Low Carb Cranberry Cooler

Let me say that up front In general I don’t believe in dietary substitutes for the real thing. In other words, I use butter, not margarine, and sugar, not Splenda. When I want to lose weight, I eat less and avoid desserts.

Still, it’s nice to have a cool, sweet drink with no sugar or calories every once in a while. Cranberry juice in particular needs a lot of sweeteners to make it tasty.

However, pure cranberry juice is very good for you, especially if you are a woman. My doctor once explained to me that cranberries have a natural antiseptic that protects women from UTIs. She also explained that the juice with added sugar wasn’t nearly as effective.

This cranberry cooler uses the herb Stevia as a sweetener. Stevia is a South American herb that has been used as a sweetener for hundreds of years. Stevia has been used extensively in Japan to sweeten foods since the 1970s. It is available in many forms – dried herb, liquid extract and powder.

You can find stevia at Whole Foods and most health food stores under the herbal supplements section. Stevia has zero carbohydrates. This little recipe calls for 1 part pure cranberry juice to 3 parts soda water.

An 8-ounce jar of the cooler would have a total of 4 grams of carbs (for those of you counting these things). The taste? Refreshing and filling, but honestly not quite as good as sugar. Probably very similar if you used Splenda instead of sugar.

However, the carb count of 1 glass of the Stevia-sweetened cooler is 4 grams compared to a typical glass of cranberry juice cocktail at 34 grams.