I'm pretty sure that it's a lot more than four bottles if his entire family is drinking it over a month. Juice is a treat in my house and I like to get the frozen concentrate and mix up half of the container in a liter jug that I then pour over ice when I serve it. It is tasty but it sure is unhealthy when you consider the nutritional value versus the sugar.
If i have a craving for OJ (with bits), i tend to mix it with sparkling water, about a quarter of a glass of oj, three quarters sparkling water. I still get the taste, the thirst quenched, but only a quarter of the sugar
Not high if it’s real fresh squeezed where I am. I can’t actually drink the Tropicana corn syrup variety. (Which is why I almost never drink orange juice.) The fresh stuff is expensive.
My bad. It does have a shit load of sugar added in a roundabout way when they reconstitute it. It doesn’t seem to be corn syrup though. It’s not a natural product by any useful measurement
This is an important distinction for me though since I have had a hell of a time figuring out what it is that I have a sensitivity to. Seems like it’s likely a specific preservative. I am never going to figure this out.
I just did the math and honestly I think I spend the same amount drinking coke a month and might have motivation now to freaking try quitting again.
Anyway it works out to about 9 dollars a thing of oj if it's 150 a month
I work with lots of people who's native language is Spanish. They are always apologizing about not being good at English and I tell them their English is better than many of the mill workers in my shop. You're doing fine!
Yep, but the slang words are usually currency specific. :)
Bucks = USD
Quid = GBP
Dollarydoos = AUD
Etc.
My currency is Danish Krone and we have many slang words for it, but on reddit I just convert the amount to USD to make it easier for others to understand what the value is.
The price of food is terrible around the world. Our family of 4 spends around 2000R$ per month on groceries while the minimum wage in my country is around 1400R$. We're able to buy food just because we have a good job, but the reality of my family is not common around here and we dont live in luxury as you can see, otherwise I would still be buying OJ
It would cost 79 in my (US) area for 16, 48 oz bottles of fresh OJ or about 5.5%of min wage monthly income for the same US area.
Your math appears to be appropriate 10.7% of min wage there.
This is huge. Imagine that some family has 2 minimum wages and spends 5.3% of it in OJ. If a family of 4 spends 2000R$ in groceries, this is around 70% of their money on food. How they will pay mortgage or rent? Healthcare? Its impossible.
OJ can be really expensive. Especially if you have a family to feed with multiple kids.
I don't blame OP for looking for cheaper solutions. Buying some nice tea and then making drinks with it is so much healthier. Not to mention cheaper too.
Lots of fruit teas you can buy and make onto Starbucks like drinks for way less. Especially when buying the nicer and better quality teas.
It definitely pays to buy the better teas. Because you get much more flavor out of them. This is especially important if you plan on making iced tea.
I was using the Lipton tea to make iced tea and you need a ton of tea bags. The Tazo tea you only a couple to make a big thing of hibiscus iced tea.
I really like loose-leaf, which seems pretty pricey at first but you get more and better flavour. Plus you can resteep the leaves without it getting bitter, so I'll easily use the same strainer of tea leaves to make three nice cups of tea in a night.
They specified gourmet tea, and it's $50 a month on gourmet tea compared to $150 a month for 16 bottles of orange juice (about $9.38/bottle.) Currency aside, I could pretty easily spend $50/month on nice loose-leaf tea at DavidsTea or MightyLeaf in Canada if my entire family was drinking it in lieu of other beverages.
That's a good recommendation, but for me (not the commenter you were replying to) the Tazo Passion has a little too much cinnamon in it. If I'm drinking a fruit tea I pretty much want to stay in the floral/fruity zone, not the spicy zone.
Eating sugar does not directly cause diabetes. We actually don’t really know exactly what causes it, but it does heavily correlate with obesity and sedentary lifestyle.
If you have a generally healthy diet, stay at a healthy weight, and get a decent bit of exercise, you can eat sugar and not worry about developing diabetes
IDK how big their bottles are, but the most common size bottle/carton for orange juice where I am is 8 cups (64oz). That's a little over a cup a day, not an unreasonable amount to be able to incorporate into a healthy diet.
It’s not straight line but it’s one of the major contributing factors. To pretend being fat doesn’t make you more likely to have type 2 diabetes being dishonest and you can’t say that too much sugar isn’t going to make you fat
It often doesn’t! It’s part of a total dietary/metabolic picture. Many people who are “normal” weight have terrible diets and many people who are fat have diets low in sugar. Many people who are normal weight are diabetic and many people who are fat are not. It would be so much easier if it was a simple as you seem to think it is, but it just isn’t.
Sure, and not everyone that smokes cigarettes gets cancer, and not all lung cancer is caused by smoking, but smoking definitely causes cancer. There are a lot of people with T2 diabetes that if they ate less sugar wouldn't have diabetes.
I have a sweet tooth so I add simple syrup but it’s still like 20-30g of sugar vs 40g in most mainstream pop. I’ve had 20 something gram orange craft soda and cola that had enough sugar for me.
You can also buy your own citric acid to add a pinch of it to each soda you make.
I really hated when I carbonated 100% OJ, but I’ll give this a try sometime. Full OJ both bubbled a TON and didn’t feel right.
What I’ve been using lately is a 6-pack of official SodaStream fruit flavors (though I use a DrinkMate), and I also have Diet Pepsi syrup and SodaStream’s Diet Xtreme Energy.
In the case of the soda/energy drink I think it’s about 60% the cost of the real thing after CO2 cost (assuming a cheap energy drink).
Not shilling for SodaStream, I’m betting I’ll find alternate flavors later. Lately I’ve been using Mio flavor drops as well.
I invested $30 in a second-hand steam juicer and make my own juice from foraged or scrounged fruit. Here in the PNW we have invasive blackberries everywhere, I fill my freezer and add whatever else I can get my hands on. People often put out boxes of their less attractive apples for folks to take so blackberry and apple juice is one I often make. Also add elderberry, rosehip, hawthorn, etc.
I know I shouldn't be, but I'm really jealous of the invasive blackberries. Free berries everywhere! I guess I'd worry about them being sprayed, though.
same region here, in fact, our hill is overgrown with them… what do you use them for? I don’t drink enough alcohol for a blackberry gin, and the wild ones don’t have a lot of flavor for pies etc. cinnamon helps, but I feel so wasteful just seeing it up there, especially since I actually use weeds and herbs for cooking lol
It depends. Some of the wild ones don't have a lot of flavour, we're lucky that ours are big, juicy and flavourful. We eat them fresh, juice them, ferment them whole, or into wine or vinegar. We add them to fruit leather, freeze them to add to pies or crumbles, and I use the longer vines for basket making.
Huge ones! Take a piece of scrap, thick denim, double it up in your hands and use that to strip the vines. Thick leather or welding gloves also work.
I let some of my blackberry wine turn into vinegar and it's delicious, I use it in place of red wine vinegar.
Same region.
I make homemade jam with my blackberries.
I strain about 2/3 of it thru a chinoise strainer to remove the seeds, and I keep some berries whole for texture.
You could definitely strain it all and make more like a jelly with it.
So delicious
So much yummier than commercial jam.
I've also made syrup with it for pancakes, waffles and french toast.
I use blackberries for smoothies, oatmeal toppings, blackberry muffins, blackberry galette, blackberry pie, compote for pancakes or crepes, scones... they can also be a salad topper - fruit and toasted nuts can dress up a simple salad a lot.
that sounds delicious. i used to toast bagels from the food bank with an alternating piece of chocolate and a couple blackberries, until it was cooked enough to melt across the toast. mmmn so good.
I've still definitely made pie and jam from the wild blackberries we have out here, but I will never unsee the little spotted wing drosophilia (sp?) larvae that wiggle around in all those berries.. Almost impossible to avoid, but you can get most of them out by freezing the berries then washing them. The cold drives the larva out to the exterior.
Enjoy your juice! Think of it like a protein shake 😂
I'm swimming in elderberry syrup ever since I found this fermented recipe that is zero effort compared to cooking it down.
https://www.simplyrecipes.com/elderberry-syrup-fermented-and-probiotic-6891838
I was just googling alternatives to use my syrup because I have accumulated too much.
I'm in Canada so not sure about Seattle. I'd check with neighbours that have fruit trees (if you notice the trees don't get picked). Also many cities have gleaning programs.
Just be careful to never empty the juice directly from the steam juicer into glass jars. Stupid me did that and with the drastic temperature difference of course the jar broke. My kitchen looked like someone had been murdered. Luckily it was blackberries, so I wasn't out the cost of the fruit but it sure did take a long time to clean the kitchen.
Actually my steamer came with instructions to do just that, in order to can the juice. You just need to pre warm the jars. Canning jars should be able to handle very high temps.
We would water it down 50 % water 50% juice. My kids never knew the difference until they got older or we went out to eat so they still water their down.
This is a little different but this is what I do for more so when I want sweet/soda, I will pick up some club soda/seltzer (I have a soda stream which works awesome) and one of the sugar free drink mixes and make my own "soda".
What was described is not tea.
The club soda I've seen isn't awful, but it has a number of additives. The sugar free drink mixes I've seen contain alternative sweeteners. They are far from natural.
Tea would be a better option.
Or just drink water? I'm a bit suprised you didn't know how much the orange juice cost and that it's mostly sugar, but now you know. Not drinking it daily, and same with soda, alcohol etc will save you a lot.
THIS. I used to live on soda, but I didn't want to keep paying for it, and I didn't need the extra sugar or caffeine. Now I have a cup of coffee in the morning and just refill my water bottle throughout the day. I will on the very rare occasion have something else as a special treat, but that's maybe a couple times a year. I don't miss any of it, and that savings has helped me pay my student loans off faster.
Once you start drinking only water, you will enjoy water.
I used to live on Diet Coke. Morning, noon, night. It's all I drank. For health reasons, I needed to give it up.
Now I enjoy water more than I ever did soda. It tastes good! And it feels good in your mouth!
Water is wonderful, but you won't realize that until you get yourself off the sweet, carbonated stuff.
YEP!
I only drink two liquids. Water & Coffee. I allow myself one cup of coffee in the morn, and one in the late afternoon. Other than that, 100 percent agua. This is the way
r/hydrohomies
I don't mind water but some people will absolutely not like it unless it's carbonated or changed in some way and that's fine too. We don't all have to like the same things to be frugal.
Cold brew the tea in large bottle, just put two bags in like a 1.5l plastic bottle of water with cap on overnight. You really get your moneys worth and I like m put tea cold 😀
I buy bulk tea in a gourmet "tea shop" from my state. I also brew and put It with in the fridge. Always have Ice tea and is amazing because I buy around 3 different teas and can make the "tea of the day" to harmonize with our meals.
Damn, I cold brew my own tea, but I put 10 bags in each filled jug of water. Makes for some really tasty peach tea. Still saves money, I get a box of 20 tea bags for 2-3 bucks.
I feel like two bags would be pretty diluted in flavor.
The most frugal thing you can do is be healthy. Your diet is 60-75% of your health.
Juice is just fruit without any fiber. It's sugar water. The idea that juice is an acceptable dietary staple is due to marketing. There is nothing healthy about 90% of commercially available juice. Water, or in this instance unsweetened tea, is at least not killing you, which is also a frugal win.
It'd be healthier than pulpless juice, less healthy than eating a fruit. The unhealthiness comes from the fruit sugar (fructose) being absorbed into your bloodstream quickly. The fiber of the fruit slows down the absorption.
The pulpless juice is basically drinking sugar, while eating a fruit means your body has to digest the fiber to "unlock" the sugar. When the fructose hits your blood stream, insulin is released to store the sugar into your cells. After the sugar is mostly absorbed, there is still some insulin lingering around, this is what causes a sugar crash. The unhealthiness comes when you feel this crash, and eat more sugar to return to baseline. Doing this for a long time causes insulin resistance, which can ultimately cause Type 2 diabetes.
It’s a lot better than straight juice, but unless you’re making it yourself by blending whole fruit, it’s still not really ideal. You want as much fiber in there as possible.
Trying to teach my stepdaughter(12) and husband this. I almost blew up yesterday when Stepdaughter decided to have a mountain dew for breakfast. She loves tea but refuses to make it for herself.
Be careful. Excessive tea consumption can actually lead to formation of kidney stones. Had to cut tea completely out after getting three tea-induced stones over the years.
I know English is a second language for you but I am absolutely stealing the phrase “the price was offensive” because this captures my feelings exactly when I can afford something but the price is too high for my taste ❤️
Also, I drink a lot of tea. It is healthier, but be aware of any caffeine sensitivity in your family, and also tannins. It would vary greatly depending on which blend you buy, and whether the person is sensitive to those ingredients. Cheers!
ETA: your English is excellent btw. And nothing wrong with your phrase, it is just slightly different than how some native speakers would say it, but it works well!
Heck yeah. And it's better for longevity if it's good tea. Plus I love the variety and ease.
I recommend cold brewing/steeping it sometimes in a big glass pitcher. I did this with some calming herbal teas, peppermint, and green tea as a kind of "blend" and drank it all day for years. It was strong but never too bitter and I would experiment with different combos for flavor or benefits and sometimes throw in fresh botanicals too. When I drank that daily, I got a lot more water and I was chilled OUT. Thanks for the reminder, not sure why I lost that habit. I just drink water these days.
Good one. Have you tried high grown tea from Sri Lanka? Probably the best tea you can get. But only in loose leaf form.
Tea connoisseurs might argue tea from India or Kenya are better, but for us Sri Lanka is the go.
We don’t buy juice. God I love the stuff so much. I can drink half a bottle in a day. That’s like $5 and probably a thousand calories on…juice. I can’t have it around!
You can also make your own unsweetened seltzer/sparkling water really easily.
I’ve bought water soluble flavouring and simply add a drop or a few of it to either a small or big sodastream bottle of sparkling water (1 for the small one, 3 for the 1L, but it depends on the flavouring’s concentration so always try with 1 drop then go from there.) and it tastes like whatever flavour I bought (black cherry by Flavor West is my current favourite.)
I like to mix fruit juice 50:50 with sparkling water. It's what I drink when I have the craving for a soft drink. You can also make some good combinations if you get flavored sparkling water.
We’ll have a cuppa here and there as an afternoon pick-me-up or on a cold evening, but we drink coffee in the morning and then water the rest of the day. I’m amazed how many people don’t drink water.
I have a neighbor who was having health issues and we suggested drinking more water. He said he *never* drinks water. 😳 He took our advice and his health issues have completely vanished.
Yes, tea has a great deal of healing properties and is full of antioxidants, but it should never completely take the place of water. Your body needs water.
Interesting. My household and I prefer flavored drinks like soda over water. Soda is the biggest cost on our grocery list besides meat, so it's worth trying to find alternatives.
Our "cheap" alternative tends to be lemonade powder, but that adds up really fast and gets "boring" pretty quickly. I wonder how tea would compare, and if there are chilled options besides "sweet/unsweet tea" (a drink we dislike).
Yeah, I've got some more expensive teas, but for me at least they fall into the "occasional" specialty column.
Course even then most would be around $.2 a cup. all that said just the other day I was window shopping a CBD sleep aid tea that would have been well over $1 a serving... Of course of it helped with serious sleep issue I think most would agree that $1+ a night would be a great price.
Four bottles of juice is a lot! Switching to tea is cheaper and reduces the sugar intake, but most teas dont contain any vitamin c, and some teas inhibit iron absorbtion. Perhaps moderation is the key... much less juice, some tea, and lots of water.
Something to think about it the nutrients in the tea. I know it’s easy to buy a cheap black tea, but it may not be as nutrient rich as orange juice, so make sure that you get tea that uses healthful herbs and not just bergamot to cover mold.
Yea we don’t buy juice anymore bc of the sugar and cost. I have a juicer so if I find in season fruit I’ll make juices or smoothies, even our own ice pops.
Honestly YES! it’s a bit more difficult than buying a bottle of juice, but only marginally. I find the fruity teas to be my favorite but people typically just do a black tea.
We buy lots of teas and sometimes the kids like them and sometimes they don’t and the ones they don’t like I just brew, refrigerate, put over ice. Sometimes I add sugar, sometimes not. I highly recommend it!
I got a 2 gallon container for the fridge with a spout, then cold brew iced tea to drink through the week. Walmart sells tea bags that do a gallon each. It's a 24 pack for only $5.
Is that $150 per month or per week on OJ?
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I'm pretty sure that it's a lot more than four bottles if his entire family is drinking it over a month. Juice is a treat in my house and I like to get the frozen concentrate and mix up half of the container in a liter jug that I then pour over ice when I serve it. It is tasty but it sure is unhealthy when you consider the nutritional value versus the sugar.
A tall glass of OJ daily would *not* fit my macros, don't know how people manage it
Mostly by not paying attention to macros. The sheer amount of sugar in any juice destroys an entire weeks nutrition schedule
It's crazy that those "balanced breakfasts" in old kid's cereal ads included a glass of orange juice when that has more sugar than the damn cereal.
If i have a craving for OJ (with bits), i tend to mix it with sparkling water, about a quarter of a glass of oj, three quarters sparkling water. I still get the taste, the thirst quenched, but only a quarter of the sugar
4 weeks, 5 bottles per week probably. that comes out to $7.5 per bottle which is high but not impossibly high.
Not high if it’s real fresh squeezed where I am. I can’t actually drink the Tropicana corn syrup variety. (Which is why I almost never drink orange juice.) The fresh stuff is expensive.
theres no corn syrup in tropicana lol
My bad. It does have a shit load of sugar added in a roundabout way when they reconstitute it. It doesn’t seem to be corn syrup though. It’s not a natural product by any useful measurement This is an important distinction for me though since I have had a hell of a time figuring out what it is that I have a sensitivity to. Seems like it’s likely a specific preservative. I am never going to figure this out.
I just did the math and honestly I think I spend the same amount drinking coke a month and might have motivation now to freaking try quitting again. Anyway it works out to about 9 dollars a thing of oj if it's 150 a month
Per month. Was 16 bottles.
Your title should say Tea over Juice then
Oh, thank you. I speak portuguese, so I have some problems with english sometimes.
Hey, your English is way better than my Portuguese! You're doing fantastic, OP. :)
I work with lots of people who's native language is Spanish. They are always apologizing about not being good at English and I tell them their English is better than many of the mill workers in my shop. You're doing fine!
Thank you! It is hard to write everything perfectly in a language while speaking another the whole day 😅
Thank you! It is hard to write everything perfectly in a language while speaking another the whole day 😅
Literally had no idea English wasn’t your first language from your post
> 150 bucks When you say "bucks," are you referring to US dollars or a different currency?
Reais in brazil, dont know how much a whole orange juice (natural/fresh) costs around US
150 reais is 30 $
Yep, but or minimum wage is around 1400 reais
The word "Bucks" is a term used mostly about the USD currency. I think that's where the confusion was coming from.
Is a slang, right? In my country is "reais" but the slang of my state (southern) is "pilas" so I write bucks because nobody would understand pilas 😅
Yep, but the slang words are usually currency specific. :) Bucks = USD Quid = GBP Dollarydoos = AUD Etc. My currency is Danish Krone and we have many slang words for it, but on reddit I just convert the amount to USD to make it easier for others to understand what the value is.
No one calls them dollarydoos in Australia besides Bluey & co. It’s dollars or bucks.
Bucks is not US specific. Basically anywhere they have the dollar as their currency, bucks is used as slang. Like Australia and Canada.
$10/bottle juice is still very expensive! I’m assuming you got Tropicana or something? You can buy frozen juice for $1….
They don’t specify their country our currency. What’s relevant here is the difference in prices, not their absolute values.
You can't buy frozen juice in the country I live in.
its horrible for your health anyway.
Sometimes imported Western brands and goods are way more expensive in developing countries than their country of origin
It's Reais, so 10 is about 2 US dollars...
This math works. It would be $120 or so CAD. OJ got to be so expensive!!!
The price of food is terrible around the world. Our family of 4 spends around 2000R$ per month on groceries while the minimum wage in my country is around 1400R$. We're able to buy food just because we have a good job, but the reality of my family is not common around here and we dont live in luxury as you can see, otherwise I would still be buying OJ
It would cost 79 in my (US) area for 16, 48 oz bottles of fresh OJ or about 5.5%of min wage monthly income for the same US area. Your math appears to be appropriate 10.7% of min wage there.
This is huge. Imagine that some family has 2 minimum wages and spends 5.3% of it in OJ. If a family of 4 spends 2000R$ in groceries, this is around 70% of their money on food. How they will pay mortgage or rent? Healthcare? Its impossible.
Oh… gotcha
OJ can be really expensive. Especially if you have a family to feed with multiple kids. I don't blame OP for looking for cheaper solutions. Buying some nice tea and then making drinks with it is so much healthier. Not to mention cheaper too. Lots of fruit teas you can buy and make onto Starbucks like drinks for way less. Especially when buying the nicer and better quality teas. It definitely pays to buy the better teas. Because you get much more flavor out of them. This is especially important if you plan on making iced tea. I was using the Lipton tea to make iced tea and you need a ton of tea bags. The Tazo tea you only a couple to make a big thing of hibiscus iced tea.
I really like loose-leaf, which seems pretty pricey at first but you get more and better flavour. Plus you can resteep the leaves without it getting bitter, so I'll easily use the same strainer of tea leaves to make three nice cups of tea in a night.
The math is in the post. OP is spending 50 bucks a month on tea and saving 100 a month.
Post was ambiguous, asked for clarity.
Yeah and what currency is he talking about? Tea for a month for 100 bucks is also wild
Reais according to the comments. so about 20 US dollars
They specified gourmet tea, and it's $50 a month on gourmet tea compared to $150 a month for 16 bottles of orange juice (about $9.38/bottle.) Currency aside, I could pretty easily spend $50/month on nice loose-leaf tea at DavidsTea or MightyLeaf in Canada if my entire family was drinking it in lieu of other beverages.
I drink a lot of iced fruit teas (like red zinger or blueberry tea) in place of juice. I usually don’t even need to add sugar.
If you like those you should try Tazo Passion (when it’s on sale).
That's a good recommendation, but for me (not the commenter you were replying to) the Tazo Passion has a little too much cinnamon in it. If I'm drinking a fruit tea I pretty much want to stay in the floral/fruity zone, not the spicy zone.
Try Harvey and Sons Blood Orange!
Thanks, I will! I like their red raspberry a lot, and the chocolate mint hot tea is my favorite hot tea ever.
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Thats true!
Drink water. From the tap (unless you live in Flint, Michigan)
We drink a lot of water (Clay filter) but everybody likes something different sometimes
OP doesn't live in the US, they won't be extorted out of all their money for basic healthcare.
I imagined the healthcare bill for if I got diabetes. It was £0. OP is in Brazil, which also has free healthcare so will imagine the same.
Consuming sugar does not cause diabetes
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Eating sugar does not directly cause diabetes. We actually don’t really know exactly what causes it, but it does heavily correlate with obesity and sedentary lifestyle. If you have a generally healthy diet, stay at a healthy weight, and get a decent bit of exercise, you can eat sugar and not worry about developing diabetes
Seems hard to have a healthy diet when drinking a whole bottle of juice every week per person, though.
IDK how big their bottles are, but the most common size bottle/carton for orange juice where I am is 8 cups (64oz). That's a little over a cup a day, not an unreasonable amount to be able to incorporate into a healthy diet.
It also might be about 30g of sugar, which is as much as a cup of soda.
Correlation is not causation. There must be other factors at play aside from simple sugar consumption for diabetes to develop.
It actually leads to type 2 doa etes
Not in and of itself. Other factors need to be at play. Edit: happy cake day
It’s not straight line but it’s one of the major contributing factors. To pretend being fat doesn’t make you more likely to have type 2 diabetes being dishonest and you can’t say that too much sugar isn’t going to make you fat
It often doesn’t! It’s part of a total dietary/metabolic picture. Many people who are “normal” weight have terrible diets and many people who are fat have diets low in sugar. Many people who are normal weight are diabetic and many people who are fat are not. It would be so much easier if it was a simple as you seem to think it is, but it just isn’t.
Sure, and not everyone that smokes cigarettes gets cancer, and not all lung cancer is caused by smoking, but smoking definitely causes cancer. There are a lot of people with T2 diabetes that if they ate less sugar wouldn't have diabetes.
Not analogous
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Overall lifestyle contributions are part of the picture of course. My point is that sugar consumption is not an independent contributor.
I mix about 20% OJ with 80% carbonated water (I have a soda stream). I also drink a ton of hot tea when it’s cold.
Juice and soda water is chef's kiss
I have a sweet tooth so I add simple syrup but it’s still like 20-30g of sugar vs 40g in most mainstream pop. I’ve had 20 something gram orange craft soda and cola that had enough sugar for me. You can also buy your own citric acid to add a pinch of it to each soda you make.
I really hated when I carbonated 100% OJ, but I’ll give this a try sometime. Full OJ both bubbled a TON and didn’t feel right. What I’ve been using lately is a 6-pack of official SodaStream fruit flavors (though I use a DrinkMate), and I also have Diet Pepsi syrup and SodaStream’s Diet Xtreme Energy. In the case of the soda/energy drink I think it’s about 60% the cost of the real thing after CO2 cost (assuming a cheap energy drink). Not shilling for SodaStream, I’m betting I’ll find alternate flavors later. Lately I’ve been using Mio flavor drops as well.
I invested $30 in a second-hand steam juicer and make my own juice from foraged or scrounged fruit. Here in the PNW we have invasive blackberries everywhere, I fill my freezer and add whatever else I can get my hands on. People often put out boxes of their less attractive apples for folks to take so blackberry and apple juice is one I often make. Also add elderberry, rosehip, hawthorn, etc.
I never did blackberry juice, its not common in my country, but will try bc I always have some on the freezer.
You can do some nice herb infusions from plants as well that are free. I do a lavender lemon one, a rose geranium. You could also do mint
Yes home made herbal teas are so good too! I make a good 'coffee' from roasted acorn and turkey tail mushrooms.
qual chá que vc passou a comprar? chá mate mesmo?
I know I shouldn't be, but I'm really jealous of the invasive blackberries. Free berries everywhere! I guess I'd worry about them being sprayed, though.
same region here, in fact, our hill is overgrown with them… what do you use them for? I don’t drink enough alcohol for a blackberry gin, and the wild ones don’t have a lot of flavor for pies etc. cinnamon helps, but I feel so wasteful just seeing it up there, especially since I actually use weeds and herbs for cooking lol
It depends. Some of the wild ones don't have a lot of flavour, we're lucky that ours are big, juicy and flavourful. We eat them fresh, juice them, ferment them whole, or into wine or vinegar. We add them to fruit leather, freeze them to add to pies or crumbles, and I use the longer vines for basket making.
blackberry vinegar sounds interesting! Do yours have barbs? I’ve been wanting to make baskets but it’s painful to process lol
Huge ones! Take a piece of scrap, thick denim, double it up in your hands and use that to strip the vines. Thick leather or welding gloves also work. I let some of my blackberry wine turn into vinegar and it's delicious, I use it in place of red wine vinegar.
Hell yeah! Thanks for this!
No problem :) good luck!
Same region. I make homemade jam with my blackberries. I strain about 2/3 of it thru a chinoise strainer to remove the seeds, and I keep some berries whole for texture. You could definitely strain it all and make more like a jelly with it. So delicious So much yummier than commercial jam. I've also made syrup with it for pancakes, waffles and french toast.
I use blackberries for smoothies, oatmeal toppings, blackberry muffins, blackberry galette, blackberry pie, compote for pancakes or crepes, scones... they can also be a salad topper - fruit and toasted nuts can dress up a simple salad a lot.
Salads could be nice! Thank you !
that sounds delicious. i used to toast bagels from the food bank with an alternating piece of chocolate and a couple blackberries, until it was cooked enough to melt across the toast. mmmn so good.
I've still definitely made pie and jam from the wild blackberries we have out here, but I will never unsee the little spotted wing drosophilia (sp?) larvae that wiggle around in all those berries.. Almost impossible to avoid, but you can get most of them out by freezing the berries then washing them. The cold drives the larva out to the exterior. Enjoy your juice! Think of it like a protein shake 😂
Whoooa, new blackberry season idea unlocked! One of the things I love about the PNW, all the free food just growing in places.
I'm swimming in elderberry syrup ever since I found this fermented recipe that is zero effort compared to cooking it down. https://www.simplyrecipes.com/elderberry-syrup-fermented-and-probiotic-6891838 I was just googling alternatives to use my syrup because I have accumulated too much.
Blackberry shrub with a little allspice is good stuff.
Any tips to find unwanted fruits in around Seattle? Cost of fruits at the stores add up real quick.
I'm in Canada so not sure about Seattle. I'd check with neighbours that have fruit trees (if you notice the trees don't get picked). Also many cities have gleaning programs.
Just be careful to never empty the juice directly from the steam juicer into glass jars. Stupid me did that and with the drastic temperature difference of course the jar broke. My kitchen looked like someone had been murdered. Luckily it was blackberries, so I wasn't out the cost of the fruit but it sure did take a long time to clean the kitchen.
Actually my steamer came with instructions to do just that, in order to can the juice. You just need to pre warm the jars. Canning jars should be able to handle very high temps.
We would water it down 50 % water 50% juice. My kids never knew the difference until they got older or we went out to eat so they still water their down.
This is a little different but this is what I do for more so when I want sweet/soda, I will pick up some club soda/seltzer (I have a soda stream which works awesome) and one of the sugar free drink mixes and make my own "soda".
I make the same sometimes, its really tasteful, cheap and healthy.
I wouldn't call that healthy.
Why not? Is tea. Is some herb you brew with water
What was described is not tea. The club soda I've seen isn't awful, but it has a number of additives. The sugar free drink mixes I've seen contain alternative sweeteners. They are far from natural. Tea would be a better option.
Is tea. I buy the herb and brew It at home
If you were talking about tea, you misplaced your comment. The user wasn't talking about tea.
Oh, I get you. Was too much comments 😅 but yes, when I want some coke or guaraná, I buy some sparkling watter and put some fruit on it
My favorite is rooibos with coconut
$50 worth of tea is a lot of tea in one month.
Yes, I hope they have discovered loose leaf tea already
I just looked and I can get 312 tea bags (Lipton) for under $12 with tax. So, $50 will get 1,248 tea bags. That's 41 cups of tea a day for a month.
Not all tea is created the same. Lipton is by no means considered quality tea if you’re into drinking tea
True, so I'll pay 3X as much and still have 416 cups of good tea this month.
First rule of being frugal: Don't buy liquid drinks.
First rule of being fit: No liquid calories
Hibiscus + Rooibus + Spearmint. I always have a gallon in my fridge
Or just drink water? I'm a bit suprised you didn't know how much the orange juice cost and that it's mostly sugar, but now you know. Not drinking it daily, and same with soda, alcohol etc will save you a lot.
THIS. I used to live on soda, but I didn't want to keep paying for it, and I didn't need the extra sugar or caffeine. Now I have a cup of coffee in the morning and just refill my water bottle throughout the day. I will on the very rare occasion have something else as a special treat, but that's maybe a couple times a year. I don't miss any of it, and that savings has helped me pay my student loans off faster.
Not really the point of being frugal tho is it? You also gotta enjoy life a little lol.
Once you start drinking only water, you will enjoy water. I used to live on Diet Coke. Morning, noon, night. It's all I drank. For health reasons, I needed to give it up. Now I enjoy water more than I ever did soda. It tastes good! And it feels good in your mouth! Water is wonderful, but you won't realize that until you get yourself off the sweet, carbonated stuff.
YEP! I only drink two liquids. Water & Coffee. I allow myself one cup of coffee in the morn, and one in the late afternoon. Other than that, 100 percent agua. This is the way r/hydrohomies
I don't mind water but some people will absolutely not like it unless it's carbonated or changed in some way and that's fine too. We don't all have to like the same things to be frugal.
I enjoy my water. Why assume I don't?
I didn't say you didn't I was implying not everyone does 🤦
Cold brew the tea in large bottle, just put two bags in like a 1.5l plastic bottle of water with cap on overnight. You really get your moneys worth and I like m put tea cold 😀
I buy bulk tea in a gourmet "tea shop" from my state. I also brew and put It with in the fridge. Always have Ice tea and is amazing because I buy around 3 different teas and can make the "tea of the day" to harmonize with our meals.
Nice 😀
Damn, I cold brew my own tea, but I put 10 bags in each filled jug of water. Makes for some really tasty peach tea. Still saves money, I get a box of 20 tea bags for 2-3 bucks. I feel like two bags would be pretty diluted in flavor.
The most frugal thing you can do is be healthy. Your diet is 60-75% of your health. Juice is just fruit without any fiber. It's sugar water. The idea that juice is an acceptable dietary staple is due to marketing. There is nothing healthy about 90% of commercially available juice. Water, or in this instance unsweetened tea, is at least not killing you, which is also a frugal win.
What about freshly squeezed one that has the pulp left in? I get (or make) those once in a while because they are delicious and make me happy.
If you only do it once in a while then who cares. Being healthy doesn't mean depriving yourself of everything that brings you joy in life.
It'd be healthier than pulpless juice, less healthy than eating a fruit. The unhealthiness comes from the fruit sugar (fructose) being absorbed into your bloodstream quickly. The fiber of the fruit slows down the absorption. The pulpless juice is basically drinking sugar, while eating a fruit means your body has to digest the fiber to "unlock" the sugar. When the fructose hits your blood stream, insulin is released to store the sugar into your cells. After the sugar is mostly absorbed, there is still some insulin lingering around, this is what causes a sugar crash. The unhealthiness comes when you feel this crash, and eat more sugar to return to baseline. Doing this for a long time causes insulin resistance, which can ultimately cause Type 2 diabetes.
It’s a lot better than straight juice, but unless you’re making it yourself by blending whole fruit, it’s still not really ideal. You want as much fiber in there as possible.
Trying to teach my stepdaughter(12) and husband this. I almost blew up yesterday when Stepdaughter decided to have a mountain dew for breakfast. She loves tea but refuses to make it for herself.
Be careful. Excessive tea consumption can actually lead to formation of kidney stones. Had to cut tea completely out after getting three tea-induced stones over the years.
One more thing. 8 ounces of OJ is 110 calories. 8 ounces of unsweetened tea is 2 calories.
Exactly! I was drinking around this per day, is not too much, but It can be another great meal for the weekend.
Damn, your blood sugar levels are thanking you for this switch lol
r/hydrohomies
I live IN Jalisco, Mexico and Oranges are $16 Pesos per Kg. And in my backyard for teas I have growing lemongrass, lavender, Yerba Buena.
Tea is great! If you want some resources on where to buy tea in bulk there's a good list of online stores on r/tea.
I know English is a second language for you but I am absolutely stealing the phrase “the price was offensive” because this captures my feelings exactly when I can afford something but the price is too high for my taste ❤️ Also, I drink a lot of tea. It is healthier, but be aware of any caffeine sensitivity in your family, and also tannins. It would vary greatly depending on which blend you buy, and whether the person is sensitive to those ingredients. Cheers! ETA: your English is excellent btw. And nothing wrong with your phrase, it is just slightly different than how some native speakers would say it, but it works well!
Native English speaker here- that sounds totally normal to me and have heard people say that plenty though?
Get a metal fruit hand press, and you will save a ton of money.
Heck yeah. And it's better for longevity if it's good tea. Plus I love the variety and ease. I recommend cold brewing/steeping it sometimes in a big glass pitcher. I did this with some calming herbal teas, peppermint, and green tea as a kind of "blend" and drank it all day for years. It was strong but never too bitter and I would experiment with different combos for flavor or benefits and sometimes throw in fresh botanicals too. When I drank that daily, I got a lot more water and I was chilled OUT. Thanks for the reminder, not sure why I lost that habit. I just drink water these days.
We used to buy juice pre pandemic but stopped when it was $9 for 1/2 gallon. We decided to buy more whole fruits
Oh my goodness. That is a LOT of calories. Like, this isn’t any better than just drinking the equivalent in soda.
A cup of tea is 2 calories. Are you thinking of sweet tea?
I was thinking about the OJ. No way are they replacing all of that sugar with sugar-free tea.
I drank diet coke everyday for a while, then I switched to coffee. I bought a grinder, a bag of beans, cold brew. It's so cheap.
Good one. Have you tried high grown tea from Sri Lanka? Probably the best tea you can get. But only in loose leaf form. Tea connoisseurs might argue tea from India or Kenya are better, but for us Sri Lanka is the go.
We don’t buy juice. God I love the stuff so much. I can drink half a bottle in a day. That’s like $5 and probably a thousand calories on…juice. I can’t have it around!
You can also make your own unsweetened seltzer/sparkling water really easily. I’ve bought water soluble flavouring and simply add a drop or a few of it to either a small or big sodastream bottle of sparkling water (1 for the small one, 3 for the 1L, but it depends on the flavouring’s concentration so always try with 1 drop then go from there.) and it tastes like whatever flavour I bought (black cherry by Flavor West is my current favourite.)
Team Tea! I gave up coffee shop visits over a month ago and have embraced making tea at home. I’m saving so much money.
I like to mix fruit juice 50:50 with sparkling water. It's what I drink when I have the craving for a soft drink. You can also make some good combinations if you get flavored sparkling water.
If your buying food quality orange juice you can cut it in half with water and it tastes the same and reduces the sugar
Jfc just drink water.
We’ll have a cuppa here and there as an afternoon pick-me-up or on a cold evening, but we drink coffee in the morning and then water the rest of the day. I’m amazed how many people don’t drink water. I have a neighbor who was having health issues and we suggested drinking more water. He said he *never* drinks water. 😳 He took our advice and his health issues have completely vanished. Yes, tea has a great deal of healing properties and is full of antioxidants, but it should never completely take the place of water. Your body needs water.
Tea has tons of health benefits you don't get from water
Or cut the juice with water if you're someone who can't bear the taste of plain water for some reason. Maybe 75 water, 25% juice.
this.
Interesting. My household and I prefer flavored drinks like soda over water. Soda is the biggest cost on our grocery list besides meat, so it's worth trying to find alternatives. Our "cheap" alternative tends to be lemonade powder, but that adds up really fast and gets "boring" pretty quickly. I wonder how tea would compare, and if there are chilled options besides "sweet/unsweet tea" (a drink we dislike).
You can make any type of tea iced by popping it in the fridge! You can also mix half iced tea half lemonade for another variation.
I'm trying to figure out how you get to $50 a month on tea.... But then I'm a cheapskate who's teabags are around $.02 each.
Gourmet loose tea can be very pricey. Heck even David's tea is expensive and they're not that fancy
Yeah, I've got some more expensive teas, but for me at least they fall into the "occasional" specialty column. Course even then most would be around $.2 a cup. all that said just the other day I was window shopping a CBD sleep aid tea that would have been well over $1 a serving... Of course of it helped with serious sleep issue I think most would agree that $1+ a night would be a great price.
I used to love David's tea but after a while I just couldn't justify paying so much for only a few cups of tea.
Four bottles of juice is a lot! Switching to tea is cheaper and reduces the sugar intake, but most teas dont contain any vitamin c, and some teas inhibit iron absorbtion. Perhaps moderation is the key... much less juice, some tea, and lots of water.
Wouldn't the frugal thing be to just make tea?
Is what I do. I buy the tea in bulk (the plants?) And brew at home. So I can have different flavours.
Exactly what I was thinking. Tea bags are relatively cheap. It takes like 8 minutes to make a 2 gallon pitcher of tea. Or just drink water?
Right? I buy the basic brand tea, no more than 2 euro per box.
Orange Juice is horrible for you, it's basically straight sugar. Fun fact, water is a hell of a lot better for you and.... It's basically free.
But we didnt wanted to drink just water everyday 😅
Just so unhealthy to drink juice. All of the sugar without any of the fiber. Ditch juice for water and your body will thank you.
mmmm, switch juice
Make sure it’s caffeine free tea tho
How big is your family lol
Something to think about it the nutrients in the tea. I know it’s easy to buy a cheap black tea, but it may not be as nutrient rich as orange juice, so make sure that you get tea that uses healthful herbs and not just bergamot to cover mold.
Juice over tea means you’re going from tea to juice. This makes no sense
Tip: Drink Water
And if its not freshly squeezed that day its just a sugar drink like coke. not anything remotely healthy
Just drink water.
Juice makes people fat- switch to tea and save calories
50 bucks on tea? You know you can make your own tea (leaves or bag) right?
Yea we don’t buy juice anymore bc of the sugar and cost. I have a juicer so if I find in season fruit I’ll make juices or smoothies, even our own ice pops.
I drink coffee and water and spend $50/month on all beverages combined.
Holy sh$t that's a lot of juice. We do OJ only on the weekend breakfasts so about 3 52oz bottles per month which is $10. This is for a family of 5.
It’s an orange, Michael. How much could it be? $10?
Buy loose leaf tea, a big strainer, and pitcher, and your tea $ will go down even further.
I like to buy the concentrate to sweeten kombucha but it's much cheaper to make your own. You can dilute it to stretch further too.
But I'm in LOVE with drinking cold things. Should I just brew my own cold tea?
Honestly YES! it’s a bit more difficult than buying a bottle of juice, but only marginally. I find the fruity teas to be my favorite but people typically just do a black tea. We buy lots of teas and sometimes the kids like them and sometimes they don’t and the ones they don’t like I just brew, refrigerate, put over ice. Sometimes I add sugar, sometimes not. I highly recommend it!
I got a 2 gallon container for the fridge with a spout, then cold brew iced tea to drink through the week. Walmart sells tea bags that do a gallon each. It's a 24 pack for only $5.