So I have been feeling really guilty (thanks to my Mom) about how many plastic bottles Pat and I go through in a week (
Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour! Most of them are thrown away!). Please note, we recycle each and every one of these plastic bottles. I make sure to bring my empty bottles home from work each day to recycle them since the school doesn’t recycle plastic. That being said, we do go through a lot, especially me.
I take a Lipton Lemon Iced Tea in a plastic bottle with me to work every day. I buy a 12 pack of these teas about every other week. My mom and Mark saw some special on TV about how much plastic the country as a whole goes through, and ever since then it has been my mom's personal mission to make sure I am not one of the citizens contributing to this problem. She has brought it up several times and each time I remind her that I do recycle them. It appeases her for the moment but the next time I see them, they bring it up again.
The last time my mom mentioned it (last week), I decided I would actually take her words to heart and think of ways I could still drink my tea without using all the plastic bottles (after all, I like the Earth too!). My first solution was to just buy one big jug of tea that I would then pour into my plastic reusable water bottle every day. But the big jug is made out of plastic too and I'm not convinced that 1 big bottle of plastic is any better than 12 little bottles of plastic. So I went on to plan B: what if I make the tea myself? Now there's an idea! A new challenge in the kitchen... I like it! So I went to the tea isle and bought the Lipton iced tea packets, which as far as going green is concerned, they come in a small box and each tea packet is wrapped in paper and the box itself is wrapped in shrink wrap. BUT, there is no plastic! I bought some lemon juice, that I needed for the hummus recipe I'm also going to try this week and I knew I had plenty of sugar at home.
Last night I made the tea and I think it's delicious, if I do say so myself! In addition to being a more "green" alternative than buying the plastic bottles, it's also much cheaper! I can get several weeks worth of tea out of one box that cost $3.69 at Giant Eagle. I can also get about half a year's worth of tea out of the bottle of lemon juice that I bought. That beats paying $6.00 for twelve bottles of tea!
The only problem I'm facing is the amount of sugar I have to put in the tea to get it to my desired taste. I put 1 cup of sugar in 2 quarts of tea. It didn't seem like a lot until I tried to get my calorie count from the tea. There are 98 calories in 6 teaspoons of sugar, which is about how much sugar is in each 8 ounce serving of the homemade tea. I would really like to find a sugar substitute to use instead so the calorie count will be lower but I'm afraid to use fake sugar. All I hear are negative, scary things about sugar substitutes. I was drinking diet teas and diet pops because of the low-calories but then someone told me diet is actually worse for you because of the fake sugar. So, sugar, what is your opinion? Real sugar with higher calories or finding a sugar substitute? Here is some useful information on sugar substitutes from the Mayo Clinic. I know what you might be thinking, just suck it up and don't use as much sugar. That is an option I am going to consider as well but I'd love to hear your thoughts!
In the meantime, enjoy this appropriate little jingle.
Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour! Most of them are thrown away!). Please note, we recycle each and every one of these plastic bottles. I make sure to bring my empty bottles home from work each day to recycle them since the school doesn’t recycle plastic. That being said, we do go through a lot, especially me.I take a Lipton Lemon Iced Tea in a plastic bottle with me to work every day. I buy a 12 pack of these teas about every other week. My mom and Mark saw some special on TV about how much plastic the country as a whole goes through, and ever since then it has been my mom's personal mission to make sure I am not one of the citizens contributing to this problem. She has brought it up several times and each time I remind her that I do recycle them. It appeases her for the moment but the next time I see them, they bring it up again.
The last time my mom mentioned it (last week), I decided I would actually take her words to heart and think of ways I could still drink my tea without using all the plastic bottles (after all, I like the Earth too!). My first solution was to just buy one big jug of tea that I would then pour into my plastic reusable water bottle every day. But the big jug is made out of plastic too and I'm not convinced that 1 big bottle of plastic is any better than 12 little bottles of plastic. So I went on to plan B: what if I make the tea myself? Now there's an idea! A new challenge in the kitchen... I like it! So I went to the tea isle and bought the Lipton iced tea packets, which as far as going green is concerned, they come in a small box and each tea packet is wrapped in paper and the box itself is wrapped in shrink wrap. BUT, there is no plastic! I bought some lemon juice, that I needed for the hummus recipe I'm also going to try this week and I knew I had plenty of sugar at home.
Last night I made the tea and I think it's delicious, if I do say so myself! In addition to being a more "green" alternative than buying the plastic bottles, it's also much cheaper! I can get several weeks worth of tea out of one box that cost $3.69 at Giant Eagle. I can also get about half a year's worth of tea out of the bottle of lemon juice that I bought. That beats paying $6.00 for twelve bottles of tea!
The only problem I'm facing is the amount of sugar I have to put in the tea to get it to my desired taste. I put 1 cup of sugar in 2 quarts of tea. It didn't seem like a lot until I tried to get my calorie count from the tea. There are 98 calories in 6 teaspoons of sugar, which is about how much sugar is in each 8 ounce serving of the homemade tea. I would really like to find a sugar substitute to use instead so the calorie count will be lower but I'm afraid to use fake sugar. All I hear are negative, scary things about sugar substitutes. I was drinking diet teas and diet pops because of the low-calories but then someone told me diet is actually worse for you because of the fake sugar. So, sugar, what is your opinion? Real sugar with higher calories or finding a sugar substitute? Here is some useful information on sugar substitutes from the Mayo Clinic. I know what you might be thinking, just suck it up and don't use as much sugar. That is an option I am going to consider as well but I'd love to hear your thoughts!
In the meantime, enjoy this appropriate little jingle.
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