I haven’t had soda for years. I know it is unhealthy and I know the taste is addictive so it makes sense in my mind to you just take the approach of removing soda from my diet completely. I don’t really miss it and I tried a coke recently after a long time and didn’t even enjoy the taste. However, saying that, sometimes I do miss the carbonation that sodas offer. Those tasty bubbles and the very different flavor they put on a drink. For anyone who has tasted flat soda and proper soda, you know what I mean, there is a very real, very different taste. I came across a great recipe recently to bring carbonation back into your life in a healthy way. Allow me to share it with you.
This crazy idea is to actually make pieces of fruit fizzy! Instead of a fizzy drink, we are going to have a fizzy snack. To do this take your favorite fruit that you think would be nice with an extra element of fizz. I decided to go with apples the first time I tried this but I have since done it with pineapple and guava and both are amazing. For this project, you will neer a reusable plastic bottle with a wide lid, Alka seltzer or heartburn tablets, a plastic cup, water, and the aforementioned fruit.
Place four Alka Seltzer tablets in your plastic bottle. At this point let me introduce two points of safety. It is very important that you use a plastic bottle as the tablets will create pressure in the bottle that could break a glass bottle. Even using more than four tablets or using a very small plastic bottle could result in the lid popping off, so be careful. Also please be aware that Alka Seltzer contains a small amount of aspirin. If you are allergic to aspirin do not use these tablets. The water that we will be using will not be drinkable after we finish as it will be highly favored by the tablets but the fruit will be perfectly fine for the average person. Still, if you prefer to avoid the aspirin simply purchase some heartburn tablets instead that don’t contain aspirin and you will get the same results.
Now we want to be able to put the fruit in the bottle but keep it separate from the tablets. If the tablets actually touch the fruit or the water touches the fruit they will get a weird flavor. To achieve this I put the tablets in first and then took a plastic cup. I cut the plastic cup down the side and halfway across the base to allow it to squeeze inside the lid. Once inside it returned to its normal shape and covered the tablets.
Cut your fruit so it can fit inside the bottle but is still big enough that it can not fall off the plastic cup on the inside. We want it to sit right on top. Once this is done simply add about ¾ of a cup of water to the bottle. Place the bottle in the fridge standing upright and store overnight. When you open this the next day your fruit will have a zesty carbonated fizz flavor. If you find the flavor is too weak you can repeat the process to make it even stronger.
This turned into a great snack for me and it is something that I have turned to time and time again. Even better than that it is an incredibly safe and fun science project for the kids. You can take the time to explain the process of carbonation and have a really great time.
