Gloss Find: SodaStream Beverage Center

Pellegrino, seltzer, diet cola…American families consume over 2,000 cans of carbonated goodness each year. But, in addition to the waste from the throwaways such consumption yields, it’s also a whole lot of empty sugar and calories.

So, we were thrilled to discover the SodaStream – an at-home soda maker that turns plain tap water into pretty much any carbonated beverage…in seconds.

You start with regular water in SodaStream’s reusable liter bottles and then carbonate it in the compact unit for about 15 seconds. The result? Deliciously fizzy water that you can drink plain or flavor with over a dozen syrups including diet cola, lemon-lime, root beer and cran-raspberry. Younger kids will love mixing the flavors to create their own unique drinks while you’ll like that SodaStream’s drink mixes are HFCS-free and contain 2/3 less carbs, calories and sugar than store-bought soda.

The best part: if SodaStream machines (which don’t use electricity, either!) are used to make just half of the soda or seltzer the average family drinks in a year, they’d reduce their use of throwaway single-serve beverage containers by 1,000 every year.

SodaStream Soda Makers – start at $99.99 at SodaStream.com