How Many Calories are In Water?

 

 

 

 

 

If you're like me, you drink a lot of water.  It's good for you, and refreshing, and it's generally my drink of choice.  I drink more water than just about anything else, and  probably go through a 2.5 gallon jug every 5 or 6 days.  I wish I lived in a place where the tap water was even remotely drinkable..but I don't, which leaves me with no choice but to buy my water. I used to buy the cases of 20 oz bottles, but I switched to the 2.5 gallon jugs when I realized how many of those bottles I was downing ..and tossing into the trash. 

 Now, as much as I love the taste of pure, plain, cold water..every so often, I like to mix it up and drink something with a little flavor to it.  Last week when I went shopping, it just so happened that Walmart was having a 10/10.00 special on a bunch of different flavored "waters", and one of them was Glaceau Vitaminwater.  I've never tried Vitaminwater before, but I have always been very attracted to their cool packaging and the pretty kaleidoscope of colors, in various shades of pink, purple, orange, peach..even blue!  If the pretty colors aren't enough to attract you, they each have a cool and funny little blurb on them.. this is really cool water.. I thought, "what the heck..I'll give it a try", and I picked up a rainbow assortment to take home. 

Now, I'm a label reader normally, but it was water, right?!   Wrong!  I got home, and popped open a bottle of pink "Formula 50" water.. I took a sip, and it was really tasty...fruity and sorta sweet, but not overly so.. very yummy!   So, I then turned it around and took a gander at the nutrtion label.. lots of vitamins and minerals,  and 50 calories.  Not great, but it's flavored water.. it's bound to have some calories.   Wait.. that's 50 calories PER SERVING.. and there's 2.5 servings in each 20 oz  bottle.. that's 125 calories per bottle!!  Is water supposed to have 125 calories in it??   Maybe it's just me, but I don't know that it's quite accurate to name something with 125 calories in it "water".  

I went on to read the rest of the nutritionals on it, and found that it has a pretty decent amount of vitamins and minerals -.always good and helpful, and much better than drinking soda or other high-calorie, sugary drinks that are empty calories. That's half the calories of a can of Coke... but still.. 125 calories.. in water?  The nutritionals for the "Formula 50" flavor are as follows:  Serving size 8fl oz, servings per container 2.5, calories 50, total fat 0g, sodium 0mg, total carbohydrate 13g, sugar 13g, protein 0g, vitamin C 20%; vitamin E 20%; vitamin B3 20%; vitamin B6 20%; folic acid 20%; vitamin B12 20%, vitamin B5 20%

Vitaminwater is produced by Glaceau's parent company "Coca-Cola".  Compared to their other offerings, as much as I love Diet Coke, this is a much better alternative, especially if you're looking for something at least a little healthier to give the kiddies to drink, but it's a really, really big stretch, and very misleading to be calling it water.  Calling it Vitaminwater, somehow implies that it's  a) water  b) healthy and really good for you.   This  product is neither of those things.  Each bottle  contains 32.5 grams of sugar..  in the form  of "crystalline fructose", otherwise known as high fructose corn syrup..  I  have  been trying  to limit my  intake of HFCS, as we all should,  and  though I don't think I'll ever manage to cut it out completely, unless the companies change the recipe of some  things I love  too much to give up completely...but  I really dislike the idea of  something  sold and marketed as  water  containing  HFCS .  Crystalline fructose, by the way, contains arsenic.   I read that somewhere, but I'm too lazy to go find the source.. Google it , you'll see.   Glaceau also makes  something called  "Fruit water", which is much lower in calories and  lightly flavored,  but it does also contain a  small  amount of  crystalline  fructose, so  I still don't  know that I'd consider it  to be water.   They also offer "Smart water", which has 0 calories and has electrolytes.. but it's not flavored.

The bottom line, for me at least, is that water should contain 0 calories, and flavored water not many more than that.  As much as I enjoyed drinking the Vitaminwater, and I did drink all 10 and enjoyed them very much.. LOL..  I learned my lesson to always, always READ THE LABELS  very carefully before you buy something, to be sure you're buying what you think you're buyiing.   Luckily for us, there are some flavored waters out there that actually are not bad choices.  One better one I've  found is something called Owater.   It doesn't have 0 calories,  but it has half the calories of Vitaminwater, about 75 per bottle, and no HFCS.  They use pure cane sugar, and add electrolytes and stuff. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be widely available yet, but you can order it online here.

Honestly, I have looked at quite a few of the flavored waters, and none of them is all that great for you.  They all either have a ton of calories, usually from HFCS or crystalline fructose.. Like Fuze.. or they have very few to no calories, but they are made with artificial sweeteners.   Given a choice, I'd take 0 calories and  take my chances with the artiticial sweeteners, so I think I'll stick with something like the new Dasani flavored water line (also from Coca-Cola) for now...it has 0 calories, and I drink flavored water so infrequently that I'm fine with the Splenda in my water..  At least until Hint water is available locally.  Hint is seemingly the Holy Grail of flavored water." pure water, accented with a hint of natural flavor. No sugar, no artificial sweetener"...and it come's in some reaaally cool flavors..like mint..and cucumber.. and Hibiscus Vanilla.  I'm actually tempted to order a case, next time I have an extra 44.00 to spend on water.  In the meantime, I guess I'll just try to stay away from flavored water as much as possible, drink my water unflavored, and stick to unsweet tea when I feel a need to mix it up.