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).

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.

There are a lot of flavored waters marketed to kids on the grounds that they are tastier than plain milk or water, but have less sugar than juice or soda. Parents can give heir kids one of the usually colorful drinks and will not have to worry that they are actually drinking it at lunchtime in place of a soda from the vending machine. This week, the Wall Street Journal held a taste test with groups of both adults and children to see if the drinks' taste held up to their marketing hype.

Aroma Water was the must adult-oriented of the four brands, with the flavors (which are actually scents) of either lemon lime or mandarin orange embedded into the bottle cap, not the water itself. 90% of taste actually comes from smell, so there is no flavoring added to the water and yet it still tastes flavored. These were "subtle, natural and refreshing. Waddajuice is a brand of juice diluted with water, just as the name implies. It comes in white grape and apple and has no added sugar. It "retains enough flavor that kids may thing it is the real thing." Crayola Color Coolerz! are waters sweetened with sucralose (Splenda) that are "very tart, extremely sweet and neon-colored." Flavors include Purple Pizazz, Berry Blue and Screamin' Green. Wild Waters are naturally sweetened waters that have minerals and vitamins added for an extra nutritional boost. Flavors include Flippin' Fruit Punch, Groovin' Grape, Twistin' Tropical Punch and Rippin' Raz Lemonade and tasters placed them squarely between Waddajuice and Crayola in terms of sweetness.

Waddajuice and Wild Waters are the best choice for kids as they are sweeter than Aroma Water, which adults will probably enjoy, and have no artificial ingredients.

Despite the good, the bad, or the ugly of bottled water, I still try to force myself to drink water because I do know that I don't get enough with all the coffee, diet sodas, and other beverages that end up doing more dehydration than good.

The problem is, I don't care much for the (non)taste of plain water. For a while I was adding a little bit of lemon to the water, but that got old. I just tried Water Sensations, which is a clear liquid flavor enhancer for water. The packs are single-serve, have no calories, and come in different flavors.

I tried the Mixed Berry and Lemon flavors. Both added a lot of flavor to a tall glass of water, and I was surprised at how sweet it was. I had naturally assumed that there was no sugar in in since it says "no calorie." However, there is sucralose as a sweetener. I would have preferred to have the flavoring be only a light flavor, the way some of the "flavor-enhanced" bottled waters are.

Still, it didn't taste bad, and in trying the flavors, I did end up making myself drink two very large glasses of water!

 

Volvic has always been my personal favorite as far as bottled waters go. Conversely, I've never found a flavored water or "fruit water" that I liked. So, naturally, I'm a little curious about Volvic's new offering in that field.

According to a recent BevNET review, the lemon flavor is "plagued by bitterness," but the orange version is much better. It is sweetened, making each bottle worth 60 calories. According to BevNET, there's also a slightly unpleasant aftertaste due to preservatives (potassium benzoate). Another review is available on DooYoo.

Overall, I'm a bit skeptical of these drinks, as most I've encountered just taste like a watered down version of something else. We'll see.