Food Rules #35: Eat Sweet Foods as You Find Them in Nature

With this rule, Pollan talks about eating whole fruits as opposed to drinking their juices - we tend to drink more of the juice because we feel less full, taking in more calories and less fiber. He also declares "there's no such thing as a healthy soda."

I will generally agree with those statements, however at home I find I'm more likely to make a smoothie in the morning in lieu of making a full meal for breakfast. I like the fact that I can put much more fruit in the smoothie and drink that than I would otherwise eat. Since I may not get a meal for several more hours (many times not until dinner because I am at work all day and being self-employed don't always get a 'lunch hour') I would rather have the smoothie to make sure I'm getting more servings of fruits & veggies.

As for soda...I hardly ever drink canned or bottled soda. I will have a can of Coca Cola every once and a while (like when I'm out the night before imbibing!) but I love sparkling water. I will drink twice as much water if it's sparkling than still. I don't know why - maybe because it's more like a cocktail? - but then I find myself feeling guilty about the added costs & waste from drinking bottled drinks. We recently got a Soda Stream at home and I LOVE it! The initial cost was $100 for the setup, which comes with 1 CO2 canister that makes approximately 100 1L bottles (50 2 liters) using tap water. Once the CO2 is out, you can exchange it for a full canister for around $15. That brings it to around 30 cents a 2 liter, unflavored. The Soda Stream came with several packets of 'flavored' sweeteners, which sounded unappealing until I tried them and now I find them utterly disgusting. Too sweet, too saccharin-y, and just plain HFSC. Instead, if I want a flavored soda, I add either one of the June Taylor syrups we sell at the shops or one of the many flavors a friend of mine has been having me test for her new line of syrups coming out this fall. I like that I can adjust the sweetness level to my taste (I like just a hint of flavor) as well as the carbonation, that there is so much less waste and I'm actually using tap water. I highly recommend getting a Soda Stream - in fact, some friends and I were recently joking that we're going to try and make our own sparkling wine at home with it as an 'experiment'...but I digress...

Here is a good article on making flavored syrups at home. In case you want to prove Pollan wrong and make your own sodas at home with fruit & herb syrups!

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20100721/LIVING/707219976/1065/LIVING01