Don’t buy flavored water: Make your own
with this pocket-size squeeze bottle. Photo
by Elvira Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.

On previous World Water Days, we advocated buying a permanent water bottle to spare the earth the landfill of billions of plastic bottles a year.

ENHANCE TAP WATER WITH WATER ENHANCERS

This year, for folks who don’t like plain water from the tap, we’ve advocating portable water enhancers instead of iced tea, Vitamin Water and other options. These small squeeze bottles fit in your pocket and turn your [reusable] bottle of water—or a glass of water—into a zero-calorie flavored beverage.

The process is simple: Take your water bottle or a glass of water, squeeze in a few drops of water enhancer and shake or stir. No refrigeration is required; the enhancers are caffeine-free and gluten-free.

As an at-home or on-the-go product, water enhancers are environmentally friendly, leaving one small plastic bottle to recycle instead of up to 32 full size beverage bottles.

We tried two brands: AriZona, which makes flavored iced tea, and Stur, which creates flavored water.

ARIZONA WATER ENHANCERS

From the folks who make AriZona bottled teas, these water enhancers let you recreate your own diet AriZona in seven of the company’s most popular flavors: Arnold Palmer Half & Half, Arnold Palmer Strawberry Fruit Punch, Golden Bear Strawberry Lemonade, Lemon Tea, Mucho Mango and Peach Green Tea.

Made with real tea and flavored with real juice and honey without artificial† colors or flavors, there is added sweetness from sucralose (marketed to consumers as Splenda).

How can the enhancer have zero calories when juice and honey are ingredients? They have just a pinch to add flavor while keeping the calorie count less than 1%. If it’s less than 1%, the FDA allows the claim of calorie-free. (And by the way, it’s the same with any ingredient, including trans fats.)

As of now, AriZona Water Enhancers are being sold at Walmart and online. They are expected to roll out to other distributors nationwide.

The line is certified kosher by OU. For more information, visit DrinkArizona.com.

Stur is a water enhancer that adds flavor and vitamins. Instead of making iced tea like AriZona, it turns plain water into vitamin water.

Flavors include Freshly Fruit Punch, Lemon Tea, Only Orange Mango,Purely Pomegranate Cranberry and Simply Strawberry Watermelon.

The line is made with kosher ingredients but has not yet been certified kosher.

Stur is an all-natural† product that supplies 100% DV of Vitamin C per serving, along with a blend of essential vitamins, including A, D, E, B3, B5, B6, B12.

The company’s goal is to encourage Americans drink more water, by giving those who don’t like to drink a lot of water a “delicious way to hit those 8 glasses of water a day.”

You can do more than enhance water:

Just squeeze a drop into a water bottle or glass of water. Photo courtesy Stur.

Get some for yourself, and put them on your stocking stuffer list.

 
*Source: Huffington Post.

†Stevia, the sweetening agent, is a natural product made from the leaf of the stevia plant. While stevia can be a highly processed product like sucralose, sucralose detractors point out that it is created by the addition of chlorine atoms to sucrose molecules. Here’s more information from the anti-sucralose resource.

Cookies & Cream bread pudding from B
Sweet. Photo by Elvira Kalviste | THE
NIBBLE.

The headline: Delicious bread pudding from freezer to the microwave in minutes.

Launched last month, B Sweet Bread Pudding is melt-in-your-mouth indulgence that’s a cross between bread pudding and a hot soufflé. Bought frozen in 12-ounce containers resembling ice cream pints, they go into the microwave and hot bread pudding emerges.

Chef Barbara Batiste’s B Sweet gained fame on the streets of Los Angeles, where her award-winning food trucks sell a variety of freshly baked sweet treats. The hot bread pudding was named Best Dessert of CitySearch Los Angeles.

There are four flavors:

“NOUVELLE” BREAD PUDDING

B Sweet isn’t like Mom’s chunky custard-laden bread pudding. It’s “nouvelle” bread pudding.

The consistency is smooth, like a dense, cakey soufflé. While custard is an ingredient, the eggy custard flavor of conventional bread pudding is replaced by the featured flavors (apple, brownie, chocolate sandwich cookie and glazed donut).

And reading the ingredients label, pound cake seems to have replaced the stale bread.

But however the magic happens, the result is quite noteworthy.

If you’re worried about calories: 1/4 container has the same calories as 1/4 container of Haagen-Dazs.

The four flavors of B Sweet Hot Bread Pudding. Photo by Elvira Kalviste | THE NIBBLE.

The spring equinox occurred yesterday at 12:57 p.m. It begs for a little astronomy lesson about equinoxes and solstices, the days that mark the change of seasons.

What’s An Equinox?

During an equinox, the sun is closest to the Equator, the imaginary line around the Earth that is equidistant from the North and South Poles. On those days, night and day are approximately equally long. The name “equinox” is derived from the Latin aequus, equal and nox, night.

An equinox marks the beginning of spring and fall. To acknowledge the Southern Hemisphere, where the seasons are opposite, the vernal and autumnal equinoxes are now being called the March and September equinoxes.

Solstices, on the other hand, occur when which the sun is furthest from the Equator and the difference in length between night and day is greatest. This creates the shortest day of the year, in December, and the longest day, in June. Solstices mark the beginning of winter and summer.

Solstice means “sun-standing” from the Latin solstitium, literally, the apparent standing still of the sun (sol is sun, sistere is to stand still).

O.K., you’ve studied hard. You deserve a spring cocktail. This one is courtesy of Courvoisier, one of our favorite Cognacs.

 
RECIPE: COURVOISIBERRY COCKTAIL

Ingredients Per Cocktail

 
Preparation

1. Combine all ingredients, stir and serve in a wine glass over ice.

2. Garnish with berries.

3. Toast to spring!