Lemonades and other sweet sodas: what to look for when buying this product in the store
Although nutritionists and healthy eating advocates insist that it is better to give up sweet store-bought carbonated drinks for the sake of maintaining health and figure, lemonade lovers are still ready to buy and drink them. And this is not so bad.
The only question is how good are these lemonades.
If you want to enjoy a tasty, pleasantly sweet drink with bubbles or put it on the festive table as a non-alcoholic liquid for guests, it is worth considering some of its characteristics.
The first of these characteristics is the container. Carbonated drinks (lemonades and others) are usually sold in either plastic bottles, or glass bottles, or tin cans.
Which of these materials will best preserve the contents without chemically reacting with the drink itself?
Experts believe that chemically inert, transparent and fairly thick glass is the best container for lemonades. Therefore, it is worth giving preference to glass bottles.
The second and perhaps the most important characteristic of lemonades and other carbonated drinks is their composition. The shorter and clearer it looks, the better.
High-quality drinks from famous brands are usually made according to GOST, but it happens that lemonade made according to TU turns out to be tastier and has a simpler composition.
The presence of dyes, preservatives, sweeteners such as aspartame, natural identical flavors and other chemicals gives the conscious consumer the absolute right not to take such a product: all these additives cause allergic reactions and are completely contraindicated for some diseases.
The third characteristic is the color of the lemonade. Even without looking at the label with the soda composition, it is easy to recognize lemonade stuffed with dyes if it is packaged in a transparent container: as a rule, the drink will look too bright.
The lighter the color of the liquid, the more certain it is that only natural dyes were added during its production or that they were not included in the recipe at all. This also indicates that a particular lemonade contains less sugar than other, more "colored" ones.
Characteristic number four is the shelf life. Lemonade with a minimum of preservative additives can be stored without opening for about six months, and after you open the bottle, it is best to consume it within a few days at most.
If you see that there is about a year or even two years left before the expiration date of the soda, feel free to put the bottle back on the shelf: there is definitely nothing useful in such lemonade.
And the fifth characteristic, which, alas, can only be checked after purchasing the lemonade directly, is its taste. Real lemonade, consisting of a minimum of ingredients and without artificial flavors and sweeteners, is usually pleasantly sweet, not cloyingly so, and without a clear chemical aftertaste.
The bitter taste that remains on the tongue after drinking lemonade is usually given by sweeteners, and if you feel unnatural notes in the taste, then the presence of flavor enhancers or substitutes for natural flavors can be considered proven.
To understand exactly which lemonade contains less chemicals, it is better to buy several options from different manufacturers and then taste them.
At home, you can also reduce the harm from drinking lemonade or other soda a little. How? For example, make your own lemonade and mix it with store-bought lemonade in a 1:1 ratio.
If the lemonade is too sweet, then adding pure water or ice will help remove the excess sweetness. And you can serve the lemonade beautifully and "do" some good to it in a simple way - garnish with a sprig of mint or a lemon/orange slice.
Previously, we told you how and how long to cook beets in a multicooker.
