If you know me at all, you know that there are very few kitchen items I get excited about. Actually, that’s a lie, there are NO kitchen items that I get excited about, because I am not now, nor have I ever been, a big fan of cooking. However, a little over a week ago, I was contacted by the people at SodaStream and asked if I would try their product for 7 days and then share my impressions of it and I thought I’d give it a try. SodaStream is a home carbonation product that lets you make soft drinks at home. To be honest, A couple of years ago, my husband had mentioned it to me because he had heard good things from some co-workers, but I didn’t love the idea of having soda in the house all the time, so we didn’t get it. This time around, I decided to do a little research before passing judgment and I’m glad I did. I’m not kidding when I say that I LOVE this machine and I’ll tell you why.
It’s healthier than store bought soda
It tastes good
It’s ridiculously easy to use.
I’m not a big soda drinker, nor do I drink a lot of juice and sometimes I just want something besides water (or in my case, iced tea) and I like that there are something like 40 SodaStream flavors to choose from. I also like that when my kids want soda, I can have something handy that doesn’t have any high fructose corn syrup or Aspartame. (They’re also Gluten free for people who need that). Does this mean that I’ve started giving my kids soda at every meal? of course not. But this is a great alternative to the store bought stuff that is full of ingredients I’m not comfortable with. One of the best things about this product is that YOU can choose how sweet you want it to be since you’re the one adding the flavoring, and that’s a big deal. If you want a cold, refreshing drink with just a touch of flavor, you can have it, if you like it very sweet, go for it. For me, the best feature is that you also control the carbonation. My husband, who’s a bit of a cola snob and is quite particular when it comes to his soda, likes a strong carbonation, while I’m not a fan of a ton of bubbles, so being able to choose how much carbonation we want to have, means that we can both have our drinks the way we want them.
Not everyone is going to like all of the flavors, but there are so many to choose from, it’ll be hard not to find a few you don’t like. My kids have liked the lemon/lime, ginger ale and orange flavors the best and my finicky husband is a big fan of the cherry cola. There are times when I just want sparkling water with lime or other fruits and I’ll have that without any extra flavoring.
As I said, I’m not much of a superstar in the kitchen, but this really is simple, fast and fun to use.
If I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t use it and I certainly wouldn’t talk about it or recommend it to my friends.
If you try one, let me know what you think!