I know you've seen it: "La Croix tastes like someone ate a fruit salad and burped into your water bottle." Thanks, @deliagrantham, for that visual. Yeah, sure, they're funny, and I love a good meme just like anyone else, but I just can't stand for this anymore. I love La Croix, and no amount of jokes can change that.
On one hand, La Croix has a pretty mild flavor, but come on guys! Does water have flavor? NO! So adding anything at all is still a step up from water, and to do it without any added sugar, sodium, or anything artificial is a pretty good deal.
The thing is, La Croix helped me kick a soda addiction. I used to drink at least one soda a day, sometimes more. That doesn't sound like a lot to most people, and that was the way I always felt, too. One soda a day never hurt anybody. But my boyfriend had given up soda almost entirely for about a year before I did, and he harped about it constantly. It was a constant back and forth between us - "you don't need all that soda," and, "I don't even drink that much!" and so on and so forth. I told him La Croix was gross and there was no way I would be able to switch from soda to 'dirt water' as I called it.
But I read online somewhere that it takes ten tries before you can adjust to a new flavor and begin to like it. So, when I saw that, I tried to really take it to heart. Now I try everything 10 times before I'll let myself say, "I don't like that." 10 tries into La Croix, and with some strategic flavor changes (yes, people, the different flavors really do taste different), I was really starting to enjoy it.
Okay, well I really wasn't enjoying it. I definitely preferred soda still and would always go for that over La Croix when it was in the fridge. But on my college budget, I couldn't really afford to keep buying both, so I stopped buying soda. I thought when I stopped buying the soda I would have really bad cravings for it, but I ended up only craving La Croix. I started to specifically look for that light flavor, and now I find it really refreshing.
The light flavor that La Croix really helps bring out flavors in the things you're eating, rather than drowning every subtly out with sickening sweetness. It makes for a healthy drink choice that has a little bit of something to it, more than just plain water but doesn't lead to a sugar crash and is more available to everyone. Kids, diabetics, and most everyone else can drink La Croix, whereas soda is limited in who can drink it.
So the next time you think of a really funny crack about La Croix, feel free to post, and you'll probably get a chuckle out of me, but keep in mind that maybe it really is worth your time, even if it does kind of taste like the flavorometer has been turned down to the lowest setting.
