Recently my family has been enjoying those little squirt bottles of water flavorings one of which is called Mio. But I wonder if there are any deleterious effects to drinking them. What say you?
You can get actual Kool-Aid in little squirt bottles now too. ... I can't stand the term "water enhancer" or "flavored water." It's either water or it isn't. Coffee, tea, Dr. Pepper, grapefruit juice, beer, and wine are all mostly water, but no one would call them "flavored water."
I think the difference is that you're starting with a glass of water and just adding something to it.
Yeah, it's still 99.9% water, just with a little flavoring added. I love those little things. I stay way more hydrated with them.
Such enhancers are not popular here. What do they taste like? Are they all sugar? During the hot summer months, I enjoy adding a bit of lemon in my water, does that count?
It's an artificial sweetener, but it has zero calories. It's very concentrated, so a tiny amount goes a long way.
They come in many flavors like fruit punch or grape and they also color the water. I think they are either Nutrasweet or that new artificial sweetener from England or both.
^ Oh, I am not worried about calories. I am, however, worried about the sugar, in the sense that everything seems to be so sweet these days, it is hard to find "normal" stuff. And water is just... well... water, why make it more sweet? But anyway, from what I understand this is not the case here. Now that you mention coloring the water, I think there was a company here trying to promote colored bottled water for children but I haven't seen anyone actually carrying such a bottle.
It's not about making the water "sweet" so much as it is about giving the water different flavors, like Kool-Aid. Plain old water can be boring sometimes. I found it easier to drink more water if it was flavored, and I therefore stayed more hydrated.
I mean, I like plain old water just fine, but sometimes I want to drink something else. These "water enhancers" allow me to do that without adding a bunch of extra sugar or chemicals.
I understand, it's just that I never found "plain water" boring, or got tired of it. I rarely feel the need to drink "something else", but when I do, it's either a glass of wine while eating, a glass of (unsweetened) fruit juice on breakfast, or a beer on the weekend when I go out with friends (which is, almost never since we got the kid, but that's another story ), but that's it. I rarely if ever drink soda, so I don't have to worry about stuffing myself with sugar and stuff. (Also, I have to mention that tap water in my town is pretty good, so I guess that helps.)
Straight out of the tap for me, if I want something to drink which has booze in it I stick to the spirits.
I sometimes squeeze a bit of lemon or lime into a glass of water...I never thought of it as enhanced, though.