Kicking the Diet Soda Habit

One of my "small" pleasures in life is diet soda. I love the stuff and drink way too much of it, especially in the summer. In the past year or so I've tried off and on to eschew my diet soda habit for a number of reasons, mostly dealing with what the aspartame in the stuff is doing to my bones. In the past few months I've flinched a bit at the cost of the stuff. I only buy the store brand (usually Sam's Choice from Wal-Mart) so I'm getting the "cheap" stuff, but still, I'm spending a lot of money on just plain junk.

In Mary Hunt's Everday Cheapskate e-newsletter, Mary discusses the positive affect switching from diet soda to iced tea had on her yearly check up. I can't find a link for the actual newsletter, but there is a post here on her blog on the subject.

So I'm going to do it -- I'm going to kick the diet soda out and replace it with water (which just gets boring) and iced tea. The major issue with the iced tea is simply the time it takes to make it and cool it so I'll be looking for ways to streamline that process. My husband happens to love iced tea and when the two of us are drinking it, it goes quickly!

My favorite iced tea recipe is this one. I double the water, use 9 iced tea bags, but keep the sugar at 3/4 cup and it's just lightly sweetened. Unfortunately, my library does not own the Fred Thompson Iced Tea book Mary recommends, but I'll keep my eyes open for it elsewhere. This recipe looks yummy, too!

I am sure that kicking the diet soda habit is NOT going to be easy (I've tried it a few times already and failed), but I'm also sure that it will be worth the struggle in the long run. And now I have some water to boil...!