Do you love a sweet, bubbly drink on a warm summer's day. Perhaps you're one of those ones that's addicted to diet coke, but you're looking for a better alternative. Well, on today's episode, we have you covered as we look at a growing range of healthier carbonated drinks to the supermarket. Hi, I'm Leon Ward and I'm Cuzy Burrow, and as two of the strays leading dietitians, we bring you the Nutrition Count Product Review, a weekly chat on new products and
old favorites that you can find. I'm right here in our supermarkets. So, Susie, I'm very curious there's a bubbly, sweet drink something that is found in your household.
Well, Liam, we have to be honest, don't we as dietitians, we don't love soft drink. Now, I will be completely honest with the listenings here to say that I do like a cheeky diet coke, but I do try and limit consumption because I'm aware of the research that diet soft drinks in general and it's artificially sweetened. But we want to be honest here with our listeners, so I do, but I do try and limit it. You know, a
couple of times a week at most. I certainly don't encourage them at home for the children, but we do at my house drinks soda, water, barkling water. My husband does prefer the ones that have got like a flavor through them, but that's more something he'll buy it like the server. I don't buy them through the week at all, but I do have clients who do need or prefer
some flavor with their fluid. So I think this is a great discussion because I love the products that you've chosen because they really showcase a few key points that we would want our listeners to take home when it comes to sugar sweetened drinks. Sorry, drinks that are low calorie and sweetened with alternatives to sugar, but are they really healthy? Because I see these at the kids' parties all the timely end, and I have to be honest,
I'm pretty distressed at times to see that. You know, in our friendship circle, even with kids, they're often still consuming soft drinks at parties. So hopefully our listeners will find this really helpful for their own families and.
Definitely in our household. My happy love he's not a big water drinker. I've tried every strategy under the sun, Susie, but the bulk of his dart is very healthy, thanks for his lovely dietitian wife. So he does like a little bit of sort of a diet soft drink or
something a bit sweeter as well. We're not big alcohol drinkers, and you know, we have pretty clean and lean made meals, so he does regularly have like a lower sugar alternative, and one or two that I put in here today are the ones that I sort of encourage him to get as well. So we do have a little bit of sort of what i'd call that sweetened bubbly you drinks, But I mean, you know, mineral water, soda water there,
or a completely different thing. What I really look for today is some of the better alternatives to regular soft drink. I haven't done the mineral waters or the sparkling waters today. So the first one that I thought was just important to put in is just the standard you know, zero sugar soft drink, because I think most of us know there's barely any catalies in there from a diabetic perspective, you know, low sugar perspective, where of course most of us are better to go for a low sugar variety,
particularly if you're diabetic. So the one that I added today was the Swepts Raspberry zero sugar. So it's one point one liters and it's two dollars fifty at wolworst, so it's nothing, you know, outrageous in terms of price all that sort of thing. When you look at like one of those body bottles of cokes, if you're buying that at the movies or something like that, year easily up, it's of four or five dollars. So this is over a litter and it's a raspberry flovor, which I chose
on purpose. And if you look at the ingredient SUSI, it's mostly AUSI made like ninety nine percent of serrain ingredients. We've got carbonated water as our first ingredient flavors, followed by food acids sweetness nine fifteen, nine five two and nine five five which are artificial sweetness. We've got preservatives in there, and color one two three. Looking at the nutrition label, I think today we'll do per hundred mills, even though there's really not much of anything in these ones.
So basically energy, you've got five killer jewels. You were like one calorie. There's no protein, there's no fat, there's no carbs, there's no sugar, there's obviously no fiber because there's nothing in it, and there's just a small amount of sodium in there. So basically we're seeing nothing much on the nutrition label, but we are getting a fair
whack of these artificial colors in there. So color one, two three in some other countries, such as America, has really been banned or sort of taken out of a lot of products. The UK has made a big shift.
It hasn't necessarily banned it, but it's made a big shift to just recommend that parents don't really give this to kids too much because there has been i would say a small amount of research to say than some children and adults or more sensitive these types of artificial colors can cause, you know, behavioral disturbances ADHD type symptoms. So it's interesting that we're still in twenty twenty two adding artificial colors into different products, particularly like soft Trick.
So this for me, I don't care that it has zero calories and zero sugar. I would not be recommending it to my clients because of the added colors.
I agree one hundred percent so when you look at the research around zero type soft drinks with artificial sweetener, it's not great, you know, in terms of certainly if we can find natural sweetness, and this hasn't got just one artificial sweetener, it's got three different ones to give
that incredibly sweet flavor. Which is the last thing, because let's be honesty, and this is a product really marketed for kids and teenagers, like it's bright red, So certainly that level of sweetness is not what I would want to encourage in any young person across the board. And
I'm with you one hundred percent. And it's actually the artificial sweetness combined with that preservative, which is too a lo in which some of the neurological research has been done and it's early stages, but they believe there's an interaction between the artificial sweetener and the preservatives in diets of drinks. But that color is what we would call an artificial color. I think they should be banned in the food supply as soon as I see to have a heart attack. So it's also you see it in
the bright orange, the bright blue. There's a blue fanter out at the moment, slurpies and notorious for that, and at a party I was a recently, the kids are walking around with slurpies and with had a heart attack. So anything that is not the natural color of food, you know, this bright pink, this bright blue, it's not good for us. You know, I don't think you need a degree in nutrition to think that's probably not the best thing for growing small children, let alone any of us.
And I think they should be banned these colors in general. So absolutely it would be an absolute no grow from me. And I am quite strict with that with my kids. I've said before, I'm not overly strict in my kids in terms of dessert or treats, but I will not have any kind of soft drink or color drink ever that I'm in control of. And as you can imagine, if it slips in through grandparents have a heart attack. So certainly it's a big it's a big no from
me on anything that's bright pink and red. And for those reasons, the artificial color and also the mix of artificial sweeteners.
And then the next time of Tros and Susie is an interesting one because David really likes this one, and I said to him, right if you're gonna have this in the house, and you know, me is going to grow up knowing that had daddy.
Likes this sort of stuff, I want to.
Have something that's a little bit better. So we sort of settled on this one because it does have a little bit of artificial sweetness in it, but it's much more natural from a color perspective, and it doesn't have that overly sweetener that artificial taste of the sweetness as well. So it's the Waterford's mineral water apple berry. But to me, even though it's a mineral water, it tastes like a soft drink, and I'm not a big soft drink drinker.
So a very small glass of this at dinner, watered down with just a little bit of cold water and some ice, to me is like a really really lovely treat Like it definitely doesn't have that terrible artificial sort of sweetness taste afterwards, which is nice. So it's a dollar nine if I have at woolworst for a litter and if you look at the ingredients. So I've gone
the waterfalls the apple berry one. They also do a lemon lime one, and I think there's from a memory like a lime flavor as well, or maybe a mango or something. There's a couple of different flavors in the range,
so this one's an apple berry one. Carbonated water is the first ingredient, followed by reconstituted juice, so it's got apple four point nine percent and raspberry point one percent, so it's actually flavored with a little bit of reconstituted juice, which, yes, from a sugar perspective, there's a little bit in there,
but I don't think it's the worst thing. When I run through the nutrition label as well, there's also a little bit of food acid, some natural flavor, some preservatives, some sweetness, same as the one before, nine two five, nine five five and nine point fifty, with a little bit of black carrot concentrate, some natural color source from black carrot, so they're adding the color in there in a more natural way. So this is far better than the added color one two three in the previous SWEPS
raspberry one that we've seen. So going to the nutrition panel again, I'll do per hundred miles, we have twelve killer jules in terms of energy, so what's that four calories zero proteins are a fat zero point five grams of carbs zero point four grams of that being sugar, So yes, there is a little bit of natural sugar from the reconstituted juice, but it's zero point four grams
per hundred mils. So if you're just having a small cup of this or a small amount of this, or you're watering it down with a little bit of water like I like to do, it's only a very small amount of sugar compared to something like a fool sugar soft drink, and obviously no fiber with fourteen milligrams of sodium, which is barely anything. So I like this one as a little bit of an in between between then you know, really artificial type soft drinks and then also the ones
with the added colors. So yes, it has some artificial sweetness in there. There's a little bit of natural sugars as well, and of course it's free from the added colors as well, So I don't mind this as sort of like an in between option. And definitely this is David's favorite one from like a taste perspective. He often has this one. And if we do have you know, friends over all that sort of thing, I will pull out this if I have friends that are pregnant or
not drinking all that sort of thing. So I think it's a nice sort of in between one, and I do sometimes recommend this one for my clients as well. Despite there being a little bit of added sugar in there, it's nothing like the teaspoons and tea spoons that you would find in a normal soft drink.
Yeah, I'm with you. This has been around for a really long time, this brand. I remember when I first worked in the hospitals and this came out, this product, and you're right, it does have quite a nice flavor and looks like anything in moderation. I wouldn't be against it. It's not my go to pick, but I'm not the consumer of this brand. I think a lot of it's to do with taste, because I think if things taste good, and obviously said David quite likes it, so it's got
a nice flavor. But if I was being nutrition purist, I would say, where possible, seek out and naturally sweetened products. So as soon as you see those nine fifties, I wouldn't be keen and I certainly wouldn't be keen for children to be consuming those based on the evidence that it primes us to want more sweet food long term, and as such we also to wrap up our products.
Have found probably what we would call the standout. So if we were rating then we would say, well, the artificial color and sweetness sort of the ideal of the worst, followed by then the artificial sweetener. But then you've been great and found what we would probably call the gold standard if it comes for a sweetened drink, which is the next range, and they've got a growing range in supermarkets. I've seen with a much well, I think it's a
much better nutritional panel. And you would have seen these bottles because they're right through supermarket. It's the next bar drinks range. They've got a really extensive range. I want to say, they've got butcher, they've got water.
They do, yeah, they've got cans, they've got the soft drink bottles.
A lot of different products in supermarkets. So you've picked the sugar free pineapple sparkling infusion. Has David had this one?
He has? He really likes. We often had this and the pineapple flavor. I'm just going to put it out there, guys. Is delicious, it's nice.
And it's actually and well, is it more expensive? No, it's about the same.
We're two dollars fifty. It's on sale at the moment.
We can't get them on sale, so that's a bonus. So two is fifty if it's not on sale. Always liked to buy things on sale. Perserved twenty killer or so next to nothing. They're no protein, fat as you'd expect, minimal carbohydrate in significant at zero point one, and no sodium actually, which is interesting because I think in the other examples they've had a little tiny bit, which is interesting. This has got absolutely none. But if we look at
the ingredied, it's a much cleaner list. So we've got purified sparkling water the next, but natural sweetener blend which is a erythrotol, and Stevia citric acid, which is just to get the bubbliness right of the water. Natural flavors, natural pineapple flavor, natural color, very important, and it's said that the erythrotol is naturally produced by the fermentation of
starches and fruits and vegetables. So it's got no preservatives, which is a major standout for me because preservatives in small amount amounts aren't bad for us, but sometimes as chemicals they do interact and as I said, there is some research to show that sodium benzoate, which is a common preservative in soft drink, can interact with sweeteners and they believe has some neurological impact long term. So as I said, it's in its early stages of research, but
that has been flagged in studies before. So to have a product like this with no preservatives, let alone sodium benzoate is really fantastic and made in Australia from ninety five percent of Australia ingredients. So if I was recommending a product, I generally say I don't go for WATERFS
because it's got artificial sweetener. Certainly, I'm a much bigger fan of this range of drinks, and you can find them freely in supermarket, which is important because you need to be able to pick them up as part of the weekly shop and not have to go to specialty stores to find these products. So that is absolutely I think you would agree with me our standout. If you like a sweet drink, really seek out, particularly for children,
the natural sweetness and no preservatives and natural colors. Now we would always say water should be the drink of choice. If you were giving this to children, I would say, no more than one very small cup a day. But it's like anything, it's personal choice how you run your family and their intake, and this would be our pick, particularly if you're having parties and you wanted to give the kids something that was a bit sweet up. This
would absolutely be my pick, even over for juice. Yeah, and personally, I mean, I can't talk to me.
He's not at the age where she would have this, but I like to think that I wouldn't even be giving this to me, even in a small copper day. This would be more like a treat based thing, even though it is a lot a lot healthier. There's no sugars in it because just as you mentioned, it is
so overly sweet. If I did give her a little bit at absolutely water, and I would still treat this like a you know, sometimes treat based food or drink versus something that's like regularly sort of available as well.
So as she grows up, I will be very careful that David is limiting the amount of these sorts of things that we do have in their household, because, as you've said, it's very easy once they become teens and they make their own money for them to then go to you know, places like seven to eleven and get
a slurp. You'll go to McDonald's and get one of the iced you know, rispberry drinks or something like that, And I think as kids and teens, they have a hard time knowing that this really sweet yellow drink is any different to the sweet red drink that they'll get at a birthday party as well. So I think limiting this overall for our children is really important. But definitely choosing the healthy arrange if it is a bit of a celebration or a birthday party or a bit of
a treat for the week as well. So I definitely this is one that I recommend for the majority of my clients as well. It's a really great brand and it's bussy. It's made from Austrainan ingredients as well, which I think is great, great find, wonderful all right, guys, Well, that brings us to the end of the Nutrition Catch product review for another week. We'd really love if you
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