Beverage Ideas for Kicking the Diet Soda Habit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kombucha

http://synergydrinks.com/classic/home.aspx

The kombucha tea worked well for me, it has more of a kick than soda and the benefits are awsome.

I make my sweetened tea with 5 tea bags, 2 qts of water and 1/4 cup of sugar. Over ice .... You can add lemon or lime.. Just sweet enough and enough caffeine to keep you going.

My favorite caffeinated pick-me-up is iced tea. Yes, you can use stevia safely. (no random heavy metals floating around with that!)

I would not use caffeine pills. They'll give you a horrible stomachache. I have very rarely used them (with the Excedrin migraine) and even after my headache was gone, my stomach felt it was just being chewed up. Awful.

Is there any reason you are avoiding sugar? The organic unrefined (light brown color instead of white) is great. I put two teaspoons of sugar in my tea or coffee (I limit myself to two 8 oz caffeinated drinks a day; 12 oz if it's green tea) and have no problems with it.

What's wrong with diet soda???? Besides everything everyone has 'heard' or 'read'. Seriously, aspartame has been readily available since the '80s and there has NEVER NEVER been a news story or such pertaining to a health related issue from it or any other manufactured sweetener.
It is the MOST tested food additive in history and has been approved for consumption by this country and 90 others since it's inception.
Yes, I'm quoting some facts from wikipedia, but think about it.
Everything in moderation. LONG LIVE DIET COKE!

Okay, why don't you add some sugar to the tea? My friend that nearly died from sugar free additives is a severe diabetic. Her doc has her watch her carbs and she eats real sugar in her foods and drinks now. She is much healthier and they actually took out her insulin pump and she is up waking and doing stuff nearly every day instead of sitting in a recliner not able to move.

Sugar is good, it's the 2-3 cups a day that is bad. I use 1/2 to 2/3 Cups required for drinks that I make like tea or Koolaid.

You are smart to avoid diet soda. It is so bad for you. A soda once or twice a month (with real sugar) is fine but you are asking about every day. Why not drink coffee with a bit of real sugar? You can also use brown sugar or Sugar In the Rough, which is less processed. Stevia is safe, I grow it in my garden. You can buy the plants at a nursery although I have not dried the leaves yet. Agave is also safe. Stevia and agave are both natural.

From the Food Insight website:
Is sucralose safe?
Yes. Sucralose has an excellent safety profile. More than 100 safety studies, representing over 20 years of research, have shown sucralose to be safe.

Scientists have conducted many studies on sucralose to determine whether it had any effects on a number of different health conditions, including growth and development, risk of cancer, chemical effects on the body (or toxicology), developmental abnormalities such as birth defects, and effects on the nervous system.

Experts from a wide range of scientific backgrounds have reviewed these studies and concluded that there are no harmful effects from consuming sucralose, even in people consuming the highest amounts.

Based on its strong safety background, experts, researchers, and government bodies agree that people can consume a variety of foods and beverages sweetened with sucralose on a daily basis without concern.

Because of other unsafe sweetner people assume all sweetners are not safe. But sucrolose is not even absorbed by the body. I had two different doctors for my pregnancies and they both said it was safe to consume when I was pregnant, and that yogurt sweetner with splenda is safe for my toddler.

I swtiched to iced tea. I brew green and black together, to get the benefits of both. I sweeten with raw, natural, local honey.

my joy of drink now after kicking diet soda is
arnold palmer - ice tea ( green or reg ) and lite lemonaide

I tell you what, my favorite part of the day is drinking my (honey sweetened) coffee in the morning.

Yup, between the honey and the cream there are calories, but soooooo worth it.

My husband makes himself big vats of iced tea (Darjeeling, honey, lemon).

And then I also get 100% juice, and sparkly water, and mix the two half and half. Still sugar (fructose) and calories...but ever so refreshing.

I am absolutely thrilled to see that another poster suggested kombucha! Our whole family is crazy about kombucha, so much so, that I now make it myself! G.T. is the brand that makes Synergy kombucha. You won't regret trying it!

As far as people pooh-poohing the dangers of diet soda, my dad had severe seizures that were later diagnosed as aspartame poisoning from drinking diet pepsi. There are many, many reasons to ditch diet drinks, including a higher risk for Type 2 diabetes.

Stevia is absolutely safe. I wish I liked the taste!

I bought a soda stream, which is a simple little counter top machine that carbonates plain water. You can flavor it with either syrups (which the ones they sell are disgusting) or essence (unsweetened citrus flavors), but I just drink it plain or with a squeeze of lemon! Very refreshing! I don't tolerate aspartame well at all and won't use any artificial sweeteners at all -- I think they are dangerous. So only carbonated water or plain tea.

Sassy water!!! I drink it all the time. Basically the night before you fill up a pitcher with water and then add fruits to it to sit over night! It taste so good and refreshing! My favorite combos right now are. slices of lemon, limes and cucumbers. Mint leaves with lemon and limes, and slices of apples with a few cinnamon sticks. It's zero calories and taste great. I know there's no caffeine in it, but I think if you wean yourself off the caffeine your body won't be missing it and all the water will help you stay hydrated and awake!

I hear ya. Stevia is supposed to be natural so it's safe. It does not have all them chemicals in it that the others have. My mom actually orders her stevia from the same place she orders her vitamins.

I really like to drink lemonade with frozen fruit in it. Especially a mix of blueberries, raspberries, and strawberry. It's refreshing! Way cheaper than soda too.

Dont take the caffeine pills though, they aren't good for you. I knew people who got really sick off of those.

I totally understand missing the caffeine in the afternoon. Ice coffee? Or, if you can limit yourself to a couple of quick tablespoons, Starbucks Java Chip Ice Cream? That will give you more than enough of a lift! And so yummy!

I kicked my soda habit by substituting Talking Rain sparkling water.

I realized the carbonation is what I liked most about sodas. It was fairly easy to make the switch.

I still drink soda once in awhile, but I don't crave it.

We don't drink a lot of it, but when we do we drink regular soda with real sugar in it.
But it's also just good to kick the sweet tooth habit altogether.
On a hot sweaty day, ice cold water with a few drops of lemon or lime juice tastes wonderful.
You have to reprogram your taste buds a bit, but it can be done.

For sweetener, try Agave nectar.

I do a TON of unsweetened iced tea. Every few days I brew a giant batch of green tea, then let it cool to room temperature, then refrigerate it. This is what hubby takes to work every morning, and what I drink all day long (in addition to water, which I'm getting better at drinking.)

Do you drink coffee?

As for carbonated drinks... there are many types of carbonated flavored water. Which is flavored with natural fruit extracts.
I see these at Whole Foods etc.

Or buy sparking water, and put in a bit of juice. Then it is a carbonated flavored water. Without the artificial sweeteners.
My kids like that.

I drink chilled water instead of soda. I have a filter on my faucet and fill bottles with water and put them in the frig. When I want something cold to drink, I grab a bottle of water and put another one in the frig to cool down.

I don't buy bottled water anymore unless my bottles of water get misplaced or broken. When I want chilled water for a picnic or for a trip, I half fill the bottles with water and put them in the freezer. When we get ready to go, we fill the bottles and put them in our ice chest and have cold water for 5 or 6 hours.

Is stevia safe? Is sugar safe? Are tomatoes safe? Just over 100 years ago tomatoes were called "Love Apples" as in Romeo and Juliet (poisonous). Just over 100 years ago, our US Supreme Court declared the tomato to be a vegetable, even though botanically the tomato is a fruit.

I'd grow stevia in my garden if I could find seeds. And I'd use it.

Just some things to think about. Good luck to you and yours.

I didn't ready through the answers, but I was watching Dr Oz for a split second the other day & he made a low glycemic index root beer. I found the recipe for that, as well as one for an orange soda:

Dr Oz: Root Beer Recipe

Ingredients:
1 tsp agave nectar
1 tsp Sarsaparilla extract
8 oz seltzer water

Dr Oz: Orange Soda Recipe

Orange- You-Glad-You’re-Not-Drinking-Diet-Soda:

Ingredients:
Orange Juice
Fizzy water (seltzer water)

.

Unless you can learn to be happy with unsweatend tea, water is your best friend. Sometimes I make flavored waters with bits of fruit, mint, or citrus slices. Its still just water though. Club soda with a splash of juice might do the trick also. And Emergen-C packets (little packet of vitamins and minerals you add to water. its fizzy citrus flavored and only 20 cal)

If giving up caffeine is not on your radar just ignore this, but I just gave up caffeine. It took me a good month to feel myself again. But did you know that a single cup of coffee decreases the amount of blood to your brain by 40% ? Thats why people get caffeine headaches- they aren't used to getting so much blood to the head. Make this an opportunity to give up both bad habits.

I think Snapple is sweetened with natural sweeteners... ?
But you can reach for a Vitamin Water Zero. They are sweetened with Stevia. The "regular" vitamin water has several varieties and some have caffeine, you just have to read the label that says what is in it. Most have added vitamins, minerals, etc.. some include caffeine, and say it right on the front. But most of the caffeinated ones are not "zero" calories.

Coffee? Iced coffee in the summer.

10,ooo coffee drinks.
Soda w sugar in it
Sparkling water w lime (no caffeine)

((Personally, I don't trust 'new' or synthetic sweeteners. It took 30 years for the longterm effects of aspartame to come out... My mum helped develop that, btw... Which is 'only' the chemical created when you mix bananas and milk...and the long term effects are bad juju. As far as newish OR old alt sweeterners being okay becsuse theyre 'natural'? People seem to somehow forget that table SUGAR comes from a GRASS. As natural as stevia LEAF, agave from CACTUS, honey from INSECT SECRETIONS, Hugh fructose corn syrup from ... Wait for it... Corn. All natural. Don't get me wrong, alt sweeteners can be great, and I use them... But don't fall into the 'natural' equals better than ... Wait for it... Natural??? Boggles my mind. Plants and bugs, peeps. Plants and bugs are all equally natural. Oy real difference is that newer common use ones haven't been studied for 30-60+ years, yet!))

I add Crystal Light PURE to my water. It doesn't have any artificial flavorings or colorings. It uses Truvia, and I think the recommended serving size is way too sweet, so I use double the amount of water. There are a number of flavors, and it goes on sale at my local grocery store quite frequently.

I mostly gave up diet soda a few years ago. I started drinking green tea and other teas. There are various black teas with cinnamon that have a sweet taste. I know you said you don't like unsweetened tea, but I wasn't a huge fan until I just drank it every day:) Your body gets used to what you give it:) Also started drinking coffee - started with 2 tsps of sugar and dry milk added, then just weaned back to black.

Had to give up caffeine last year - now that was a lot tougher!

Didn't read the other answers. Here's what I did.

Because I liked sweetness, I went to Emergen-C packets (sweetened with stevia, which is perfectly safe. I have it growing in the yard). Over time, I watered down my beverage until I wasn't addicted to sweet anymore.

You can also make a swell lemonade with fresh lemons and stevia. You don't have to use much stevia to sweeten.

Then once I kicked the sweetness habit, I went to charged water (e.g. LaCroix water). That's just my treat. I really drink a lot of plain old tap water.

Stevia is safe and natural. Like I said, I grow it in the yard! Truvia is not. Read the package. Truvia adds some artificial ingredients.

I find that buying beverages in containers is expensive and is really, really wasteful. Even if you recycle everything, I shudder to think of all the resources used to create and re-create bottles and cans for one-time use.

I use Stevia (less than half a packet; I try to get 3 uses out of every packet) in my 8-12 oz of ice tea that I make using TAZO Awake black tea. I only use enough Stevia to give it a hint of a sweet taste. Stevia comes from a South American plant that is all natural, other than the processing that goes into making the Stevia we buy in the store (you can buy a Stevia plant and use the real leaves, if you prefer doing it that way). I haven't heard any complaints yet about Stevia, and Stevia has no calories.

You'll want to be careful when using Agave Nectar, as it has a very high glycemic index/high fructose index.

I quit drinking diet Mt Dew four years ago--that was so hard! And then I quit drinking regular Mt Dew in March 2012--that was so hard! LOL I quit drinking DIET pop because I was having tension headaches every day and read an article that talked about aspartame side effects. When I quit drinking diet pop, my daily headaches went away. Now I drink different types of tea and reverse-osmosis water and really, nothing else.

I found, though, that I miss the caffeine way more than I miss the super sweetness of pop. I was drinking green tea for two years--and then developed a sensitivity to it and can no longer drink it. Black and white tea or even herbal don't seem to bother me--if I drink them cold/iced rather than hot. I've discovered a lot of really good teas that have different flower and fruit flavors to them that are really, really good. And my caffeine need isn't much, as I drastically water down my black or white ice tea while I'm drinking it with both water and ice. Watered-down ice tea also lets me drink more tea during the day, without going overboard on the caffeine. ;)

Like another poster said, you can train yourself to wean yourself off sugar/sweet stuff, or at least drastically cut down. It's hard to do, but it is doable. In fact, when you don't eat foods with a lot of sugar (or salt or whatever it is you no longer use), when you do eat foods with those ingredients in them--you'll find that they don't really taste all that good anymore. At least they don't to me.

Congrats on kicking the diet soda habit! That's awesome.

I prefer tea. I'm kinda a tea addict. I drink herbal, black, green, white and mixtures every day. I literally have an entire cupboard of tea. I find that if I switch it up constantly I don't get bored. Problem is herbal, and white usually have no caffeine, and green varies but usually has less than black. So if you want that caffeine hit you have to drink either certain types of green tea or black. I'd sweeten it with agave nectar or a bit vegan sugar. I personally don't but I know alot who do. Truthfully I try to limit caffeine big time and allow myself no more than one black tea drink a day.

Another option is old fashioned coffee. Has as much if not more caffeine than black tea. Again I'd sweeten it with a natural sweetener.

Also don't forget that chocolate has natural occurring caffeine too just like coffee and tea.

Good luck with your goal. I know how hard it is to kick soda and kicking caffeine I found to be a million times worse. It's amazing how addictive it truly is. :(

I feel much better & leveled now that caffeine is out of my daily regime.
+ my breasts are pain-free!

I use unsweetened decaf iced tea. As in popped in the freezer after I make it, & filled with ice crystals as I pour it.....yumm! If I'm craving sweet, I use 1" of fruit juice in my glass. I rotate cranberry, cranb mixes, apple, & grape. I also love fresh lemon in my tea.

I try to avoid most artificial sweeteners, & seriously limit my sugar intake too since I am a pre-diabetic. Dang that PCOS!

seltzer with lemon juice is delish. Or cold brew iced tea.
I am a bit of a hypocrite - i'm sitting here drinking a coke zero LOL