What about creating a "water-routine"

Have you heard about routines before: work-out routines, bed-time routines, dinner routines, cleaning-routines? According to Merriam-Webster Online, one meaning of routine is "habitual or mechanical performance of an established procedure." I would like to suggest that your family start a water routine!

I just read an article on NPR about sodas and kids. In particular, this study spoke of kids drinking diet sodas far more frequently than they used to drink them. I'm troubled by this news because of these reasons (broken down into categories for your reading pleasure):

1. The Environment: a drink other than water requires water to make it which is wasteful; facilities to make these drinks use steel, electricity, and other resources which is wasteful; by-products from those facilities to make the drinks, such as water waste, solid waste, air pollution, etc., are harmful to the environment; transporting the drinks to market requires trucks or trains which uses gas, coal, or other non-renewable resources; the containers to hold the drinks require energy to make and energy to recycle (if they even make it to the recycling bin).

2. The Food Chain: many of these drinks are comprised of chemicals derived from corn or soy. These two foods are often grown from GE/GMO crops that have a multitude of environmental problems (have you heard of the bees dying??? and have you heard the latest theory that it's because of pesticides??? and did you know GE/GMO crops cannot grow without those pesticides???) and political problems (did you know farmers cannot save GE/GMO seeds to use the next year because it's against the patent of Monsanto which means our food supply is being impacted by big company's lawyers???)

3. The Health Issues: I'm sure you already know that sodas don't have "real" ingredients in them. My biggest concerns about diet soda are the sugar substitutes and the food dyes. There is an awful lot of research showing that we should be questioning the impact of these chemicals. Why on earth would we be giving them to our kids if we don't definitively know about their safety?

(Photo by KennyMatic)

So......I'm proposing to make a water-routine at your house! Raise your kids drinking water. If you need to, add a squeeze of lemon; make a pitcher with cucumbers floating in it; freeze berries and throw them in the water as ice cubes. It's already in your house; you've already paid for it; you probably (hopefully) already have a glass for it that you can use over and over again!

If it's all that's in your house to drink, your kids will drink it eventually. They will become thirsty enough to drink it. Water can become the drink-routine at your house which will help the environment, the food chain, their health, and you wallet! Make a water-routine!!!!

1 comment:

Just a Mom said...

Not to mention the carbonation is bad for your teeth, and I don't want my kids having caffeine! We do milk, water and occasionally juice at this house. Rare is ANY soft drink here!