When I want to know what I'm putting into my body, I just look at the label. My favorite drink right now is Hint, a naturally flavored water that comes in 16 delicious combinations, plus sparkling and caffeinated options, that keeps me hydrated and healthy while giving my taste buds a treat. Hint's ingredient list is always simple.
Take my personal favorite blackberry flavor: purified water, blackberry and other natural ingredients from non-GMO plants. That's it. And when it comes to nutrition labels, Hint has zeros all the way down the list -- no calories, no sodium, no anything! Hint never uses diet sweeteners, preservatives, dyes or GMOs.
I assumed that was industry standard, so I was really surprised when I discovered most other flavored water brands don't meet my high health standards.
Here's how it compares to other low calorie flavored water competitors. How does your go-to compare?
Vitamin Water Zero
OK, if you're already on the zero calorie flavored water train, then you probably know about Vitamin Water Zero. If you think all flavored waters are made the same, just take a look at that long list of ingredients on the Vitamin Water Zero bottle.
Just because it's zero calories, doesn't mean it's good for you. One of the many synthetic ingredients you can't pronounce is the sugar alcohol erythritol, which is often made from GMO corn and has been linked to weight gain and stomach bacteria issues.1
That's not natural. Plus Hint comes in more sophisticated flavors like blood orange.
Dasani Flavored Water
Dasani also makes a zero calorie flavored water with just four flavor options. Dasani's water contains a lot of the big-name diet sweeteners health conscious people have avoided for a while now, like aspartame. Artificial ingredients like this one can cause your blood sugar levels to spike and increase the feeling of hunger, leading to inevitable weight gain.
But the worst of all? Dasani flavored water contains a whopping 70mg of sodium! That's almost twice the sodium in a can of Coke! Sodium makes you bloat, so watch out. Hint on the other hand comes in way more flavor options and has 0mg of sodium (which, duh! It's water).
Hint is a great way to get all the health benefits of water, including accelerated weight loss and improved cognitive function, with a kick of flavor. It is literally like drinking still water, so you can enjoy as many as you want without any of the health risks that other flavored waters are known to cause.
They even have a subscription service you can use to make sure you never run out, and cut down on trips to the grocery store! If you're already a flavored water fan, make sure to check out the label of your go-to brand and see if it has any of the same hidden health risks as the competitors above.
Update 6/1/19: The folks at Hint are offering a special promotion to our readers! Follow this link to get 35% off PLUS free shipping!
1The Healthy Home Economist