Home-made soda alternative

Drinking soda is a hard habit to break.  Yet, for a lot of us, it is an important one. Reguar soda is so full of high fructose corn syrup, you might as well be eating pancake syrup with a spoon. Diet soda is certainly a better choice, but by a rather narrow margin. There was a very comprehensive guide to diet soda recently published on MarksDailyApple.com and is a worthwhile read. 

So what's the solution? While switching to water, if you can do it, is a great move, we have discovered a reasonably healthy alternative that might just delight your tastebuds, budget and sense of creativity.  

Sodastream is a company that has developed a simple mechanical relatively inexpensive device that enables you to make soda at home.  You can make an unlimited amount of sparking water. Drop a slice of apple, strawberry or a piece of lemon and you have got a delight they charge $1.50/bottle for in the grocery store. Not a bad choice by itself!  

The company also sells a wide variety soda syrups, which forego high fructose corn syrup, using cane sugar instead, as well as much of the other nastiness you are likely to find in your soda.  Every syrup lists the precise ingredients on the label, so you know what you are getting into.

One of the delightful discoveries that has come out of using SodaStream for us was the creativity it enables.  We have a counter filled with various syrup bottles and it is beginning to look like a lab. Just to give you an idea: Cran-raspberry, Orange, Lemonade, Ice Tea, Ginger Ale, Red bull (for that day when your nose hits the plate...) and the more common lemon-lime, root beer, Dr. Pepper alternative, Cola and so on.  Mix them, match them, and - not to overlook - reduce the amount you use! I have found that even on a sweet-tooth day I do not need any more than half the recommended doze.  Often, just a splash will do. 

This is how it works: you buy their basic device, which comes with some starter flavors, gas and a couple of bottles.  (Bottles are overpriced, but overall you'll be spending under 1/3 of the price of soda on your gas & syrup refills.)  Pick up a bottle, fill it with cold water, use the sodastream device and fill it with gass by pressing the button on the top over and over till it complains with loud and impolite noises about the pressure.  Measure the amount of syrup (or syrups!) using the convenient caps, pour it in, and you have yourself a bottle of soda!

The only downside is that you can't grab a can of soda from the fridge which, while inconvenient, is perhaps useful in helping you make a conscious choice about drinking a yet-another-can.

Have you tried it?  Have a different experience?  Seen another device to solve the drink problem?  Let me know!