Bubbles with a Conscience: Sustainable Soda is the Future

Steep soda

Steep Soda Co is a natural brand of fizzy pop. These drinks are made with fruits from small family farms, both in the UK and on the Mediterranean coast, to support fellow artisans and keep ‘soda miles low’. The range includes:

  • Lime & cucumber (lime juice and zest, with cucumber and mint). Tastes like a no-alcohol mojito.
  • Ginger Beer (made with Chinese root ginger and lemon)
  • Lemonade (also in a pink hibiscus lemonade – a tangy flower that tastes a bit like cranberry or pomegranate).
  • Caffeine-free cola (with fresh limes and organic essential oils of coriander, lavender and nutmeg. The brand says this flavour tastes like old-fashioned childhood cola cubes. also in a sugar-free version (sweetened with stevia).

Many soda drinks on sale (as well as being in plastic bottles) are made with artificial sweeteners and flavourings, and don’t even taste nice). Although water is the drink of choice, if you fancy a fizzy pop, here are some better brands.

Before recycling cans, rinse then pop ring-pulls over holes. Then use your fingers/thumb to ‘pinch’ inner rims together, to avoid wildlife getting trapped. 

Check medication before consuming rhubarb or grapefruit (avoid hibiscus and caffeine for pregnancy/nursing). Also read about organic and fair trade colas. 

Most sodas are sold in glass bottles or aluminium cans (easily recycled, which saves up to 95% on making new aluminium, which then does not have to be mined). You could even set up a community aluminium can and foil recycling scheme, and raise money for community projects, by selling the cans back to industry.

Steep soda

There is also a range of seasonal sodas:

  • Rhubarb (blended with lemon)
  • Spiced apple (a mix of seasonal local apples, with cinnamon sticks, cloves and ground nutmeg). You can enjoy this warmed for winter nights.
  • Orange and blood orange  (from the finest Sicilian fruits)

Cans (not too sweet)

Cans drinks

Cans is an Austrian brand that decided to create a nice soft drink that was not saturated with sugars or artificial sweeteners. Instead, these contain just 3 ingredients:

Cans drinks

  • Alpine sparkling water
  • Fruits from European orchards
  • Natural flavourings

How much water should we drink?

The average adult needs around 1.2 litres per day (more in hot weather or after vomiting or diarrhoea). That’s around six 200ml glasses. So drink two glasses when you wake up, have two more before lunch, and two more before dinner. Add more per glass of wine or beer, or per tea, coffee or cola.

Wash and rinse pet bowls daily. Avoid fizzy water or guzzling water after runs or car trips (to prevent bloat). Don’t let pets drink from puddles (due to bacteria, oil, antifreeze). For outdoor pets, ensure drip-feed bottles are not blocked or frozen.

Some people prefer plain still water. But many people won’t drink water unless it’s fizzy! So it’s far better to choose good brands, rather than sweet sickly drinks with fake flavours and artificial sweeteners.

In fact, sparkling waters now out-sell cola. Accidentally invented in a brewery in 1676, the first fizzy waters used the basic basic system of attaching a soda siphon to a gas canister. Nothing much has changed!

All drinks have zero sweeteners and calories, so a nice refreshing way to hydrate, instead of sugary sodas or artificially sweetened drinks.

Sold in easy-to-recycle cans, they are available in three flavours. You can buy in one-flavour or mixed cans of 24::

  • Apple (with lemon & elderflower)
  • Cherry (with lemon)
  • Lemon (with lime)

The brand is already very successful, having sold over 1 million cans worldwide, realising that there is a huge market for people who want a fizzy soda, that is not overloaded with sweet sugar.

Cans Balance and Performance Drinks

Cans has recently launched two extra drinks (check medication due to herbs and avoid caffeine for pregnancy/nursing). Balance contains ginger for gut health and Performance contains the same caffeine as an espresso coffee).

Nuisance (made with foraged fruits)

mint cucumber soda

Nuisance Drinks offers botanical drinks made with foraged ingredients. Handmade in small batches, choose from:

  • Nettle & elderflower
  • Rhubarb & ginger
  • Pink grapefruit & basil
  • Bramble & rosemary
  • Mint, cucumber & chilli

A portion of profits are given to a charity that helps pollination. If you forage for wild food, leave some for wildlife and never remove ‘baby alligators’ on nettles, as these are ladybirds not ready to fly off. Read more on ethical foraging.

Karma Drinks

Karma cherry soda

Karma Drinks sell organic sodas in glass bottles or cans, sweetened with natural cane sugar. Flavours include:

  • Cherry soda
  • Gingerella Ale
  • Lemonade (and raspberry lemonade)
  • Orangeade
  • Tropikool!

Rapscallion Sodas from Scotland

Rapscallion Soda is a Scottish artisan soda brand, which offers seasonal drink options, so you never now what you’re going to get. The unique flavours include:

  • Blueberry
  • Apple pie
  • Cranachan (raspberry cream)

Quenched (not too sweet)

Quenched Drinks offers three lovely sodas, made with natural ingredients and not too sweet. Choose from:

  • Blackcurrant soda
  • Orange soda
  • Lime soda

Dalston’s (made with real fruits)

Dalston's soda

Dalston’s Soda Co was founded by a chef who did not like sugary soft drinks, so started experimenting in a kitchen in an East London nightclub. Each can is just 50 calories.

Dalston's soda

Everything is  sustainably-sourced (elderflowers hand-picked from a farm in Ross-on-Wye). Pineapples are sourced from sustainable farms in Costa Rica. Flavours include:

  • Peach
  • Elderflower
  • Rhubarb
  • Lemon
  • Ginger Beer
  • Pineapple
  • Cherry

No added sugar or sweeteners, nothing artificial, nothing you can’t pronounce. Unless you can’t pronounce Rhubarb, but that’s really on your parents.

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