Does anyone know if there’s a brand of tonic that doesn’t contain High Fructose Corn Syrup? It’s something I’m trying to avoid. I know they make diet tonic, but I’m trying to find something that isn’t all chemical. Or just a tonic alternative? I love my G&Ts in the summer, but after a while, the thought of all that HFCS gives me the willies.
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This may be heresy depending on how you feel, but I make my G&Ts (and V&Ts) with Seltzer (Stop and Shop ZAZZ). It’s just carbonated water with nothing funky, but if you’re wedded to the quinine taste than it’s no substitute…
Q Tonic.
I feel for you. Guess I never thought about it. Oddly enough, I just went on Hansen’s website to discover that their “all natural” products contain like an ear of corn. http://www.hansens.com/product.....color=soda
nora, I was wondering how seltzer would taste in a G&T. I’m going to try it; I think I even have a bottle w/a little lime flavor in the pantry.
Jason – Q looks good, although pricey, and I’ll have to trek to Whole Foods to get it. Blarg.
In the US, HFCS is clearly marked on labels. In Canada, labels on pop simply say, glucose/fructose. So I do not know if HFCS is used in Canadian pop and maybe we don’t know about it because it doesn’t have to be labelled specifically. Some things I have seen online argue that Canadian foods do not contain HFCS and I’ve also read that what’s called glucose/fructose on our labels is in fact HFCS. I’ve seen no definitive source that says so one way or another.
I tried diet tonic at Freakgirl’s…ugh! It’s missing the bitter bite of regular tonic. I don’t know if I can drink gin without tonic.
I just found this, where an entity called Refreshments Canada asserts that HFCS is safe and fine to drink and that it is indeed in Canadian pop and is labelled as fructose-glucose. I think it sucks that labels don’t have to specifically denote that CORN is an ingredient! I’ve recently read In Defense of Food and the author talks about how a diverse diet is necessary for health, but when corn happens to be in everything, achieving a diverse diet becomes impossible. One day in the future we’re all probably going to be allergic to corn and corn products.
Perhaps employ the strategy of waiting till just before Passover and seeing if there’s a Safe-for-Passover (yellow cap) version of tonic as is the case with Coca-Cola?
(I realize this isn’t very helpful for this summer since Passover has already passed over, but maybe next year?)
Also, my web research turned up a company called Stirrings that sells their stuff through Whole Foods and apparently makes a non-HFCS tonic water… good luck!
Also (according to web sources) Whole Foods 365 brand tonic is sugar based, I drive past Whole Foods on my way home from work. I can check if this is true and it is available.
I think I read there isn’t a Passover-safe tonic, but I’m not 100% sure on that.
No worries about stopping in at Whole Foods. The way I go through tonic, I can’t afford it anyway
I’ll make a mental note to check prices when I do stop into Whole Foods — the generic brand shouldn’t be too bad, at least not as expensive as Q Tonic. I nearly fell out of my seat when I saw those prices — nice marketing though.
Cool, thanks, walter.
I’ve found canned tonic water in Whole Foods that is sweetened with plain old sucrose.
I don’t remember the brand, but I can take a look next week.
Dudes, I just got home from work and there were two six-packs of Whole Foods tonic water waiting for me, courtesy of Walter. Thanks, man!
I need me one of these Walters.
I’ll be brief on this very important subject because the ice in my margarita is melting:
Whole foods (whole paycheck) have great seltzer: check.
Also, you could do the planet a big favor and buy a seltzer maker from sodaclubusa.com: you can make fresh seltzer at home all the time, no bottle or can waste. And their diet flavors are with Splenda not Aspartame so you can buy their ’splenda’ tonic flavor (splenda is just glucose with 3 chlorine substitutions, so it binds to your sugar taste receptor 20x harder ). IMHO as biologist who shares you HFCS aversion since sitting through a lot of Diabetes seminars, Aspartame (metabolized to methanol) also okay so long as you put a drop of some liquor (providing ethanol) in it. Ethanol is antidote to methanol! Trebles all round!
PS gin and tonic is basically all chemicals – the aromatic alkaloid quinine, the monoterpine pinene, other aromatics, all sitting in organic solvent! That’s why it tastes so good, and does your body good too!!
now back to my margarita.
I totally want a seltzer maker!
Thanks for the info.
I know you are on a mini-break this weekend, but just came across this for your tonic water conundrum:
http://www.jeffreymorgenthaler.....nic-water/
That is totally cool, but I am way too lazy to do that!!