Do you fit one or several of these scenarios? Gone sugar free, but crave a “sweet” soft drink/soda, especially on hot days? Want a healthy drink to give the kids? Got gut issues and need to up the probiotics in your diet? Need more electrolytes? I think I have the answer: homemade ginger-ade.

Ginger-ade experiments: I used mason jars to do the first fermentation, then did the rest in bottles

I kind of got obsessed about this stuff, researching the different ways to make it, and, over the course of a week, I tried out four variations, and made two starter cultures. And did a lot of obsessed checking and shaking and fiddling in the kitchen (you’ll have to scroll to the end of the post to see my verdict – which was the best combo).

To back peddle: ginger-ade is a fermented food. I’ve written about the benefits of fermenting, and shared recipes, here and here. Fermentation – in the case of sodas – is a process that sees sugar broken down, via bacteria, to create lactic acid and carbonation. Lactic acid is a probiotic which helps digestion, supports the immune system and hydrates.

Sugar?? Did I just say sugar??!! Yes.

Sugar is almost always used for making fermented sodas, but the fructose is “eaten” up in the process.

This was something I got asked on my I Quit Sugar forums a lot. I promised to get to the bottom of the conflicting information…Et voila!

coconut water green smoothie, via The Alkaline Sisters. Recipe below

In a coconut shell.

1. yes, there is in fact sugar in coconut water

All coconuts contain sugar. The levels depend on the type of coconut, and it’s age. Something to note though, even the coconuts with the higher levels of sugar still only contain around 2.95ml of sugar per 100ml, which is not a lot. As I’ve shared in my I Quit Sugar ebook, best to stay under 4.7ml of sugar per 100ml. Of course, a bottle of coconut water – which is how most of us get our coconut water – is generally about 300ml. So. In one bottle there can be up to 9g of sugar, which is 2.5-ish teaspoons.

 2. yeah, but how much of that is fructose?

Well. Not so much. And this is what counts. A Brazilian study found the sugar content of an average baby coconut to be made up of:

glucose 50%, sucrose 35%, and fructose 15%

So fructose makes up a maximum of 32 per cent of the total sugars (remember: sucrose is 50/50 fructose and glucose), and often a lot less (depending on the age of the coconut).

All of which means when you look at that total sugar value on the label, it’s a little misleading. Unlike coke or fruit juice, where we know half (or more) of the sugar content is fructose, coconut water’s sugar content is mostly glucose (which is fine, metabolically speaking).

4. can we still drink it?

You might have followed all the chatter yesterday – sugar as toxic as alcohol…should be banned…oh, hang on, no, it’s harmless. Etc. Etc. Wendy Harmer buzzed and asked me to provide this comment for TheHoopla. I’d spent the day chatting about it today on radio (and I think I shocked a few jocks into putting down their Boost).

Thought you might like to read my thoughts…

It’s a year to the week that I quit sugar.

And because I’m about to bang on about the need for more transparency in this world, some disclosure: I wrote an ebook about it. So it could be said I have a vested interest in this topic.

Anyone who’s quit sugar would know what I mean when I say that the most challenging-slash-intriguing part of quitting is The Resistance. People get affronted. Angry.

It’s funny. If I told people I no longer ate frozen peas, no-one would care. I wouldn’t get the outrage. The anger.

But sugar? Well…

Earlier today it was revealed a team of scientists from the University of California has called for sugar to be treated as a poison, in much the same ways as alcohol and nicotine. They’ve suggested sugar, too, be taxed heavily and come with warnings, better labelling and education campaigns.

In an article published in science journal Nature they argued sugar isn’t just a bunch of naughty, empty calories. It’s making us fat and killing us. Sugary food, they say, is responsible for 35 million annual deaths worldwide.

They point out that, at the levels consumed in the West, sugar alters metabolism, raises blood pressure, disrupts hormone signalling and causes significant damage to the liver that is still not fully understood, leading to heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

And boy has it brought on The Resistance. Today I’ve watched online as nutrition experts around the world railed against the idea.

But why? I mean. Why?!

Surely none of them think sugar is good for us? Or would disagree with the claim that we’re consuming too much of it? Why not push for better labelling?

As one of the article’s authors said, “We’re not talking prohibition. We’re not advocating a major imposition of the Government into people’s lives. We’re talking about gentle ways to make sugar consumption slightly less convenient, thereby moving people away from the concentrated dose.”

Some of these experts are arguing sugar is entirely avoidable. No it’s not!

Have you been to a supermarket or food court lately? Sugar’s in everything, and insidiously so. It’s so well hidden it shocks when I tell people that barbecue sauce is 50 percent sugar, that pasta sauces can contain more sugar than chocolate topping.