water: 99% H2O

[cellio]

We have free drinks at work. This is nice, but some people have been asking for a water cooler. (Currently we have a cooler stocked with pop and a little juice. Oh, and carbonated water, which I personally think tastes foul.)

Apparently a water cooler is hard but bottled water is easy, so we now have bottled water. Flavored bottled water, because I guess people who produce bottled water have to put their individual stamp on the product.

For your edification, then, here are the contents of the label from a 16-ounce bottle of Veryfine "Fruit2O", "natural orange" flavor:

Serving size: 8 fl. oz.
Servings per container: 2
Amount per serving / % RDA:
Calories: 0, 0
Total fat: 0, 0
Sodium: 5mg, 0
Total carb: 0, 0
Sugars: 0
Protein: 0

Ingredients: spring water, citric acid, natural flavor, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate (preserve freshness), sucralose, a nonnutritive sweetener. Refrigerate after opening.

Preservatives? Artificial sweetener? Refrigerate after opening??? This is supposed to be water!

I guess I'll keep drinking the tap water. It's not the tastiest stuff in the world, but I get enough chemicals in the rest of my diet and don't need to add to them. (Caffeine is still a critical component, though I'm now trying to alternate units of caffeine with units of non-caffeine, hence the water. As I already weigh way more than I should, I take my caffeine with nutrisweet instead of with sugar. I'd like pure caffeine (in cold liquid form), but that's hard.)

Comments

[cellio]

You could use some other acceptable sweetening agent, such as Splenda or saccharin or that other choice that I can't remember at this hour.

Locally, all the caffeinated pop is made with Nutrisweet or Aspertame (which I think is the same thing??). I haven't seen saccharin in a while; I think the only thing that had it was Tab, which has been gone for ages.

I should probably clarify that I despise the taste of coffee, so I'm talking about cold beverages here. (Yeah, I do like tea, but it seems to be somewhat limited as a caffeine source.)

Getting a spoon and diving in is a recipe for bad stuff.

I suspected as much. That's why I asked. I get nervous about things that can kill me.

You know, it seems like there would be an easier way. I'm not wedded to the idea of caffeine as diet component per se, after all. It's a drug addiction.

The problem with No-Doz is that it's a tablet that delivers its entire dosage all at once, and of course you don't take it until you really need it. So the one time I tried it (in college, of course), it made me very sick and disoriented. But isn't it possible to make a time-release capsule instead? Something that would deliver, say, 250-300mg of caffeine over the course of a day?

Re:

[sethcohen.livejournal.com]

Yep, it's definately possible. However, it's not economically feasible, either for you or me or a large corporation. Not enough of a market for it.
*shrugs* Sorry.