections on five criteria: taste, smell, texture, aftertaste, and clarity. They downed water from three categories: municipal, bottled, and the newest, purified.
In case you were wondering, the bottled water winner was Tumai Water from Martinsburg, West Virginia, the purified water winner was from Federalsburg, Maryland, and the carbonated bottled water winner flowed all the way from Emsdetten, Deutschland.
All of this begs the question: if you're tasting water, is it necessary to cleanse your palette between sips?
When you think about moving to a new city, you might take into account the school districts, the job market, the home prices and the property taxes. But do you spend time thinking about how the tap water tastes? Probably not. However, thanks to the Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting, you can now factor in the taste of a municipality's tap water in your move decisions.
This last Saturday, the panel of independent judges tasted water samples from 120 sources and determined that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves Los Angeles, and the town of Clearbrook, British Columbia tied for first place in the tap water category.
For those of you in Los Angeles, do you think your tap water is award worthy? For the rest of you, how does your tap water stack up?
We can change the way we make eggs -- scrambled, poached, fried -- but what about changing the eggs themselves? Mix up your scrambling routine with quail eggs.
Vitamin Water has been in the news lately with some contretempts over the caloric content of their brightly colored, somewhat nutritious beverages. So it's fortuitous timing that they're coming out with 10-calorie versions of several flavors. Up for the dietetic treatment are Energy (tropical citrus/yellow), XXX (acai-blueberry-pomegranate/magenta), Multi-V (lemonade/white) and Essential (orange/orange). 
I've already covered the cheap and environmentally-friendly way to indulge in your sparkling water and soda whims with a 
Wow, the confusion when buying water! These days, when you enter a grocery store and look on the shelf, you can view about 10 different 
These days, there's all sorts of talk about the environment, about eating fresh and local. However, there's not a lot of talk about what we drink. Cans, plastic bottles, glass bottles -- we go through these at a huge rate. But we don't need to -- at least, not totally. We might not be able to quickly whip up our own beer or wine at home, but we can make all of those tasty carbonated beverages. 
I had heard about this project and completely forgot about it until I was looking at some other food blogs tonight. I'm glad I was reminded though, because the Tap Project is worth remembering and supporting.
When you think about moving to a new city, you might take into account the school districts, the job market, the home prices and the property taxes. But do you spend time thinking about how the tap water tastes? Probably not. However, thanks to the Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting, you can now factor in the taste of a municipality's tap water in your move decisions. 
Second Helping of Slashfood - June 19
Competitive-Eating Contest to Pit Humans Against Elephants
The Backyard Boom - The Hungry Bride
