Sodastream - making water exciting!

A recent study commissioned by SodaStream revealed that 45% of UK parents don’t give their kids water at mealtimes. Almost half said the reason was to avoid the additional stress that this would create at the dinner table.

The study revealed that 55% said it was because their children prefer to drink fruit juices, squash or fizzy drinks and that they find water boring, even though 70% of those parents are aware of the high sugar content in such drinks.

However, the study of 2,000 parents revealed that a staggering 80% want their kids to drink more water and will try tactics such as using novelty cups, straws and ice cubes and have even tried bribing them with treats or money. 45% of parents suggested that one answer to persuading their kids to drink more water was to make it fizzy.

SodaStream is on a mission to get the UK drinking more water by making it exciting, simply by adding bubbles, meaning families can have fun drinking more water this January.


     


We were challenged to take part in a campaign to get us drinking more water at mealtimes.  I have to admit to being in the 55% of parents whose child prefers juice drinks or squash to plain water. In fact Freddy really dislikes drinking water so I was interested to see that if I let him make his own fizzy water using a SodaStream, whether he would be more inclined to drink it.

Being involved in making the fizzy water was something that he really enjoyed doing (kids love that farty sound!), and letting him pour his own drinks also proved fun.  Unfortunately, Freddy was happy doing all this and served us all cups of his fizzy water with our meal, but when it came to the crunch, he simply couldn't drink it. He did try, but it just wasn't going to happen without tears. However, as I think that keeping him hydrated is more important than sticking to principles, I was happy to compromise, adding a small amount of organic cordial to the fizzy water. He drank it with gusto and declared it to be better than fizzy pop!

So for me, I may have cheated a little bit, but this is so much better than chemical ridden bottled pop or neat fruit juice in terms of sugar content.  The fizz definitely makes drinking much more exciting and it's a cheaper and greener alternative to buying bottled drinks,  Mealtimes are happy, Freddy is happy and he is hydrated...I call that a success!  I'm sure that as he gets older he will drink more water, as his siblings all have done, but for now I'm bending the rules a little to keep him as healthy and as happy as I possibly can.

SodaStream has teamed with government public health programme Change4Life campaign as part of the solution to encourage parents to cut down the amount of sugar their children consume by making drinking water fun and exciting.

SodaStream Cocktails for the Festive Season and Saturday Nights In!

It’s time to get ready for the festive season with SodaStream. Whether you’re throwing an office party, having pre-Christmas drinks or just enjoying a "Saturday Night In", these quick, easy and refreshing bubbly cocktail recipes will be a hit.

Using just a SodaStream, some key ingredients and a dash of imagination you can easily recreate your favourite cocktail bar at home; a fun way to get friends and family together.

Spicy, fruity, zesty, refreshing or comforting – with Sodastream there’s something for everyone. Guests can even get creative and make their own bubbly drinks, experimenting with different flavours and tastes. 

Cocktail Recipes

* All recipes are fitted to 35 cl highball glass

* Method: shake, strain over ice, top up

Dutch & Bubbly

Set the mood and welcome your guests with a delicious aperitif to stimulate the appetite with a Dutch & Bubbly.

30ml                  Vodka

10ml                  Apricot brandy

10ml                  Fresh lime juice

20ml                  Ginger syrup

To finish top up with extra fizzy SodaStream Passion fruit & Mango soda.

Garnish: lemon peel and half a passion fruit

Mint & Red Berry Fizz

The Mint & Red Berry Fizz is made with Gin, the come-back spirit, and creates the perfect festive SodaStream cocktail for those with a more fruity-pallet

40ml                    Gin

20ml                    Lime juice

20ml                    Raspberry puree

20ml                    Sugar syrup

To finish top up with extra fizzy SodaStream Cranberry & Raspberry soda.

Garnish: mint sprig

Coffee Cooler

Take five and enjoy a Coffee Cooler; the ultimate liquid luxury pick-me-up.

40ml                  Whisky

20ml                  Kahlua

To finish top up with extra fizzy SodaStream sparkling water.

Garnish: grapefruit peel and coffee beans

Sodastream are currently the official sponsors of Saturday Night In with the fabulous Rylan giving us a recipe for his own delicious and fruity cocktail!  Staurday Nights In are perfect at this time of year when the weather is getting colder, the nights are darker and money is tighter.  With a bit of imagination you can enjoy a wonderful weekend with friends and family and a bit of extra fizz!!

Rylan's Passiontini

30ml Vodka
25ml fresh lime juice
15ml Vanilla Syrup
50ml passionfruit juice

To finish top up with 100ml Sodastream Ginger Ale Soda
Garnish:  passionfruit wedge

Holly Days

How about this ultimate refreshing festive tipple?  Make a pitcher for sharing among guests!

700ml chilled white wine
1 litre Sodastream Cranberry and Raspberry
125ml Grand Marnier
fresh raspberries

Put into a pitcher with ice and stir.  Pour into glasses and garnish with a sprig of mint.

Children can get in on the act too making some lovely mocktails which are fun, fruity and will make the kids feel very grown up and sophisticated!  These will also make great drinks for the non-drinkers in a group.

Tropical Sunrise

Sodastream Apple Soda
Passionfruit syrup
Sodastream Ginger Ale

Simply mix together and serve with ice.

Cranberry Fever

Sodastream Lemonade
Passionfruit syrup
Cranberry Juice
Sodastream Sparkling Water

Simply mix together and serve with ice.

Strawberry Delight

Sodastream Apple Soda
Banana Juice
Crushed fresh Strawberries

Simply mix together and serve with ice.

Top Tips

1.           Make sure you use ice-cold water when carbonating with your SodaStream and serve your festive cocktails over fresh ice cubes; this will significantly enhance the refreshing taste of your cocktails! (For cocktail parties allow ½ kg of ice per guest)

2.           Chill your glasses – not just to create an aesthetic Christmas ‘frost’ appearance but to also keep your drinks cooler-for-longer. Pop them in your freezer for 10-15 minutes or if you don't have space, fill with ice until chilled.

3.           Get the most out of your limes – by placing them under warm water and massaging them for a couple seconds before slicing and squeezing!

4.           Shake to the beat of your favourite festive tune – place 5-6 ice cubes per drink in a shaker. Shake vigorously on a slow count for 10 seconds and stop when the frost appears on the cocktail shaker.

5.           Don't overlook the garnish! Whether you are entertaining for an intimate evening at home or festive party make the drinks look as appetizing as they taste; presentation is key and actually enhances the flavours.

Sodastream want  to know what your Saturday Night In looks like would love you to Tweet them a photo using the hashtag #sodasaturday.

Sodastream Source - Simple, Smart, Sleek and Money Saving

It’s time to stop using throwaway plastic bottles and make way for SodaStream Source. Using tap water, Source creates a fabulous range of fizzy drinks, from classic colas and ginger beers through to cocktail mixers. Source makes shop-bought bottles a thing of the past, saving an average home 550 wasted bottles per year!

The Source is a smart, sleek and elegant addition to your kitchen, bringing you cheaper and healthier fizzy drinks at the press of a button. Whether you want to make fizzy water, or one of SodaStream’s own flavours of pop, the Source is an environmentally friendlier way to enjoy fizzy drinks. Powered by a refillable CO2 canister, Source’s responsive touch system allows you to create three levels of fizziness, clearly visible on an LED display, while a new Snap-Lock mechanism makes the system quick, simple and easy to use.

The top of the Source pushes down to put in the fizz and is a very effective method of carbonation.  It does squeak a bit when being used but my kids thought it added to the fun!  The bottles are very easy to attach to the Source and fit securely.  I love the design and the functionality of this new model and I like the fact that you have control over the level of fizz.  We obviously go for maximum bubbles...it's more fun with extra fizz! The Source comes with some samples of syrup so you can try out a few flavours.  My favourite is the Fizzy Orange and the Diet Cola.  The fizzy drinks can be kept in the fridge in the Sodastream bottle if they aren't all drunk at once!

SodaStream’s flavoured syrups offer a healthier alternative to bottled pop. With over 50 different flavours to choose from, you can customise your drinks to suit everyone’s individual tastes. SodaStream’s flavoured syrups offer a healthier alternative to soft drink brands too, with only 1/3 of the sugar and calories. The new range that contains Stevia offers a natural sugar free option for health conscious consumers. The Cocktail range allows adults to get in on the fun and create bases to which you can add alcohol.  Perfect with Christmas fast approaching.

What’s more, using SodaStream you can even create your own sparkling water. Buying bottled water is expensive, storing it takes us space and it is not an eco-friendly product.  You can produce fresh sparkling water whenever you want it using the Source, saving money as well as the planet!  

 SodaStream’s Pink Grapefruit flavour has just been awarded a Great Taste Award and we were sent a bottle to try out. The colourful pink, fizzy drink has real grown up appeal and is so refreshing. It's very different to other fizzy drinks on the market.  Kizzy really liked it.  Priced at about £4.50 it makes 12 litres of fizzy Pink Grapefruit drink.  That is great value for money.

With Christmas coming, investing in a Sodastream will mean you can enjoy fizzy drinks all season long.  No need to carry heavy bottles home from the shop and find somewhere to store them. Just make fizzy drinks to order by the bottle when you want them.  It's cheaper in the long run and it's a lot of fun!  Best of all though, you will be helping reduce the environmental impact of the production and disposal of plastic bottles!

The retail price for Source is £79.99 (plastic) and £129.99 (Aluminium), available at John Lewis, Argos, The Range, Lakeland, Robert Dyas, Currys Megastores, Dunelm Mill, Ocado, Amazon, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, Harrods, The Conran Shop, ASDA, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, House of Fraser and Planet Organic. Here’s the website for more information: www.sodastream.co.uk

I'll be featuring some fun cocktail recipes and top tips for cocktail making in the run up to Christmas, so watch this space for some festive Sodastream fun!

We received the Source for the purpose of this review and future Sodastream posts..

Go Green with SodaStream

I remember when SodaStreams were all the rage when I was a child in the 70's.  I wanted one so badly.  I wanted to "get busy with the fizzy" as I sang along to the TV ads.  Sadly, my parents didn't feel the need to satisfy my craving for a fun-filled fizzy drinks maker.

Who'd have thought that all these years later the retro fizzy drinks maker of my childhood dreams would make such a massive resurgence to become the most sought after gift of Christmas 2010!  It has a sleeker and more chic image, but it is still the same fun gadget I coveted in my youth making sparkling beverages from ordinary tap water!

These days the SodaStream offers much more than just a way of making fizzy drinks at home, it now has a much more important role.  The impact on the soft drinks market on the environment is massive.  The average household consumes over 500 litres of soft drinks and disposes of more than 500 plastic bottles every year. Less than half of these are recycled.  SodaStream is committed to help reduce the impact of the soft drinks market on the environment.  They offer an environmentally friendly alternative to buying ready made soft drinks and fizzy water.  The re-usable bottles last for 3 years, and so they reduce the amount of plastic we thrown away.  It makes much more sense to reduce and re-use packaging than constantly throw it away and buy in more.  Doing the maths...this means that over the life of the SodaStream, the average family would save over 117 kg of plastic packaging!!  This doesn't even take into account the impact of the manufacture of the bottles and the transport of the soft drinks to the shops.  SodaStream's 'Active Green' solution minimizes the huge eco-footprint made by the soft drinks industry!

Putting the fabulous environmentally friendly factors aside, can the SodaStream really offer a replacement for the drinks I buy for my family?  I was lucky enough to be offered a SodaStream Drinks Maker to try out and review Inside the Wendy House with my "Tiny Testers"!  There was a lot of excitement on the day it arrived...the much coveted item was welcomed into my family at long last!

My first impression was that the design was very modern, sleek and would look great in the kitchen.  This isn't a novelty item, it's a serious must-have gadget!  It came with two re-usable litre bottles with lids, the gas cylinder and a sample of three concentrates.

 The Concentrates are available in more than 30 flavours, including isotonic drinks, diet drinks, fruity flavours and mixers.  A £3.29 bottle makes up to 12 litres of sparkling drink.  This is a fraction of the cost you'd expect to pay in the shops.  If you're a fan of sparkling water you can just carbonate your tap water and make massive savings!  This sparkling water can be added to fruit juice to make really healthy homemade fizzy mocktails! (My favourite is orange juice, cranberry juice and fizzy water!  So refreshing with the promise of warmer weather  fast approaching!)

We were sent the Cranberry and Raspberry and the Orange concentrates to try.  The girls made a demo video of how to make Orange Flavoured Fizzy Drink.

It really is very easy and the drinks taste authentic and are good quality. 

New for the 21st century SodaStream have just launched their SodaStream Fizz with  patented in-built Fizz Chip technology which allows consumers to see exactly how much fizz they are putting into their water and also how much gas is left in the cylinder on a digital display.  You'll never be left feeling flat with the "Fizz"!

My family are really enjoying having the SodaStream.  It is fun to use, makes great tasting drinks and fizzy water at a fraction of the price of shop bought drinks and is reducing the amount of waste we produce.  It feels good to know we are doing something positive to reduce our carbon footprint, while still enjoying a treat and having fun!

Here's one I made earlier.

Cranberry and Raspberry...yum!

Fred chooses the next flavour.

A treat for Fred :)

**SodaStream is available from Argos, John Lewis, Lakeland and other quality stores as well as online at www.sodastream.co.uk