Meatless Monday: DIY Fizzy Drinks

Being green doesn’t get much more fun than this — making your own seltzer using water from your tap!

We have owned a SodaStream Source since late December. We love it!

With our Source we can make seltzer any time we want. Without electricity. With just the push of a finger. The best part is that there are no more full bottles to carry from the supermarket and no more empty ones to return.

The white cloud is the fizz.

Granted, there is an initial cost. The SodaStream Source lists for just under $100 at Bed Bath & Beyond (BB&B). The carbonator must be replaced when it runs out of fizz. Our first lasted nearly 5 months with daily use by 2 adults. When it runs empty, you can exchange it for a charged one at a number of retailers for just under $15. However, we have yet to pay full price, since it is possible to apply BB&B coupons to the purchase of any SodaStream products.

This page has information on how SodaStream products work. 

Here are a few tips:

• Always use cold water. Keep a bottle of cold water in the fridge for this purpose.
• There are three fizz settings. Start at the lowest setting to determine the level of fizz you prefer. At a lower setting, your carbonator will last longer.

The Source is packaged as a Starter Package. Included are various syrups for flavoring your drinks. Go ahead and try them out, but don’t feel you have to buy in to this part of the package to make a good drink.

You can save money and have lots of fun making your own flavors.

Here are some ideas we’ve tried.

• The water is delicious on its own, but try adding a splash of freshly squeezed lemon or lime.
• Lingonberry Drink Concentrate from IKEA (with no high fructose corn syrup) makes a deliciously fruity beverage. Start out with 4 tsp. and add more to taste. IKEA also sells Elderflower and Blueberry syrups. 
• Make your own syrup for ginger ale with a good old-fashioned kick.
• Make a 50/50 blend of fizzy water and your favorite juice.

You get the idea.

The SodaStream site claims the SodaStream carbon footprint is up to 80% lower than other carbonated soft drinks. This page is devoted to information on the cost of America’s addiction to bottled water and how freeing yourself from this habit is good for both your wallet and the planet.

While most of the press about SodaStream has a positive spin, I feel compelled to share something about the company about which I was not aware when we bought our Source. Although its box is labeled: “Made In Israel,” our SodaStream Source was actually manufactured in the Mishor Adumim industrial park in Ma’ale Adumim, the largest Israeli settlement in the West Bank. Germany may soon restrict “Made in Israel” labels to exclude products made outside Israel’s 1967 borders. Some human rights activists are calling for a boycott of these products. You can read more here. 

Let your conscience be your guide.

Whatever you decide, have a great week. Stay cool. Eat (and drink) well. 

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Saturday Short Subjects: On the Move

In just a few days it will be moving time in the Have. Come August 1, leases will be up. Grads will move out and new students will start moving in. Permanent residents will once again realize just how many of their neighbors have merely been passing through.

All those books, sneakers, and odds and ends can’t simply be dumped in a truck. For those on a budget, it will soon be box hunting season. Those lucky enough to be heading to a job might decide to spring for new boxes, but these are pricey indeed and labor intensive to assemble.

There is, however, a better way.

Back in the winter months I spied a delivery truck imprinted with an interesting name – JuggleBox. The truck’s owner and I happened to be heading to New Haven Green Drinks, where I learned a bit about his company and promised a blog post. [Better late than never.]

JuggleBox is a NYC area startup that rents plastic boxes for moving. The company delivers the boxes to your old address. You keep them for two weeks. JuggleBox picks them up at your new address when you are through with them, and sanitizes the boxes before they are rented out again.

There is a price, of course, but it is lower than the cost of new boxes — according to JuggleBox, 50% less. Delivery is free. No assembly is required. True, you might be able to get boxes for free, but who knows where they have been? And think of all the time you’ll save by simply renting what you need, ready to use.

According to JuggleBox, Americans could save 122 million trees, 441 million gallons of oil and 65 million cubic yards of landfill EACH YEAR if they used plastic instead of new cardboard boxes for their residential moves. 

That's a lot of trees!

The JuggleBox site is a great resource for moving tips. JuggleBox even offers suggestions on how to downsize [somewhat counterintuitive since that means less boxes required].

While JuggleBox serves only the CT/NYC area, my quick search turned up a similar company in the Bay Area — ZippGo.

If you find yourself on the move this fall, check out green moving boxes. See what satisfied customers have to say here. 

Green moving boxes are good for your budget and for the planet. What better way to get packin'? If I were going somewhere, it would be a no brainer.

Why Saturday Short Subjects? Some readers may recall  being dropped at the movie theater for the Saturday matinee — two action-packed feature films with a series of short subjects (cartoons or short movies, sometimes a serial cliffhanger) sandwiched in between. Often the short subjects were the most memorable, and enjoyable, part of the morning. That explains the name. The reason behind these particular posts is that we are all short on time. My Short Subject posts should not take me as long to write or you as long to read (or try).

Meatless Monday: Superpowered Jam

After taking a vacation from unnecessary cooking during our heatwave, I have resumed my experiments with chia — determined to find some tasty ways to incorporate this amazing food into my [our] diet.

Since fresh blueberries are in season, I decided to try a recipe printed on the back of my bag of Bob’s Red Mill Grains-of-Discovery Whole Seed Chia. Bob’s recipe for Blueberry Chia Jam utilizes chia’s gelling properties as a “nutrient-rich substitute for pectin.”

For once I decided to follow the instructions to the letter. Here you go:

Blueberry Chia Jam 

Yield Ten Servings

INGREDIENTS

3 cups fresh blueberries

1/4 cup agave nectar

1/4 cup chia seeds

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine berries and agave nectar in a small saucepan.

Cook over medium heat until berries begin to burst — about 5 minutes.

Add chia seed and cook, stirring often, 

until very thick — about 15 minutes.

Remove from heat and let cool.

Add vanilla extract.

Store in refrigerator up to 7 days.

The result? It looks like jam and tastes like jam. The only thing you have to wrap your head around is that your usual blueberry jam does not have seeds, and this jam is chock full of them. The taste is blueberry, but the texture is blackberry.

It makes a delicious Greek yogurt parfait and a mean jam sandwich.

Greek yogurt, chia jam, Greek yogurt, chia jam

This recipe is meant to yield 10 servings. By my calculations [using Bob’s nutrition info], the chia in each serving will yield 8% of your daily dietary fiber and nearly 2.5% of your calcium. 

Blueberries are a super food in their own right. 

Chia + blueberries + no high fructose corn syrup = one very healthy treat!

Who knew jam could be so easy and a superfood, too?

Don’t be surprised if your recipe yields less than 10 servings. I don’t think you will find it a problem to eat all your jam in a week. My guess is that it will freeze well in a ziplock bag. I was going to try this, but, well…maybe next time.

Have a great week. Happy eating.

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”