The Number One Issue
Not long ago, I acquired the kitchen toy depicted to the left. This is a simple unit. In the back is a cylinder of compressed carbon dioxide. The device does not use electricity.
Usage is simple. Fill a plastic bottle with cold tap water, and then screw it in to the device. Tap for a second or two on the button on top and gas releases from the cylinder, through the needle, and the water with the carbon dioxide. Remove the bottle, add a syrup. Boom! Soda.
It’s kind of fun, and certainly cheaper than buying canned or bottled fizzy beverages in the store. Now there is less danger of running out of tonic water when it’s time for a G&T. Diet ginger ale is great for when the liquor of choice is bourbon.
Other syrups from other manufacturers, like the kind that go in to fancy coffees, will also work just fine. Powdered flavoring agents work, too. Just remember, add the flavor after carbonating — the needle that injects the carbon dioxide in the water must stay clean.
My question is this: why is it that beverages made with this device have eight times the diuretic effect of coffee? Seriously, it feels one cup in, six cups out, all day long after drinking the product of this device. Store-bought fizzy beverages do not seem to have a similar effect on me. Perhaps I’m over-carbonating and that’s the result of doing so?
I have the SodaStream and have not noticed this “effect” myself, and I’m pretty sensitive to coffee. OT, but something I always ask of seltzer-maker owner: Have you tried fizzing up milk or juice? What about liquor? I’m hesitant to screw up the device but have been long curious how these “non-standard” liquids would work out.Report
I have no hypotheses, but thanks for sharing.Report
Oh! I do have a hypothesis! It’s interstitial cystisis.
From http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/interstitial-cystitis/DS00497/METHOD=printReport
Well if the diagnosis is from Mayo Clinic Online, that’s almost as good-as-gold reliable as if it came from WebMD. Now I know to watch out for it happening more frequently during menstruation.Report
Based on some of your comments on here, I wouldn’t be surprised if you do menstruate.Report
Of course. In some discussions women’s views are clearly absurd.Report
Mike H Rice, you’re absolutely right. Burt is thoughtful in a way most women strive to be. What a nice thing to say about him, I’m glad you appreciate just how fine a man he really is. In particular, he’s not one of those neanderthals who goes around putting other men down by comparing them to women, insinuating that being feminine is somehow . . . less.Report
Gone.Report
zic, that was really well put for a person who uses embossed toilet paper.Report
She wipes her ass like its embossed.Report
@vikram-bath , thank you, that’s a nice response from someone who’s last name is a synonym for rooms that contain toilets! It may or may not be gilted, too. Nothing’s too fine for my posterior.
And @kazzy , a minor correction: “She wipes her ass like someone who’s the boss.” Thank you.Report
How does one make tonic water? Doesn’t it have quinine in it?
Curious cook wants to know if this secret tonic-water tonic can be used for extending the bitter flavors of quinine to other things. It would be like artichokes without the choke.Report
Alas, I’ve not yet dug deep enough into the world of soda-making that I’m brewing my own syrup. The manufacturer sells packaged tonic syrup, with quinine included. It’s a bit sweet for my taste, but then again so are the major canned and bottled commercial tonics. Specialty bottled tonics are available in my area, but are ridiculously expensive for more than an occasional indulgence.
When I get to the point that I can brew up the syrup on my own and find a mix that I like, I’ll share the recipe.Report
It’s OK to go a little deeper, but don’t go full Heisenberg.
If I hear reports of 99% pure blue soda being sold on street corners, I’m turning you in. California doesn’t take this sort of thing lightly.Report
The magic of google tells me that Quinine flavor comes from powdered Cinchona Bark, a tree native to the Andes, and that it’s available at some health food stores and on-line.
Thus far, I’ve found no evidence that it’s used for anything culinary, primary uses are for Quinine Water and medicinal value. The WebMD entry:
I thought you might like this recipe.Report
I seem to recall taking Quinine pills when I was in Africa to guard against malaria. Sad to learn I could have gotten my medicine in a much more enjoyable form.Report
Silly MRS. That’s why the gin-and-tonic was INVENTED.
from wiki:
Just because it kills your liver doesn’t mean it’s not medicine.Report
The quinine is probably doing more liver damage than the booze. I’ve taken antimalarials for years, going back to the good old days of Atabrine and Plaquenil.Report
Silly MRS. That’s why the gin-and-tonic was INVENTED.
But that is not the way the Navy would let me self-administer my medication!Report
Teetotaling sailors? Now I’ve heard everything!Report
Additional fun fact: quinine fluoresces. Hold your G&T next to a blacklight and it will glow..Report
@alan-scott, fascinating. There’s more to the G&T glow than I realized.
When we do the OT remake of James and the Giant Peach, we can cast the tonic-water imbibers as glo-worms.Report
Who ever heard of “gin, sodomy, and the lash”?Report
The usual spirit is “rum” in the Royal Navy. “Rum, bum and the lash.” Gin and sodomy was strictly for the pith helmet types up in the hill stations.Report
Wow. Britain lost so much when she let her Empire go!Report
Teetotaling sailors? Now I’ve heard everything!
Only while on duty.
Off duty was spent trying to kill our livers.Report
why is it that beverages made with this device have eight times the diuretic effect of coffee?
Are you speaking of sparkling water or sweetened water? Sugar waters do take more time to hydrate you because you have to process the sugars as you absorb the water.
I have problems at the other end of the digestive tract; carbonated waters, and the burping they induce, increase acid reflux; a problem because of severe migraine.
I’d also wonder if you’re noticing a causal relation, and suggest a few days of knocking back lots of plain water with an occasional glass of cranberry juice or two, and see if that helps. If not, a visit to the doctor’s office might be considered?Report
Hypothesis: it has to do with changing one’s drink.
If one drinks Maxwell House coffee every morning for years and years, one will have a bladder of steel… but when one switches to Starbucks (or Diet Coke or bottled water), one will discover that one has to pee RIGHT NOW.Report
Store-bought fizzy beverages do not seem to have a similar effect on me. Perhaps I’m over-carbonating and that’s the result of doing so?
Broadly, acidic beverages (which include carbonated ones) are bladder irritants. If you’re going to be scientific about it, an inexpensive pH meter from your local aquarium shop would let you compare the pH of your homemade sparkling water versus the commercial stuff. Wikipedia says that commercial carbonation processes usually add sodium or potassium based alkaline compounds to reduce acidity. The recipe for seltzer water given there adds a quarter to half a teaspoon of baking soda per liter of water for that purpose. You could just try adding the baking soda and see if that helps.Report
Why would acidic beverages irritate the bladder? Isn’t the acidity of anything you could drink without severe pain just a drop in the bucket one it reaches the stomach?Report
My understanding — and I am not a biochemist or internist or any of several other things that would be quite useful here — is simply that increased total acid supply (eg, the addition of a pint of carbonated beverage with a pH of 3 or 4, or a few glasses of wine with a similar pH) requires longer to be fully neutralized — there’s a limit to the rate at which your body produces/releases the neutralizing base(s). Given more time, somewhat more acid gets absorbed into the bloodstream. Since your body wants your blood pH to stay in a very narrow slightly basic range, the kidneys promptly filter some of the stuff out, increasing the acidity of urine and irritating the bladder. This is not irritation in the sense of horribly inflamed, but in the sense of somewhat more urgency to move things along.
I feel like I should remember whether or not the negative feedback loop that controls acidity in the stomach and upper part of the small intestine reacts to acids in general, or if it involves hydrochloric acid specifically, which would be another contributing factor. But I don’t.Report
The problem, if I understand what I’ve been told, is sodium. Raises pressure in the kidney, already under high pressure. Excreting the sodium requires more water.Report