Review : Crystal Light On The Go : Fruit Punch

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. After trying both the natural lemonade and wild strawberry flavors, we then sampled the fruit punch variety.

As with the other two types of Crystal Light we tried the first thing I noticed was that the product contains aspartame, which immediately threw me off of any future purchases. The idea of Crystal Light I love; the fact that it contains a sugar alternative I don't.

Taste-wise, my two children, ages 6 and 4, liked this kind. My husband liked it better than the wild strawberry but less than the lemonade, which is the one he preferred. At first sampling I found the taste to be exactly like Kool-Aid fruit punch, which I've never been partial to, and the more I drank the worse the flavor became. I didn't even finish my glass.

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 sampling this particular Crystal Light I drank no more water than usual and probably less, because the taste was so terrible that I didn't even finish my water.

Pros: convenience, only 5 calories per serving

Cons: contains aspartame, yucky kool-aid flavor

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

The Bottom Line: I wouldn't buy this product because it contains aspartame, and I especially hated this flavor.