How many calories in that drink?

I'm always looking for a tasty and low calorie beverage. Most of the time I drink plain water, but sometimes it's nice to get a little flavor. I decided to check out what I had in my house.

Along the front (bottom) row are my brews-over-ice iced teas for my Keurig.

The obvious lowest in calories is the unsweetened black tea. I add one packet of Sun Crystals, which is a 5 calorie mix of stevia and cane sugar. It's very good, and all natural. There are some zero calories stevia blends, but they generally have some sugar alcohols to make the stevia more palatable. I'll take the 5 calories for all natural.

The next two, sweet lemon black tea and sweet raspberry black tea are 50 calories and 11 grams of sugar. Celestial Seasonings sweetened teas for Keurig are sweetened with evaporated cane juice and stevia. Personally I wish they were a little less sweet, but that's probably just me.

I try not to drink my calories, unless alcohol is involved, but 50 calories is pretty reasonable.

It's the same as one of my soy chai lattes that I make from Keurig chai tea and steamed soy milk. Though the 4 oz. of soymilk only has 4 grams of sugar and more protein and healthy stuff.

The next two, berry lime twist sweet green tea and half and half black tea and lemonade are both 70 calories at 16 grams of sugar. 

The real surprise came from the canned sodas. I haven't had a sweetened soda in a long time, as they taste way too sweet to me, and I've been trying to cut back on the Diet Coke.

And, by the way, did you know that most canned soda uses aluminum cans lined with Bisphenol A (BPA)? A study done in Canada found 0.35 µg/L in Diet Coke and a shocking 1.1 µg/L in Fresca! And then there are all the chemicals they intentionally put in diet soda!

The Sprite and Ginger Ale are 140 calories and 38 grams of sugar, sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup.

The real surprise were the "natural" sodas.

The Jamaican Lemonade, 90% fruit juice, no sugar added, has 160 calories and 38 grams of sugar! It doesn't have high fructose corn syrup that the Sprite has, but it has more calories and the same amount of sugar!

The Mandarin Lime, 70 % juice, no sugar added has 170 calories at 39 grams of sugar.

And the Red Raspberry 100 % fruit juice has a whopping 200 calories and 44 grams of sugar!

I think the problem with the spritzers is that, while, most, if not all, juice, they take very sweet and neutral juice, such as pear, and concentrate it, which makes it mostly fructose. It's not high-fructose corn syrup but it might as well be, because it's still crazy high in fructose.

Incidentally, 1.5 oz. of vodka is 110 calories and the bargain in terms of calories is flavored vodka and soda water/seltzer/club soda.

And even though tonic water is equally clear, it's not equally low in calories as soda water. A 10 oz. serving of tonic is 110 calories and 27 grams of sugar, doubling the calories for a tall vodka and tonic vs. a vodka and soda!