We've all heard how healthy water is and how we should drink eight tall glasses each day, but have you ever tried to do that? Water is refreshing ice cold after a long day of mowing or working out in the yard. It's wonderful after a salty meal or by your side as you lie next to the pool on a hot day. But try drinking those eight glasses of water and by the third or fourth one I guarantee you'll be forcing that crisp, clear water down your throat.
Crystal Light takes all that away and adds something - flavor. Crystal Light is a drink mix conveniently packaged in small packets that you simply stir into your water. Crystal Light comes in a variety of types and flavors: first, "refreshment", which is your classic flavors (lemonade, fruit punch, fusion fruit punch, pink lemonade, iced tea, raspberry ice, pineapple orange, strawberry kiwi, strawberry-orange-banana, and raspberry lemonade); second, "tea", which is pretty self-explanatory (peach, iced tea, lemon iced tea, raspberry green tea, honey lemon, red tea mandarin, and white tea blueberry); third, "sunrise", which contains 100% of your daily value vitamin C and quite a bit of calcium too (tangerine strawberry, ruby red grapefruit, and classic orange); and last "enhanced", which has added nutrients to offer further benefits (lightly lemon (hydration), wild strawberry (energy), cherry pomegranate (immunity), and peach mango (metabolism)).
My family and I recently got the chance to try Crystal Light for ourselves. Between the four of us there were varying opinions of course. The first we tried was the natural lemonade.
The first thing I noticed about the product was that it contained aspartame. I do not buy products that use any of those "fake sugars" - aspartame, sucralose, splenda, whatever - so right away I was quite disappointed, because I knew that no matter how convenient Crystal Light might turn out to be or if the flavors were nice I would never buy it.
However, regardless of that fact, we did try the Crystal Light natural lemonade packets. I found the taste to be surprisingly lemonade-y. I was expecting a more chemical taste or something that tasted more like a fake lemonade flavor. Instead the flavor was very much like that of freshly squeezed lemonade (with that unfortunate and weird aspartame flavor added in). My six-year-old daughter found the natural lemonade flavor to be rather sour at the first sip. However, after that initial taste she liked it very much. My husband, like me, found the flavor to be very authentic. My four-year-old son enjoyed the Crystal Light product and seemed to enjoy stirring it into his water.
I used this product while at home, as did the rest of my family. However, I immediately saw the convenience of it. Carry the packets in your purse to flavor water when you're on the go - at work, at class, wherever. Crystal Light would also be great to flavor water when you're eating out. Not only would you save money by ordering water instead of a soda, but the water will also be much, much healthier.
While using the Crystal Light packets I drank no more water than usual. In fact, I probably drank less, because it was hard for me to get around that aspartame taste, so I found myself forcing myself to drink the flavored water. I hate to mention another product in a review for one product, but for me, there is an alternative to Crystal Light and that is True Lemon (or True Lime or True Orange). True Lemon is all natural and does not contain sugar alternatives.
Pros: nice flavor, convenience, only 5 calories per serving
Cons: contains aspartame
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
The Bottom Line: This product was worth a try and was better than I expected it to be. I wouldn't buy it though, because it has aspartame in it. However, if fake sugars don't bother you, then by all means buy this product. If Crystal Light did not contain aspartame (or sucralose or any other sugar alternatives) I would most definitely use it. Instead, I will continue to use True Lemon, which is an all natural product you add to water.
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Comments: 44
Thanks for the good review on the Crystal Light! I like the Kool Aid singles myself. I like to go natural with my daughter with just plain sugar...nothing artificial.
I've never tried the Kool Aid singles, Deb. I might have to give'em a try. I prefer True Lemon because it's all natural. I just don't do all those fake sugars. Thanks for commenting! : )
Good review...My mother likes the Crystal Light.....but I can't drink the artificial sweeteners. They give me migraines, so I also stick with sugar or honey.
I don't do all those fake sugars either, Jax. I fully maintain that they cause cancer and no one can convince me otherwise. Plus I dislike the taste of them anyway.
I know lots of people who are the same way. If that's the way you feel, can I ask why you gave it to the kids? No disrespect, I'm just curious! :)
I can immediately tell if a product has an artificial sweetener in it...I can not only taste it, but the aftertaste is just nasty.
My son has it, because it's for backpacking....it's either that or they have to drink plain water the whole time...and 2 weeks of nothing but water gets boring. I think Pher got at least 8 different flavors from my mother (since I don't buy it) for camp.
Bridget: Aahh, one time won't hurt. I hardly think the kids are going to get cancer or fat or anything from drinking 3 glasses of Crystal Light. LOL I don't buy the stuff - nor any other product that contains aspartame, splenda, sucralose, etc. - so it's not like they drink it all the time. Now that I would have a problem with. Plus getting a perspective of the complete family was good for the review; not everyone feels as I do about the aspartame.
Jax: I know immediately too. I've told my husband that I guarantee if he set 10 drinks in front of me in 10 glasses with nothing to say what each one was that I could tell him 100% if they had sugar alternatives. Like you said, I can taste them and there is that aftertaste. I know instantly.
Thanks for answering! I agree that with certain things "it won't hurt" at all! :) I was just curious since you said you are 100% against it! Thanks for answering and not taking it the wrong way! :)
No prob, Bridget. It's hard to offend me. : )
Me neither....
Now you can get Gatorade packets with just sugar in them....I do like those...they take up more room though.
Jax: Man, I had no idea about the Gatorade ones either. I must be so sheltered! LOL I'll have to look into those too. I was not impressed with the Crystal Light at all. I am really into the True Lemon stuff which is actually natural (only like 3 ingredients!) so it was hard to not compare the Crystal Light to that. The True Lemon was the closest thing I have found to just squeezing a lemon into my water, which I tried but I couldn't keep the lemons on hand very long for various reasons (Haley & Parker stealing them to eat for one! Yes, they will actually eat lemons!!).
We like the lt. blue Gatorade at our house...I can't remember the name of the flavor. Angela will drink about any of them though...PHer won't touch grape and neither will Mike.
I buy both Lemons and limes sometimes, but I too can't keep them long. Angela peels and eats them like she would an orange. She's sucked on and eaten lemons ever since she was a toddler (use to take them off my water glass). I don't get it.
LOL Our kids are too much alike!!!! Haley and Parker both will eat them off my glass when we're at restaurants or if they add them as a garnish to our plates.
Branson also will eat lemons. Even when we go out to dinner, if I get lemon in my water, he asks for it all the time to eat.
Great review, I really like this flavor! The fak sugars don't bother me in the least but I know there are lots of people out there who are 100% against them!
Thanks for commenting, Bridget. I'm probably one of those "100% against" people. LOL I suspect they're (the sugar substitutes) unhealthy and I can't stand the taste anyway.
As a chemist, I'm against it...some of those artificial sweeteners break down to chemicals I don't want in my body....
I just CAN'T have it...more than 2 sips of a drink with it will give me such a migraine that I"m layed out in bed the rest of the day. It took me a while to figure out that was the problem too...
Jax: Makes me think of what hubby and I call "MSG headaches". We can now tell if a restaurant ( esp. a Chinese place) uses MSG in their food because we'll get those MSG headaches which differ in feeling from a regular headache. My mom was always going off on MSG and I never thought much about it until we started to eat healthier after hubby's heart attack and eliminated things from our diet that had MSG. After that we really noticed if we happened to eat something with MSG. I'm anti-MSG too!
I get the MSG headache too....along with nice pretty red hives.
Oh no. You get hives too!! I guess I should be grateful for just a headache. LOL
Pher and I both spend half our lives combatting hives...and the ezcema. It is about to the point that we have lists of things that we CAN eat...the list of CAN'T eat is just getting too long...
Man, that sucks. So far (knock on wood!!) I haven't had to deal with hives with either Haley or Parker. Parker did come down with what we suspect was chicken pox 3 weeks ago. Weirdest case of chicken pox I've ever seen; totally unlike the chicken pox I had as a kid. Our doctor insists that's what it was though. (Totally unrelated to hives I know, but it popped into my head while thinking of hives. LOL)
They could have used stevia instead of aspartame since they want to push the idea that this is "natural."
Stevia. Now there's one I'm unfamiliar with. I'll have to Google it. Why can't companies just use sugar?! It's "natural". And for that matter, I don't see why they even have to add any type of sugar or sugar alternative. What's wrong with no sugar at all?
Stevia is derived from a plant and is a lot healthier than sugar.
Refined sugar really isn't healthy. Sugar in the raw is better if you're using sugar.
Personally, I usually use honey in lieu of sugar.
Heather, thanks for getting back to me. I hadn't had the chance to google it yet (I really was going too LOL). I might have to start using more honey as a sweetener instead of sugar then. I make the kids kool-aid quite frequently and use as little sugar as I can without it being so tart that they can't drink it. Wonder if honey would do the trick? I'll have to try and see what they think.
You can buy turbino sugar...it's not refined and is better for you....it's a lt. brown in color. Honey in Kool-aid is hard, because it takes so much...and doesn't dissolve as well.
My mother always used 1/2 of the sugar it says to use...lol
*sheepishly* 1/2 is what I do too, Jax. Hehe.
Oh, and I've never heard of turbino sugar either. What's it compare like price-wise to regular? And is it hard to find?
Oh, and Heather, I just checked and two of the True products I prefer (True Orange and True Lime) contain that stevia stuff. The True Lemon kind doesn't though; it doesn't have any sugar or sweetener at all.
Thanks Victoria ,for the honest review, I need to be drinking some kind of "light'' anything ,but my Pepsi Colas ! I'm a 'Pepsi-holic' !
LOL Phil! To be honest, right now I'm hooked on Sierra Mist Ruby Splash. It doesn't have caffeine or anything, but it's sooooo good! It's a rare treat as I generally stick to just water.
Given a choice, I'll take the water! Thanks for your thoughtful review, Vic.
Thanks for the review.
I love the Natural Lemonade. It tastes so much better than the other lemonade mixes. Not cloyingly sweet. Doesn't taste like a child's drink. Not like Kool-Aid or Hawaiian Punch or Countrytime. I love it and carry the packets with me. I also buy a box at Costco with a lot in it. Cheaper than buying it at the supermarket.
Thank you for your very honest review!
I just got mine posted today~
I'm going the rounds and reading the reviews... I really appreciate your candor, Victoria!
About Stevia, we use a lot of it in our house, it's our major sweetener of choice. We use it in our coffee, tea, cooking, baking, etc... We use the liquid and powder form. We've been using it so much I don't remember the last time I bought a bag of sugar!
This was a great review and the comments were interesting too.
I noticed they sell Stevia at Sams club.
You must have got better lemonade than me. Or maybe I added too much water. Because it didn't taste sour to me. I love sour, so..
Well, another great review!
Nice reviews. I was worried about the migraines I hear the sweetener causes but I've drank it pretty much for the entire last 2 months without any regular headaches none the less migraines. So I'm good to go, LOL
Sorry the sweetener bugs you so much. It's a good product.
Thanks for viewing and commenting on my reviews, Jennifer. I don't get migraines from the sweetener (or migraines at all now that I think about it - lol) but Jax said it does give her headaches. I just don't like the taste of the sweeteners. To my tastes they give everything a weird flavor - an almost "flat" taste or something. I just don't like that taste.
When I first tried a lot of these flavored waters I thought that too... but with this mix I mix it lightly (I get about 3 servings out of a packet vs the 2.5 it says) and I don't taste it now. :)
I do know what you mean, though about the odd taste!
If it ever gave me headaches I'd be in trouble. I've lost a lot of weight - some since drinking only water - and I'd hate to go back to koolaid and soda and pile it all back on.
Excellent and detailed review!