Question about sparkling water

chaoticdreams

My boss brings in freebies once or twice a month that he's given by a food bank when they are unable to give it to those that need it. Half the time it's expired or about to expire, so I think they just clear out their stores.

He brought in a case of sparkling water today that's 2 weeks expired and says it's sweetened with stevia. However, the nutrition panel says it's 8 gram carbs. Hmmmm. Ingredients are carbonated water, erythritol, citric acid, potassium citrate, sodium benzoate, stevial glycosides.

I know the erythritol is a sugar alcohol. I use it sometimes to sweeten tea or coffee, but when it's in something, it's usually listed separately as a sugar alcohol. So.......

Drink it or not? Most of the time he brings in low fat greek yogurt and about to expire bread, so this time I was like, YAY finally something I might can use! Meh.

JessicaLCHF

Usually love sparkling water. I get the kind that is flavored but not sweetened. Zero carbs.

Lately I'm going through a diet cherry dr pepper phase tho. That stuff sounds REALLY suspicious at eight carbs a savings?! Even really sweet diet pepper has zero carbs a serving. Does it have fruit juice in it maybe? Can you call the company?

glossbones

Aspartame doesn't get counted in carbs, because it has no calories. Sugar alcohols do provide calories. How large is a serving? A full 20 oz bottle? That doesn't sound that off to me. Up to you and your carb limits if you think it's worth the carbs, but that free drink isn't 'free.' Like Jessica said, there are plenty of drinks sweetened with liquid stevia that don't have carbs.

slimzandra

8 gram carbs. Like I see written here so often... IIFIYM.
However, personally, I'd pass. My daily goal is <20g., so I'd rather debit my carbs with some clean, fresh, ice water and some veggies which would fill me up more. We have tons of free food at work. The kitchen is stocked with chips, cookies, crackers, puddings, sodas, nutribars, and if you get here early someone always brings in donuts. It used to be hard to walk past it all, being free and all. Now I just get my tea and walk out.

chaoticdreams

Doesn't mention fruit juice, but it being expired and the carb weirdness is throwing me off a bit. I think I'm just going to pass. I would rather indulge in a Sparkling Ice later.

I love Diet Dr. Pepper, never tried the cherry though. I really need to be drinking straight up water, but blah. I want flavor LOL.

m_puppy

Any positive or negative feelings on La Croix?

chaoticdreams

Never tried it. In fact, haven't seen it in my neck of the woods. It's pretty cheap on Amazon so might give it a try.

m_puppy

I love the taste but then I started thinking maybe it's too good to be true. What is "natural flavor" anyway?

glossbones

Could be beaver gland, for all you know.

Sunny_Bunny_

m_puppy wrote: »

Any positive or negative feelings on La Croix?

I drink LaCroix regularly. I assumed, but have no idea for sure, that the natural flavor was just an extract. I figure there is so little of it in there, so I never even questioned it.

m_puppy

glossbones wrote: »

Could be beaver gland, for all you know.

Awesome. I can only hope.

glossbones

Oh right, I used my apple emojis and broke my post.

Okay, I also said I don't fear "natural flavors" nearly as much from a clear beverage as I do from something solid. I regularly drink LaCroix coconut water, I think that's my favorite flavor from them. Lately though I just keep it to water and for a treat have one of the Steaz Zero Calorie* Half & Half Iced Tea and Lemonade.

*Be careful, their sugared version's label looks VERY similar.

Scorpiotwin

I drink Lacroix off and on quite a bit. I'm trying not to drink as much diet soda, bit I still want the bubblies that carbonation gives you. I have had the grapefruit and the on the begins with a p.

JessicaLCHF

chaoticdreams wrote: »

...

I love Diet Dr. Pepper, never tried the cherry though. I really need to be drinking straight up water, but blah. I want flavor LOL.

I saw a commercial. Lol. They got me!

JessicaLCHF

This is what I usually drink tho. We call it fuzzy water at our house. No sweetener at all. Really helps when water gets boring. I love this stuff. They have several flavors but this is my fav.

sweetteadrinker2

I like a bottle of talking rain once in awhile. It's flavored but not sweetened, and a drop of liquid sweetener makes the lemon lime taste like 7up if I want something sweeter.

minties82

Some older products I have with erythritol have a gram of carbs for every gram of erythritol used. My mother in law has a small tub which states each 2.5g serving has 2.5g of carbs whereas I have this years repackaged version which says either no or little carbs, I forget and I'm in the bath so can't go look :-)

SkinnyKerinny

Sometime when you're feeling really brave check out the FDA web site where you can learn the definition of "natural" and other benign sounding words that are common on food labels.

chaoticdreams

SkinnyKerinny wrote: »

Sometime when you're feeling really brave check out the FDA web site where you can learn the definition of "natural" and other benign sounding words that are common on food labels.

Read a Cracked article one time...... About the beaver gland thing you mentioned in another post LOL. Yeah..... um I'm beginning to really wish I didn't know some things.

glossbones

I just want to know who decided Beaver Gland would taste like anything you'd want to put in your mouth, let alone vanilla!

Twibbly

glossbones wrote: »

I just want to know who decided Beaver Gland would taste like anything you'd want to put in your mouth, let alone vanilla!

The same people who put musk in perfume.

I figure that by avoiding gluten, sugar, aspartame & its friends, and most starch, I'm eating healthier than I have before. At this point, fretting about a bit of flavor would be counter productive for me.