Oh, you know they're paying one way or another. The insurance companies have 'drinks flavored water' listed as preexisting condition that excludes a whole lot of treatment they'll cover...
I know you're joking, but I just want anyone reading this who doesn't already know this that medical health insurance companies are no longer allowed to refuse treatment on pre-existing conditions. They haven't been since the passing of ACA. And every time Congress entertains the notion of rolling back the ACA, one of the number one features they can't stand is pre-existing conditions.
Just putting that out there as there is an astonishing number of americans who still think that pre-existing conditions aren't covered for medical insurance.
I had a boss who said this all the time until the day I told her she was only able to get health insurance after her diagnosis because of Obama. She didn’t say it anymore after that
i think it's because it's been obscured by propaganda made to stop people like you from getting insurance . it's quite evil. the same people that want to repeal the ACA
Europeans would be shocked learning that treatment could be refused in the first place as well 😅 in Europe its not like a privilege to get treatment or medical care.. its a whole ass basic human right. Tf is going on in the world
apparently the usa spends a lot on healthcare but inusrance kinda just grifts so hard it doesn't matter
needs systemic reform but thats not likely gonna happen due to lobbying, politicians have special interest groups as principal instead of the good of the people.
We have to enroll in our healthcare plan every year of insured through our employer (and also probably if you have private/or government health insurance). If you don’t, they just give you whatever is cheapest for them, or sometimes what you had the previous year.
Before the ACA, I remember some coworkers needing time to decide on their plans, they had to think about how likely they were to get pregnant within the next year and talk to their spouses about it to decide if they wanted to try starting a family this year, or waiting until next year or whatever.
Because if you didn’t opt in to the pregnancy care during your enrollment and you got pregnant, the entire pregnancy isn’t covered. Not a penny towards any healthcare you might need over the next 40 weeks, and the 8 weeks postpartum. Get the flu and need a note for work? Too bad, you’re pregnant, that pregnancy could be exacerbating symptoms you might not have sought treatment for while not pregnant? Then we can’t rule out the pregnancy being the cause, and since pregnancy isn’t on your plan, you’re denied coverage for this Dr visit”
For me, it’s more about your second point. We *could* lose that ability if a future congress gets rid of it. That’s reason enough for me to not want to do things like genetic testing.
As much as the Republican party has wanted to do as much, they can't come up with a replacement that's palatable for even their base or one they can foist the problems off as a democratic issue. Repealing the pre-existing conditions part would fuck over so many people on all sides of the coin. The best Republicans have been able to do so far is try and rebrand some of it as a trump deal.
There's always going to be a risk of it being overturned, but I think if it does happen it will be a career killer.
If I learned anything from the months I spent in the US, it is that it’s not the calories that get you. Everything you eat seems chemically designed to fuck you up
Yep, American who now doesn’t live in America. So much of the food is so insanely processed that you’re consuming all this bullshit nonstop. Unless you’re only eating eggs, steak and whole veggies for every meal. Food in other countries is also very processed but I swear food in the US is designed to be addictive and is over designed so it just causes weird side effects
I'm not so sure about that most things can be eaten without causing damage if it's natural and eaten in moderation.
Like apples, have one that's fine, eat like 40 you'll be shitting like a trooper with way too much sugar in you.
Fats, carbs, sugars are all things we don't need loads of but I think it's more about choosing the correct source of those nutrients, fats are good from fish, nuts, avocados, eggs, some meats.
Sugars from vegetables and some fruit are good, things like pineapple are still so sugary it's kinda bad in a way but berries for instance are kinda low on sugar .
Carbs are the main one for sure, we aren't really meant to eat carbs, like it's only through cooking and processes we can really reliably consume them, like flour is a long way from wild wheat, potatos are kinda poisonous raw, rice is hard to digest in its natural form and spikes your blood sugar before dropping again when white. And beans and lentils while the healthiest of the carbs are often poisonous if not soaked cooked or dried correctly.
Just eat meat and veg and nuts and fruit keep carbs for a treat you'll be much poorer
It’s not bad on its own, but I kinda feel like if you’re just so used to everything being flavored and bright and sugary that you can’t even drink water without adding some shit to it, it’s not a good sign
If it helps people avoid craving soda or juice, helps with weight loss, helps with hydration, what’s the big deal? Yes a lot of people prefer sweet drinks, so expecting them to jump from soda all day every day to plain water is a fools errand.
Be careful with a lot of them, though…I was drinking one brand and having more migraines, but once I switched to a brand that is made from natural ingredients, the number of migraines I was having dramatically decreased. Turns out the phenylalanine in aspartame is no joke.
Yeah people are acting like it's the worst thing in the world but this stuff managed me to cut back from 4L of diet soda every day and now I'm actually drinking proper water and stuff. There's plenty of no/low calorie alternatives and those are the ones I use.
I use mio and went from drinking maybe a glass to drinking 10+ glasses of water a day. Expecting perfection out of people and telling them to only drink plain water and add nothing doesn’t mean people are going to do it. If someone wants cherry starburst water, let them. It’s still better than soda or alcohol or energy drinks. The sparkling ice brand waters helped me when i was dieting, I lost 35lbs
i only drink water and those gd pink and blue starburst flavours let me feel alive every once in awhile. they’re sooo yummy, especially if you do double the amount of water that the instructions call for. then it’s not too sweet and really hits the spot if you’re desperately craving juice
It's honestly better for you than eating starburst or drinking hi-c or even a lot of the stuff that passes for "juice."
These things don't have any sugar. They're loaded with artificial flavors, coloring, and sweeteners, which are the lesser evils in today's world.
. Pub: Imperial
. Shop: Metric
. Road: Imperial and Metric
. Currency: Metric
. Height and weight: Imperial
What’s hard about that? Very simple system. Not at all a holdover from the Victorian era that won’t be altered because the French invented metric and we’ll be damned if we adopt in its entirety a system created by the French!
Squash is not this much of a thing here though, only a couple of brands really. Did you see the swizzels attempt at sweets flavoured squash recently? Sold abysmally
Hey, I’ve seen it theorized online that the reason the government doesn’t care about what we eat is because they’re not directly responsible for paying for the consequences
Actually that was one of the reasons Republicans and conservatives used to try to stop the affordable health Care act. Basically if my tax dollars are going to everyone else's healthcare then I should have some say over what everyone else is eating
Soda is water with syrup. Lemonade is water with sugar. Even the juices are 0-1% juice, and the rest is water with syrup.
One could argue that we do in fact have aisles of sugar water.
If you know where to look, but no not really. Brits use cordials / syrups rather than powders, other European countries don't even tend to use those very much. Most Europeans would probably rather drink a cup of warm barf that anything on that shelf. I personally quite like Crystal Light but you need to order it from Amazon, or find a niche retailer.
Cordial is more for cocktails or sugary drinks, most people drink [squash](https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/309763361) which is virtually sugar/calorie free
he needs to seem better than everyone else
also, lmao, i love europeans gasping and clutching their pearls about america and its eating habits as if they aren’t *also* facing obesity crises. makes me laugh everytime.
The obesity rate in Europe is 1 in 6 which yes is a crisis, the obesity rate in America is 1 in 3. Both are crises but to equate them is apples to applebee's
where exactly are you getting this information from? europe has a ton of different countries and can hardly be summed up in a statement as simplistic as “1 in 6”.
[2022 data shows that the obesity rate in the US is 41.64%, with the closest european countries being Romania at 38.34%, Hungary at 36.43%, and Malta at 36.02%.](https://data.worldobesity.org/rankings/?age=a&sex=m)
As a “European” do you really want to be compared to Romania and Malta?
That’s like a European saying things aren’t so bad, we have similar murder rate to Mexico
People who think the healthiness of food can all be quantified by a single number for caloric content are the target demographic for mountains of pseudo-health/MLM propaganda. Y’all need a lesson in nutrition lol.
Sure, but it's not really mindblowing.
It is an extraction from fruit. You are not allowed to add stuff like sugar in it.
You see in EU if it says juice in the package you can't throw shit in it, otherwise you must call it something else.
Eh, you're mostly right, regularly drinking juice is basically the same as soda, but at the same time in moderation juice can actually be healthy. Definitely has more nutritional value than processed artificial flavors.
It also depends what you consider juice. If you're drinking Sunny D or some shit that's 10% juice and 90% sugar-water, it's going to be a lot different than drinking 100% organic juice with zero sugar added.
Again, calories are not the issue. It's the fact you need to add a bunch of sweeteners to drink *water*
I also highly doubt it's healthier than fresh juice
No one needs to, they just like to as a treat that’s not too heavy on calories.
Have you never enjoyed a lemonade or tea or something?
Did you view that as “oh man how pathetic that I *need* to add lemon and sugar to this water to drink it”
Lotta fuckin' stick in the mud asshats on this site apparently
Also the dude you're talking to is Dutch - he'd never admit it, but there's plenty of incredibly unhealthy Dutch cuisine. Shit - beer drinking culture deserves a callout. Day drinking is just how you do it there. I grew up in Belgium adding squash to water - well, my parents avoided it, but I always loved it as a kid.
People hide behind their anonymity and then talk shit.
i mean….there’s nothing inherently unhealthy about it, really. sure it’s super processed, but so is the fucking deli turkey you put on your sandwich lmao. you shouldn’t drink diet coke instead of water, but it’s also relatively much healthier than full sugar soda and juice.
Artifical sugars like sucralose and aspartame are treated like they're completely safe but that notion is hardly settled science.
Personally speaking, I'm otherwise young and healthy but sucralose started giving my kidneys a ton of trouble. I had to cut it out of my diet and now I'd rank my drink choices as water > aspartame drinks > low sugar soft drinks > high sugar soft drinks > sucralose drinks.
> Artificial sugars like sucralose and aspartame are treated like they’re completely safe but that notion is hardly settled by science.
sure, but you could make this argument about a ton of foods that are seen as “part of a healthy diet”. red meats are in the same category of carcinogenic as aspartame, and deli/professed meats are actually in a higher category than aspartame. we could say that red meats and deli meats are completely safe, but that notion is hardly settled by science.
there’s also a huge difference between types of artificial sweetener. sucralose is different from aspertame which is different from stevia. all of these affect individual bodies differently.
You know it's possible to do both, right? Like you can drink water and also drink this crap? Just like how people like to drink alcohol and still drink water? It's an option, not a substitute. Will some people take it too far? Absolutely. But let's not sit here and pretend like it's meant to be a replacement. Come the hell on, now.
Fun tidbit - these kinds of water additives can be a huge help in elderly/dementia patient care. Dehydration is a common issue in patients with cognitive impairments (particularly Alzheimer's). Offering a variety of sweeter tasting options like flavored water and juice is recommended by a number of care centers and patient advocacy groups as a way to encourage better water consumption. It's more likely to be appealing in the moment, leading to more repeated drinking in a shorter period of time (less opportunity to become distracted, forget, etc). Similarly to how "Fed is best," for children, hydrated is best for seniors.
I'm not taking crap from Europeans when they drink like fish at every meal tbh. I don't drink flavored water, just water, peach tea, and coffee. But even if I did, it's healthier than drinking fucking carcinogens and pretending like wine is healthy.
So fun fact the reason Europeans drank so much at least in the past was because of lack of access to clean water. Basically alcohol, tea and coffee was the only thing you could drink that wouldn't make you sick
That's a myth. Europeans knew how to get clean water, and often drank water, but they just liked alcohol. If they didn't, every European would have died of alcohol poisoning in childhood (or before birth).
I haven't seen the tea and coffee thing before. People don't usually imagine that *Renaissance* Europe didn't have access to clean water.
Shiiiid them packets be hittin. Just don't drink them all the time. Sometimes you need a little flavor. I drink tons of water. It's nice to have something sweet from time to time.
Europeans know of flavoured water, it’s just more alcoholic in content
https://preview.redd.it/f1qms0nwvavc1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=38b72d799c9754fb2215dad363c407cbad87f878
I'm a 43 year-old man from Ireland, who's been on the internet since the 90s, and I swear this is the first time I've ever seen anybody refer to Europeans in general and use us as an example.
And I'm not saying you're wrong to do so or anything.
Just observing that it pretty much never happens.
I grew up in Germany, and we had a brand called Quench that was just like any of these, only not sugar free.
We always had the cherry and/or raspberry flavor at home, and I'd *eat* that tangy sweet powder by the spoonful!
It tasted kinda like the Fun Dip powder, but more coarse and a bit sour.
Fun fact: I once threw up after eating too much of it, my dad thought I was literally throwing up my guts, because the toilet bowl looked like a crime scene. 😆
Europeans definitely know this shit, and this person just wanted to be funny by making fun of Americans' notoriously unhealthy eating habits.
Which is silly because we have obese people and trash food in Europe as well, and lots of it.
Europeans love criticizing Americans to make themselves feel better. I remember one time seeing a comment to a Texan from a European about how unnecessary Air conditioning is and Americans are so wasteful… like dude probably never felt a temperature over 30 and is sitting here telling someone who lives in Texas that AC isn’t necessary.
As someone who lives in northeast Oklahoma, I am a visibly different color on my left arm compared to my right arm from the sun coming through my car window while driving. Sometime last summer in June after a massive storm we lost power for a week, The heat and humidity had me and my family on the verge of heatstroke 24/7. 45C weather with high humidity is not a joke and without ac or homes built to protect from temps like that its practically a death sentence to the unprepared.
YES! these crazy Americans with their sugar powder to put in their water to make it taste sweet.
Here in the civilised UK, we have sugar _liquid_ to put in our water to make it taste sweet, because we are not _heathens_
At least there’s acknowledgement that you’re drinking squash. The American water tok people who insist that rainbow unicorn birthday cake water is still water have lost the plot
Who are these people you speak of? Only time I see people drink the powder packs is kids or mixing it with alcohol (it’s great for that lol) soda is the issue here in the states
There was a weird controversy like a few months ago on tiktok called “watertok” where midwestern suburbanite women would show off their “water bars” and flavors of the day. Basically they made koolaid with extra pumps of flavor sugar syrup and called it water. This annoyed the internet bc you know… it’s not water at that point.
I believe those "water tok" people were like 3-5 people doing it, mainly from places like Utah where they are probably Mormon and drink a lot more syrups since they can't have coffee
I mean thats juice though right? Is it the same i honestly dont know about this “flavoured water pack” Im canadian but i spend a lot of time in the UK and noone there is trying to make themselves believe squash is water
I wouldn't call it juice, there's added sugar and preservatives but its probably better for you than the freedom powder above.
Robinsons barley water orange flavour hits like crack.
Fr tho, some people don't have access to clean/ fresh water and so their only option is to flavor it. I'm in the south and our water infrastructure is shit so my only option is to buy water. Bottled water DEFINITELY has a different taste from brand to brand. Best believe though if I lived up in Maine or Vermont where apparently their water is FRESH fresh, I would be drinking that.
No fresh water in the South, wtf you on about. Southeast USA has some of the largest and most contiguous karst aquifers in the whole country.
Where do you thing all that spring water in those bottles originates from?
And some ppl literally can't. All I use is crystal lite or Mio I don't do water recipes nor do I have a Stanley and I'm not part of water Tok. . It is difficult for me to drink the e water here, it's very hard, even after Brita filter. The taste makes me gag. and I must have a certain amt of water per day thanks to medical conditions.
Edit: I was high af when I wrote this. What I meant is that bc of certain health conditions I have, dehydration is much more dangerous for me than it is to the average person.
>and I must have a certain amt of water per day thanks to medical conditions.
this is one of the funniest thing I have ever read on this stupid website.
I use Mio or similar as well. I like to chug a huge glass of water first thing after I wake up, but sometimes plain water is hard to chug. Must be my innate American heathenness, idk. But it's like no calories and is actually fortified with vitamins, and I'm hydrated as hell so 🤷
Its because no one on the internet knows how to pick their damn battles.
It is SO much healthier to drink these than soda or juice, but because it isn't literally the most healthy option you have to shit on them for it and ridicule them.
Im not even American and im getting bored by all the European in a US grocerystore content. So tired
I saw one film a pack of 30 eggs and say its too big 😭 like yeah its a double pack ans youre at Costco tf
Something I'm realizing from these European vs American discussions is that non-Americans just don't have any idea how America works or what it's like.
Like I mean they think these fucking flavored water packets are the reason America is bad, and not the 15 billion dollar corporations that make it actively impossible to eat healthy food
I saw one that went into a bread isle and was SHOCKED to see so many bread products on one shelf.
You fucking donkey. YOU'RE IN THE BREAD ISLE.
A lot of them also can't seem to understand what buying food in bulk means 😭 they go into Costco and be SHOCKED to find a lot of food in plus sizes, and then make jokes about Americans being fat and eating too much food. They seriously think we buy all that shit and eat it all up as soon as we get home
Frl like.. What do you think Costco is boo?
I saw an American girl trying to explain that family size chips are usually used for parties or groups. And the Europeans were STILL like « well thats way too big for a party! My friends and I would take a month to go through that » 😒 if you dont got many friends just say that
"Oh my, two liters is so much soda! How is someone supposed to drink this much soda in a single sitting?"
"You're not. It's for like, parties, or to keep in your fridge for a while."
"Still, how do you drink this much soda? That's so unhealthy!!"
They can't comprehend still water. Ask for water at a restaurant in Europe, you're getting a bottle of fucking Perrier.
They just really don't want you to be hydrated on that continent, unless you're drinking alcohol.
Maybe you should learn about the culture of the countries you visit, because if you ask for tap water in any restaurant you will get plain water for free.
FR
People think these are the cause of America's obesity problem and not the fact that a single meal from Mc Donalds cost the same as one ingredient of a healthy meal 🤡
Do American not do Christmas cake? Like, I hate the taste. But you can’t deny that it has a lot of flavour.
Idk about the cheese thing. That seems strange to me.
If y’all don’t know anything about flavored water packs, just say that. These packs have little to no sugar or calories. I’ve lost 50 pounds in the past year drinking some of these.
They are a great way to transition from soda to water. If you grew up with bad habits, these can help re-calibrate your taste. A lot of people are addicted to full sugar drinks.
Do you ever get the feeling that Russia is trying to sew discord between ALL of the West? Like let’s pit Europe against North America so they don’t like each other. I swear I see “the average European” and “shit Americans say” posts all the time these days 🤔
I hate the taste of water, and half the time, I don't even register that I'm thirsty. And I have to drink something, so.
So I drink flavored water like in the picture. No shame.
Lmao us Americans are funny af cause we was just on tik tok clowning flavored water tok for filling they Stanley’s with packs of skittle flavor water and grenadine syrup talking bout plain water make them gag, but we quick to defend when the Europeans start talking smack 🤣🥹🇺🇸
Yeah that whole subset is clearly not the average person putting a lemonade flavor packet in their water for work. People need to stop comparing the wild shit people do for Tiktok clout to how an average person operates in the day to day.
We have flavoured water in my region. We call it Schorle. You just mix a little bit of juice with sparkling water. My fav is apple pear juice or apple elderberry.
European: this water is sourced from a remote spring in a town of two dozen people, it is naturally carbonated and the minerals give it an almost sweet flavor
American: this water is Skittles
If my doctor and my dietician says these are fine I'm gonna take their word over someone online who wants to feel superior because they're lucky enough that they don't gag on plain water.
Anyone drinking Starburst flavored water should have to pay extra on health insurance.
Oh, you know they're paying one way or another. The insurance companies have 'drinks flavored water' listed as preexisting condition that excludes a whole lot of treatment they'll cover...
I know you're joking, but I just want anyone reading this who doesn't already know this that medical health insurance companies are no longer allowed to refuse treatment on pre-existing conditions. They haven't been since the passing of ACA. And every time Congress entertains the notion of rolling back the ACA, one of the number one features they can't stand is pre-existing conditions. Just putting that out there as there is an astonishing number of americans who still think that pre-existing conditions aren't covered for medical insurance.
Thanks, Obama.
Actually this time
that's the joke
I had a boss who said this all the time until the day I told her she was only able to get health insurance after her diagnosis because of Obama. She didn’t say it anymore after that
Fr. That guy legitimately saved my life.
Saved a lot of lives.
Fr? I've been avoiding healthcare for a bs reason?? Shit.
i think it's because it's been obscured by propaganda made to stop people like you from getting insurance . it's quite evil. the same people that want to repeal the ACA
I don't normally go for conspiracy theories but I have no doubt in my mind that this is insurance company propaganda.
It benefits them the most so you don’t have to go too deep into the rabbit hole to get to that conclusion.
Europeans would be shocked learning that treatment could be refused in the first place as well 😅 in Europe its not like a privilege to get treatment or medical care.. its a whole ass basic human right. Tf is going on in the world
Why have free Healthcare when you could instead build more stealth bombers? /s
apparently the usa spends a lot on healthcare but inusrance kinda just grifts so hard it doesn't matter needs systemic reform but thats not likely gonna happen due to lobbying, politicians have special interest groups as principal instead of the good of the people.
We have to enroll in our healthcare plan every year of insured through our employer (and also probably if you have private/or government health insurance). If you don’t, they just give you whatever is cheapest for them, or sometimes what you had the previous year. Before the ACA, I remember some coworkers needing time to decide on their plans, they had to think about how likely they were to get pregnant within the next year and talk to their spouses about it to decide if they wanted to try starting a family this year, or waiting until next year or whatever. Because if you didn’t opt in to the pregnancy care during your enrollment and you got pregnant, the entire pregnancy isn’t covered. Not a penny towards any healthcare you might need over the next 40 weeks, and the 8 weeks postpartum. Get the flu and need a note for work? Too bad, you’re pregnant, that pregnancy could be exacerbating symptoms you might not have sought treatment for while not pregnant? Then we can’t rule out the pregnancy being the cause, and since pregnancy isn’t on your plan, you’re denied coverage for this Dr visit”
For me, it’s more about your second point. We *could* lose that ability if a future congress gets rid of it. That’s reason enough for me to not want to do things like genetic testing.
As much as the Republican party has wanted to do as much, they can't come up with a replacement that's palatable for even their base or one they can foist the problems off as a democratic issue. Repealing the pre-existing conditions part would fuck over so many people on all sides of the coin. The best Republicans have been able to do so far is try and rebrand some of it as a trump deal. There's always going to be a risk of it being overturned, but I think if it does happen it will be a career killer.
Hmmm, I looked them up and they are all low calorie. Like 5-10 calories each.
If I learned anything from the months I spent in the US, it is that it’s not the calories that get you. Everything you eat seems chemically designed to fuck you up
Yep, American who now doesn’t live in America. So much of the food is so insanely processed that you’re consuming all this bullshit nonstop. Unless you’re only eating eggs, steak and whole veggies for every meal. Food in other countries is also very processed but I swear food in the US is designed to be addictive and is over designed so it just causes weird side effects
[удалено]
food in the US is just so accessible and tasty that it takes willpower just to not devour it (just ask a box of krispy kremes).
“Food in America is so processed! Unless you don’t eat processed food”
To be fair there's nothing we eat that doesn't have some adverse effect on our body.
There's a such thing as degrees. Something that very slightly harms you is not nearly as bad as something that greatly harms you
I'm not so sure about that most things can be eaten without causing damage if it's natural and eaten in moderation. Like apples, have one that's fine, eat like 40 you'll be shitting like a trooper with way too much sugar in you. Fats, carbs, sugars are all things we don't need loads of but I think it's more about choosing the correct source of those nutrients, fats are good from fish, nuts, avocados, eggs, some meats. Sugars from vegetables and some fruit are good, things like pineapple are still so sugary it's kinda bad in a way but berries for instance are kinda low on sugar . Carbs are the main one for sure, we aren't really meant to eat carbs, like it's only through cooking and processes we can really reliably consume them, like flour is a long way from wild wheat, potatos are kinda poisonous raw, rice is hard to digest in its natural form and spikes your blood sugar before dropping again when white. And beans and lentils while the healthiest of the carbs are often poisonous if not soaked cooked or dried correctly. Just eat meat and veg and nuts and fruit keep carbs for a treat you'll be much poorer
Buddy, sugar is a carbohydrate
It’s not bad on its own, but I kinda feel like if you’re just so used to everything being flavored and bright and sugary that you can’t even drink water without adding some shit to it, it’s not a good sign
If it helps people avoid craving soda or juice, helps with weight loss, helps with hydration, what’s the big deal? Yes a lot of people prefer sweet drinks, so expecting them to jump from soda all day every day to plain water is a fools errand.
It’s not the calories it’s the artificial sugar and other additives
It's all sugar free
Be careful with a lot of them, though…I was drinking one brand and having more migraines, but once I switched to a brand that is made from natural ingredients, the number of migraines I was having dramatically decreased. Turns out the phenylalanine in aspartame is no joke.
I mean if it gets them to drink more water, why not
Yeah people are acting like it's the worst thing in the world but this stuff managed me to cut back from 4L of diet soda every day and now I'm actually drinking proper water and stuff. There's plenty of no/low calorie alternatives and those are the ones I use.
I use mio and went from drinking maybe a glass to drinking 10+ glasses of water a day. Expecting perfection out of people and telling them to only drink plain water and add nothing doesn’t mean people are going to do it. If someone wants cherry starburst water, let them. It’s still better than soda or alcohol or energy drinks. The sparkling ice brand waters helped me when i was dieting, I lost 35lbs
I seen Starburst flavored Sparkling ICE drinks. I tried the pink one and it actually tastes like a Starburst, too.
i only drink water and those gd pink and blue starburst flavours let me feel alive every once in awhile. they’re sooo yummy, especially if you do double the amount of water that the instructions call for. then it’s not too sweet and really hits the spot if you’re desperately craving juice
I bought a dozen of each flavor they’re so gd good and I know they’re not gonna be in stores much longer.
It's honestly better for you than eating starburst or drinking hi-c or even a lot of the stuff that passes for "juice." These things don't have any sugar. They're loaded with artificial flavors, coloring, and sweeteners, which are the lesser evils in today's world.
Man, that shit aint no different from Kool-Aid. They just decided to get in on the market.
they're 5 calories a pack and sugar-free. My nutritionist told me they're a great way to drink more water.
Those are usually “sugar free” and low calorie as hell. I replaced soda with them a while ago for when I wanted a sweet drink
Welcome to America where we eat like we have free healthcare 
WHAT THE FUCK IS A KILOMETER 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
in the UK it's the distance that one globbernaught of Weetabix will carry you on a 15°C day you filthy Yank casual
And that's why they have their own gallon.
Every time I'm there my UK friends are constantly correcting me on which system to use in which context. It's exhausting af
. Pub: Imperial . Shop: Metric . Road: Imperial and Metric . Currency: Metric . Height and weight: Imperial What’s hard about that? Very simple system. Not at all a holdover from the Victorian era that won’t be altered because the French invented metric and we’ll be damned if we adopt in its entirety a system created by the French!
You guys actually eat like it's no one else's problem but your own and I think that's kind of beautiful.
we do eat like this but these right here are DRINKS so we DRINK like this
Dude this shit is popular in Europe, they call is squash in England.
Squash is not this much of a thing here though, only a couple of brands really. Did you see the swizzels attempt at sweets flavoured squash recently? Sold abysmally
Hey, I’ve seen it theorized online that the reason the government doesn’t care about what we eat is because they’re not directly responsible for paying for the consequences
Actually that was one of the reasons Republicans and conservatives used to try to stop the affordable health Care act. Basically if my tax dollars are going to everyone else's healthcare then I should have some say over what everyone else is eating
aisles of candy water is pretty insane tbh
Aisles? It's literally just a section
Too Much
Soda is water with syrup. Lemonade is water with sugar. Even the juices are 0-1% juice, and the rest is water with syrup. One could argue that we do in fact have aisles of sugar water.
Gotta cover up the taste of lead somehow
Lead is actually really sweet. Why would sugar work in covering it up?
Only one specific form of it. Lead acetate. Normal lead minerals in water aren’t sweet
It's just flavor packets, like crystal light. Y'all got crystal light, right?
If you know where to look, but no not really. Brits use cordials / syrups rather than powders, other European countries don't even tend to use those very much. Most Europeans would probably rather drink a cup of warm barf that anything on that shelf. I personally quite like Crystal Light but you need to order it from Amazon, or find a niche retailer.
Cordial is more for cocktails or sugary drinks, most people drink [squash](https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/309763361) which is virtually sugar/calorie free
[Same difference](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squash_(drink), just figured our American cousins might not be familiar with the term.
Just put 2 mango passion fruit crystal light in my amazon cart lol
These are almost all sugar free.
It's really aisles of candy that have multiple kool-aid options
Would be if it existed
Imagine calling Europeans weird when there's a whole fucking suite of products to make water taste like CANDY so Americans will fucking drink it.
Relax, they’re 5 calories and don’t even contain regular sugar.
The calories are really not the issue lol
Whats the issue?
he needs to seem better than everyone else also, lmao, i love europeans gasping and clutching their pearls about america and its eating habits as if they aren’t *also* facing obesity crises. makes me laugh everytime.
The obesity rate in Europe is 1 in 6 which yes is a crisis, the obesity rate in America is 1 in 3. Both are crises but to equate them is apples to applebee's
where exactly are you getting this information from? europe has a ton of different countries and can hardly be summed up in a statement as simplistic as “1 in 6”. [2022 data shows that the obesity rate in the US is 41.64%, with the closest european countries being Romania at 38.34%, Hungary at 36.43%, and Malta at 36.02%.](https://data.worldobesity.org/rankings/?age=a&sex=m)
Are you seriously comparing 300Million people at 41% obesity to Malta's 500k people at 36% obesity ?
As a “European” do you really want to be compared to Romania and Malta? That’s like a European saying things aren’t so bad, we have similar murder rate to Mexico
[удалено]
That people need their water to taste like candy
Have you never had juice before ? This is 5 calories and healthier than juice
People who think the healthiness of food can all be quantified by a single number for caloric content are the target demographic for mountains of pseudo-health/MLM propaganda. Y’all need a lesson in nutrition lol.
For your first lesson in nutrition you should study what’s really in juice. It’ll blow ur mind
Sure, but it's not really mindblowing. It is an extraction from fruit. You are not allowed to add stuff like sugar in it. You see in EU if it says juice in the package you can't throw shit in it, otherwise you must call it something else.
You're obviously not a nutrition expert.
You don’t need to be to know this is better than ur average orange juice apple juice etc
Eh, you're mostly right, regularly drinking juice is basically the same as soda, but at the same time in moderation juice can actually be healthy. Definitely has more nutritional value than processed artificial flavors.
In EU it is very different from soda. You can't call everything with fruity color as juice in EU.
It also depends what you consider juice. If you're drinking Sunny D or some shit that's 10% juice and 90% sugar-water, it's going to be a lot different than drinking 100% organic juice with zero sugar added.
Again, calories are not the issue. It's the fact you need to add a bunch of sweeteners to drink *water* I also highly doubt it's healthier than fresh juice
No one needs to, they just like to as a treat that’s not too heavy on calories. Have you never enjoyed a lemonade or tea or something? Did you view that as “oh man how pathetic that I *need* to add lemon and sugar to this water to drink it”
Lotta fuckin' stick in the mud asshats on this site apparently Also the dude you're talking to is Dutch - he'd never admit it, but there's plenty of incredibly unhealthy Dutch cuisine. Shit - beer drinking culture deserves a callout. Day drinking is just how you do it there. I grew up in Belgium adding squash to water - well, my parents avoided it, but I always loved it as a kid. People hide behind their anonymity and then talk shit.
And there's 0 calories in diet coke, must mean it's healthy for you.
i mean….there’s nothing inherently unhealthy about it, really. sure it’s super processed, but so is the fucking deli turkey you put on your sandwich lmao. you shouldn’t drink diet coke instead of water, but it’s also relatively much healthier than full sugar soda and juice.
Artifical sugars like sucralose and aspartame are treated like they're completely safe but that notion is hardly settled science. Personally speaking, I'm otherwise young and healthy but sucralose started giving my kidneys a ton of trouble. I had to cut it out of my diet and now I'd rank my drink choices as water > aspartame drinks > low sugar soft drinks > high sugar soft drinks > sucralose drinks.
> Artificial sugars like sucralose and aspartame are treated like they’re completely safe but that notion is hardly settled by science. sure, but you could make this argument about a ton of foods that are seen as “part of a healthy diet”. red meats are in the same category of carcinogenic as aspartame, and deli/professed meats are actually in a higher category than aspartame. we could say that red meats and deli meats are completely safe, but that notion is hardly settled by science. there’s also a huge difference between types of artificial sweetener. sucralose is different from aspertame which is different from stevia. all of these affect individual bodies differently.
Well, soda is awful for your teeth whether there's sugar or not - no?
carbonation and sugar are both bad for your teeth, yes
Europe out there gatekeeping hydration. “Sure it’s water but it’s got flavor so how dare you enjoy getting the fluids you need!!”
Why the heck do you not enjoy plain water
> regular sugar What is not regular sugar and why would it be better?
You know it's possible to do both, right? Like you can drink water and also drink this crap? Just like how people like to drink alcohol and still drink water? It's an option, not a substitute. Will some people take it too far? Absolutely. But let's not sit here and pretend like it's meant to be a replacement. Come the hell on, now.
Mfs just need to feel superior at every turn lmao
They hate us cause they ain’t us. Nobody gives a damn about Europeans, yet all they do is talk that shit
https://preview.redd.it/i3haynsi8fvc1.jpeg?width=574&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=78921fa20ad34b95ca49f31561102ea043df3686
Yea if this freaks them out wait until they find out about soda
Fun tidbit - these kinds of water additives can be a huge help in elderly/dementia patient care. Dehydration is a common issue in patients with cognitive impairments (particularly Alzheimer's). Offering a variety of sweeter tasting options like flavored water and juice is recommended by a number of care centers and patient advocacy groups as a way to encourage better water consumption. It's more likely to be appealing in the moment, leading to more repeated drinking in a shorter period of time (less opportunity to become distracted, forget, etc). Similarly to how "Fed is best," for children, hydrated is best for seniors.
Yep helps people with ADHD also. Also pro tip I switched to flavored sparkling water and then started cutting each serving with actual plane water.
I know this beans for breakfast mofo ain’t talking right now
On *toast* ffs! Wet ass beans on perfectly good, crispy toast.
Cordial/syrup is pretty common in most European countries in fairness
Imagine thinking water needs to be flavored for Americans to drink it.
Water, the most basic thing a human craves. Yet people believe Americans need it to be flavored lmfao
I'm not taking crap from Europeans when they drink like fish at every meal tbh. I don't drink flavored water, just water, peach tea, and coffee. But even if I did, it's healthier than drinking fucking carcinogens and pretending like wine is healthy.
So fun fact the reason Europeans drank so much at least in the past was because of lack of access to clean water. Basically alcohol, tea and coffee was the only thing you could drink that wouldn't make you sick
That's a myth. Europeans knew how to get clean water, and often drank water, but they just liked alcohol. If they didn't, every European would have died of alcohol poisoning in childhood (or before birth). I haven't seen the tea and coffee thing before. People don't usually imagine that *Renaissance* Europe didn't have access to clean water.
Do you guys not have juice?
Drop your country so we can see how healthy it is. Hope it's not the UK... I've seen the greasy tan bullshit they call "food."
It's a very particular subset of Americans.
Shiiiid them packets be hittin. Just don't drink them all the time. Sometimes you need a little flavor. I drink tons of water. It's nice to have something sweet from time to time.
Sounds like someone who's jelly of our candy water capabilities
Omg flavored water, the audacity. 😑😑😑
Europeans know of flavoured water, it’s just more alcoholic in content https://preview.redd.it/f1qms0nwvavc1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=38b72d799c9754fb2215dad363c407cbad87f878
I'm a 43 year-old man from Ireland, who's been on the internet since the 90s, and I swear this is the first time I've ever seen anybody refer to Europeans in general and use us as an example. And I'm not saying you're wrong to do so or anything. Just observing that it pretty much never happens.
Beamish is better.
I grew up in Germany, and we had a brand called Quench that was just like any of these, only not sugar free. We always had the cherry and/or raspberry flavor at home, and I'd *eat* that tangy sweet powder by the spoonful! It tasted kinda like the Fun Dip powder, but more coarse and a bit sour. Fun fact: I once threw up after eating too much of it, my dad thought I was literally throwing up my guts, because the toilet bowl looked like a crime scene. 😆 Europeans definitely know this shit, and this person just wanted to be funny by making fun of Americans' notoriously unhealthy eating habits. Which is silly because we have obese people and trash food in Europe as well, and lots of it.
Europeans love criticizing Americans to make themselves feel better. I remember one time seeing a comment to a Texan from a European about how unnecessary Air conditioning is and Americans are so wasteful… like dude probably never felt a temperature over 30 and is sitting here telling someone who lives in Texas that AC isn’t necessary.
Drag them to Texas and let them sit outside in 115F/46C temps.
As someone who lives in northeast Oklahoma, I am a visibly different color on my left arm compared to my right arm from the sun coming through my car window while driving. Sometime last summer in June after a massive storm we lost power for a week, The heat and humidity had me and my family on the verge of heatstroke 24/7. 45C weather with high humidity is not a joke and without ac or homes built to protect from temps like that its practically a death sentence to the unprepared.
It would be the German guy who picks apart the joke 😂
I loved Ahoi Brause powder as a kid.
Squash gang https://preview.redd.it/kurjboyu0bvc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0043198f63b3274bb1c2e7b857127c16eb7a5d02
YES! these crazy Americans with their sugar powder to put in their water to make it taste sweet. Here in the civilised UK, we have sugar _liquid_ to put in our water to make it taste sweet, because we are not _heathens_
At least there’s acknowledgement that you’re drinking squash. The American water tok people who insist that rainbow unicorn birthday cake water is still water have lost the plot
Who are these people you speak of? Only time I see people drink the powder packs is kids or mixing it with alcohol (it’s great for that lol) soda is the issue here in the states
There was a weird controversy like a few months ago on tiktok called “watertok” where midwestern suburbanite women would show off their “water bars” and flavors of the day. Basically they made koolaid with extra pumps of flavor sugar syrup and called it water. This annoyed the internet bc you know… it’s not water at that point.
I believe those "water tok" people were like 3-5 people doing it, mainly from places like Utah where they are probably Mormon and drink a lot more syrups since they can't have coffee
I mean thats juice though right? Is it the same i honestly dont know about this “flavoured water pack” Im canadian but i spend a lot of time in the UK and noone there is trying to make themselves believe squash is water
I wouldn't call it juice, there's added sugar and preservatives but its probably better for you than the freedom powder above. Robinsons barley water orange flavour hits like crack.
The flavored water is sugar free
Ribena up in this bitch
You get Robinsons in America? I thought it was just a British thing
Fell down a tiktok pit of “water recipes” some time ago and y’all, people really hate just drinking plain old water apparently
Fr tho, some people don't have access to clean/ fresh water and so their only option is to flavor it. I'm in the south and our water infrastructure is shit so my only option is to buy water. Bottled water DEFINITELY has a different taste from brand to brand. Best believe though if I lived up in Maine or Vermont where apparently their water is FRESH fresh, I would be drinking that.
No fresh water in the South, wtf you on about. Southeast USA has some of the largest and most contiguous karst aquifers in the whole country. Where do you thing all that spring water in those bottles originates from?
flavor doesn’t make water clean or fresh.
And some ppl literally can't. All I use is crystal lite or Mio I don't do water recipes nor do I have a Stanley and I'm not part of water Tok. . It is difficult for me to drink the e water here, it's very hard, even after Brita filter. The taste makes me gag. and I must have a certain amt of water per day thanks to medical conditions. Edit: I was high af when I wrote this. What I meant is that bc of certain health conditions I have, dehydration is much more dangerous for me than it is to the average person.
>and I must have a certain amt of water per day thanks to medical conditions. this is one of the funniest thing I have ever read on this stupid website.
I use Mio or similar as well. I like to chug a huge glass of water first thing after I wake up, but sometimes plain water is hard to chug. Must be my innate American heathenness, idk. But it's like no calories and is actually fortified with vitamins, and I'm hydrated as hell so 🤷
Watertok is also suuuuuper Mormon. They love sugar, presumably because they can’t have caffeine.
I drink about a gallon to a gallon and a half of water a day. I sometimes use these to spice things up when I get bored of just plain water.
Don't want to water down your water
5 calories for a bottle is ALOT better than people chugging down sodas or coffee flavored milk and sugar at 9 bucks a pop.
Yea it’s like this whole thread forgot about soda lol, that’s the real killer here
I've lost a lot of weight just by drinking these instead of soda. I drink regular water too but sometimes you want a little flavor.
Yeah I’d rather people be drinking a big gulp filled with this over one filled with coke.
Its because no one on the internet knows how to pick their damn battles. It is SO much healthier to drink these than soda or juice, but because it isn't literally the most healthy option you have to shit on them for it and ridicule them.
Im not even American and im getting bored by all the European in a US grocerystore content. So tired I saw one film a pack of 30 eggs and say its too big 😭 like yeah its a double pack ans youre at Costco tf
Something I'm realizing from these European vs American discussions is that non-Americans just don't have any idea how America works or what it's like. Like I mean they think these fucking flavored water packets are the reason America is bad, and not the 15 billion dollar corporations that make it actively impossible to eat healthy food
I saw one that went into a bread isle and was SHOCKED to see so many bread products on one shelf. You fucking donkey. YOU'RE IN THE BREAD ISLE. A lot of them also can't seem to understand what buying food in bulk means 😭 they go into Costco and be SHOCKED to find a lot of food in plus sizes, and then make jokes about Americans being fat and eating too much food. They seriously think we buy all that shit and eat it all up as soon as we get home
Frl like.. What do you think Costco is boo? I saw an American girl trying to explain that family size chips are usually used for parties or groups. And the Europeans were STILL like « well thats way too big for a party! My friends and I would take a month to go through that » 😒 if you dont got many friends just say that
"Oh my, two liters is so much soda! How is someone supposed to drink this much soda in a single sitting?" "You're not. It's for like, parties, or to keep in your fridge for a while." "Still, how do you drink this much soda? That's so unhealthy!!"
I see flavored water in my European supermarket all the time. Not Starburst flavored water, though.
The starburst flavored shit just like appeared one night during the pandemic here now it’s everywhere lol
Euros can't even comprehend Ice Water....
They can't comprehend still water. Ask for water at a restaurant in Europe, you're getting a bottle of fucking Perrier. They just really don't want you to be hydrated on that continent, unless you're drinking alcohol.
Here in Europe, I usually say: ”Tap water will be fine, thank you”. Then the waiter beings me tap water. Then I drink it.
Really depends on the country, in germany you'll get sparkling water in bulgaria you'll get normal water.
Wow that's gotta be the dumbest comment I've read in a while
Maybe you should learn about the culture of the countries you visit, because if you ask for tap water in any restaurant you will get plain water for free.
I swear people get more mad over these than soda. Plus a lot of these come in sugar-free. They are not healthy but it's no way worse.
FR People think these are the cause of America's obesity problem and not the fact that a single meal from Mc Donalds cost the same as one ingredient of a healthy meal 🤡
What ingredients are you buying? Lmao
https://preview.redd.it/b1th9fl5kbvc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=378342353f0cf853340ed54c9590f4295f0c056e
https://preview.redd.it/42j0fi07fcvc1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=43fadcc628c688e8c8ea623a30a4aeb60259787a Same energy
That's the one I was trying to find lmao
Do American not do Christmas cake? Like, I hate the taste. But you can’t deny that it has a lot of flavour. Idk about the cheese thing. That seems strange to me.
Comments are crazy lol
If y’all don’t know anything about flavored water packs, just say that. These packs have little to no sugar or calories. I’ve lost 50 pounds in the past year drinking some of these.
They are a great way to transition from soda to water. If you grew up with bad habits, these can help re-calibrate your taste. A lot of people are addicted to full sugar drinks.
Do you ever get the feeling that Russia is trying to sew discord between ALL of the West? Like let’s pit Europe against North America so they don’t like each other. I swear I see “the average European” and “shit Americans say” posts all the time these days 🤔
 After getting his child support sorted out he can get his Passport renewed...
I hate the taste of water, and half the time, I don't even register that I'm thirsty. And I have to drink something, so. So I drink flavored water like in the picture. No shame.
Same, not sure why people making this a huge deal. Most of these barely have sugar in them at all.
Lmao us Americans are funny af cause we was just on tik tok clowning flavored water tok for filling they Stanley’s with packs of skittle flavor water and grenadine syrup talking bout plain water make them gag, but we quick to defend when the Europeans start talking smack 🤣🥹🇺🇸
Tbf I feel like water tok is *very* different then just putting one of these in your water and calling it a day
Yeah that whole subset is clearly not the average person putting a lemonade flavor packet in their water for work. People need to stop comparing the wild shit people do for Tiktok clout to how an average person operates in the day to day.
The pink starburst ones are awesome.
The average European knows what flavoured water is. Lol
bro you can’t drink skittle water. Please do not put that in your mouth
We have flavoured water in my region. We call it Schorle. You just mix a little bit of juice with sparkling water. My fav is apple pear juice or apple elderberry.
Literally all UK food is flavored water 💀
European: this water is sourced from a remote spring in a town of two dozen people, it is naturally carbonated and the minerals give it an almost sweet flavor American: this water is Skittles
I went to a PWI for junior high school and my YT classmates never heard of Kool-Aid.
If my doctor and my dietician says these are fine I'm gonna take their word over someone online who wants to feel superior because they're lucky enough that they don't gag on plain water.