Our healthy living correspondent, Ina Denburg, gave us plenty of good reasons to watch out for all the bottles of liquids that are flavored, colored, sweetened, pumped with “nutrient enhancement through vitamins,” antioxidants, electrolytes; or promise replenishment from a hard sweaty workout, energy, hydration, power, performance or immune protection.
What she didn’t talk about was that all those plastic bottles are a big problem too.
In just 10 years, the number plastic bottles sold grew from 3 billion in 1997 to 31 billion in 2006. And by 2009, that number was up to 50 billion. That’s a growth of more than 1667%!!
What can you do about it?
You could go cold turkey… Mike SanClements of Grist went on a 2-week plastic purge to remove all plastics from his life, including those ubiquitous water bottles.
On the other hand, you don’t have do go quite so far. You can start by following the advice of a GoodFood World reader who said, “I feel good that I make my own ice tea with lemon slices in it or just drink water with real lemon. When I’m done, I eat the lemon slice. That way I eat about 6 lemons a week and lemons are good for you, what’s more they taste great. I confess I sometimes put about 1/2 teaspoon of real sugar in the ice tea.”
Works great for water too… and who’s to get picky about 1/2 teaspoon of sugar? Total calories: 8.
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Photo credit: fhemerick, used with permission under Creative Commons license.