While I was out shopping recently, I picked up a bottle of carbonated water that was flavored with lemon. When I took a swig, I was surprised that the drink was sweet and had a strange aftertaste. Reading the ingredients, I realized that the harmless looking water actually contained artificial flavors and sweeteners. As someone who actively avoids sodas and other sweetened drinks, I was angry; my water had been contaminated!

So a new “water enhancer” marketed by Kraft caught my eye.  MiO comes in several brightly colored flavors, and the syrupy concoction is packaged in a silver pod that reminds me of a tiny alien spacecraft. You add a squirt or two to your water, and the brightly colored syrup swirls around in your cup.  Kraft is marketing MiO as calorie-free, caffeine-free, and free of artificial flavors.  Could this be a healthy option? If there are no calories, where do the colors, flavors and sweetness come from?

If you dig around on MiO’s Facebook page, you can find the nutritional information buried in the “Info” section.  The first ingredient is water. After that, things get a bit more complicated. Propylene glycol is a chemical with various uses: it is an ingredient in the production of paintballs, it’s the main ingredient in deodorant, and it can de-ice aircrafts. Very high doses of propylene glycol can be toxic. In MiO, it serves to prevent clumping and results in the signature swirling of MiO as it enters the water.

MiO also contains an artificial sweetener (sucralose) as well as preservatives and artificial colors. Do these ingredients actually “enhance” water, or do they
make our H2O cloudy with unnecessary chemicals?

There are simple, tasty, and natural ways to doll up your water. Use seltzer; add some lemon, berries and maybe even (gasp) a teaspoon of sugar. Whatever you do, don’t assume that flavored water drinks have simple ingredients or you might end up drinking a nasty surprise.

Posted by iankusc at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So yesterday I rented a car for the meeting and the car happened to be a hybrid, part gas and part electric.  I won't get into the make or model, but I'll say it drove fine, got decent mileage, and had terrible sight lines.  I drove it around the New York area while 6500 miles away, our friends in Japan wonder if their islands will sink into the sea, or if Godzilla will rise up and attack, again.  And all the while I'm thinking, if it weren't for the energy industry, Peeled Snacks wouldn't exist.  And that's just sad.

We here at Peeled Snacks make a great, clean, tasty product that's all organic, sustainably grown, and we dry our fruit using technologies that slightly tweak recipes used about 10,000 years ago.  We're using packaging that's free of dangerous agents, and all of our cardboard is recycled, and we work in a very energy efficient building in one of the most energy efficient cities in the world.  But eventually, when it comes down to it, we're shipping our products, first from the farm, then from the factory.  And that takes fuel.  Environmentally speaking, it's our Achilles heel.  A heel that we share with a LOT of other companies.

I note that several car companies are prepping fully electric (or mostly electric) cars for the market.  While that cleverly seems like a zero-exhaust system, electric cars really act as an exhaust aggregate of exhaust.  The electricity pulled from the grid to fuel the cars comes from power plants, and therefore mostly from fossil fuels.  Nice try, car companies, where's the REAL solution?

For the last five years or so, nuclear power has been talked about more flatteringly than it had in a generation, but I assume that conversation's over.  Perhaps the tragedy in Japan will force governments and engineers to create a safer nuclear power option (most of the technology is over 30 years old, at LEAST), but there's not too much getting around the problem that however long your nuclear-fueled car runs, the exhaust from a nuclear power plant sticks around for TENS of THOUSANDS of years.  Gulp.

So, as we're building up to Earth Day, I'm writing this somewhat as a confession- Peeled Snacks is helping farmers grow food more sustainably, and helping snackers eat better food.  But we're still stuck shipping our products like everyone else.  And that sucks.  When there's a better solution out there, we'll be on the bandwagon as soon as we can.  In the meantime, glug glug. 

Sigh,

Peeled Skinny, who'll take public transportation today, thanks 

Posted by iankusc at 09:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)