(no subject)

[miko2]

I'm always on the lookout for bottled flavored water. Bottled water is fine, I don't really care what brand it is because it's just water, right? But flavored water comes in a lot of different stripes and prices. I like the flavor, but you have to pay attention to what you're getting.

I usually shop at Fred Meyers. That means I'm pretty much left to Aquafina Flavorsplash or Nestle Purelife brands. (I think the second one is Nestle... if not, it's something similar).

I don't have a major problem with either of these per se, but both brands include more than just water and flavor. They contain preservatives and chemicals to protect the flavor or freshness. I didn't used to care about such things, but after kehf pointed it out I started looking for such things and buying water without such chemicals when I had a choice. Still, I usually shop at Fred Meyers so if I don't want to go elsewhere, that's what I end up with.

Of the two, I prefer Aquafina (a Coca-cola product I believe). It's slightly more expensive but I like it better. I like the raspberry, blackberry, and mixed berries flavors. However, both of these are "sweet" tasting waters and I've kind of gone away from such types of water in the past year.

If I shop at Top Foods I can pick up Haggen flavored bottled water. This is pretty much the same thing, but is cheap and comes in Mandarin Orange, which Aquafina doesn't.

There are some other options at Top Foods that I can't find at Fred Meyers. More on that in a moment.

Two other options that I sometimes go for are the Archer Farms flavored spring water and the Market Pantry sparkling water beverages, both sold at Target (and as far as I know, they are Target's store brands). These are cheap and come in flavors that the others don't, such as Tangerine Lime or Kiwi Watermelon, but otherwise they're basically the same, sweet-tasting flavored waters with preservatives.

What I'm much more partial to these days is flavored mineral water. My favorite brand is Crystal Geyser sparkling mineral water, which comes in lemon, lime, and orange. There's a "very berry" flavor too but I've never seen it for sale. Anyway flavored mineral water is generally not sweet at all and also rarely comes with preservatives, so it's become my water of choice.

What's kind of sad is you can pick up Crystal Geyser brand plain water almost anywhere, but I can only get their flavored mineral water at specialty nature markets. Marlene's Market up in Federal Way carries it in packs of 4 bottles for $2.50, which is a really nice price, but I don't have many other reasons for going up there. I've found it in Whole Food and PCC Natural markets too, and recently I discovered it at a Nature Market right next to the Target North of me, but they only sold individual bottles for .89 cents each which was not as cheap or convenient at Marlene's.

However, Top Foods and Albertson's both carry La Croix in 12-packs of aluminum cans. This is pretty much identical to the Crystal Geyser mineral water in taste, and easier for me to pick up. It even comes in the same flavors.

A third option that I've found at Top Foods is Calistoga sparkling mineral water. This, too, is virtually identical to La Croix and Crystal Geyser in taste and flavors offered (lemon, lime, orange), but comes in yet a different package -- in six packs of glass bottles.

Some of the stranger options available I don't usually buy. Metromint Water bears the distinction of every flavor being a "mint" flavor (including chocolate mint flavored water). I don't mind this stuff at all but it comes in single bottles and is too expensive for me to buy more than maybe one now and again for the novelty. Sparkling Rain has a line of flavored waters called Twist Organics that I refuse to buy, because even though it's not much, they add a little sugar -- up to 4 grams per bottle. I don't need that, and anyway these also fall into the category of "single bottles selling for too much money per bottle". I forget how much exactly, but most of these specialty brands run from $1.29 a bottle on up to nearly $2.00 each.

One thing I've been doing lately is trying to kill two birds with one stone. Problem #1: Plastic bottles are a landfill/recycle problem. You hear reports about this all the time, because bottled water has become so popular. Problem #2: I buy Crystal Lite but I almost never actually make it, because it takes several minutes and drinking from a bottle is so much easier.

Solution: Make a whole bunch of Crystal Lite at once, bottle it all in used water bottles, and put it in the fridge for later.

That's been working pretty well for me. ^_^ The only problem is now I feel like I should only buy water that comes in sturdy plastic bottles that I can reuse multiple times.