Sweetened drinks (without sugar)

[Puffy-no-more 141]

Hello everyone. I hope that everyone is doing ok during this time.
So I am almost 6 weeks post op RNY. Before surgery, the main thing I drank was soda. Other than that, I would make sweet tea. Like extremely sweet tea. Like 2 + cups of sugar per gallon of sweet tea. Same thing with koolaid. fast forward to now. Of course all of those things are completely off limits and honestly I’m not even sad about this. I decided to make a change and my drinks was one of the biggest parts of the change that I new I had to make.
My question is that I am getting a little bored with just the Water, crystal lite, and Gatorade zero. I have never in my life used any kind of artificial sweetener. So my question is, if I make a pitcher of tea, how much stevia should I use in that pitcher? Or is there something else that would taste better than the stevia?

I refuse to have any sugar in drinks. That was my downfall before and I’m not even going down that road but was wondering if I could substitute.
Thanks for any advice!

[JRT Mom 919]

I'm "old school". I like plain old Sweet and Low (the pink packets). I use that in iced tea and it's drinkable. YMMV

[catchthewind 12]

Try the yellow packets, too, and see which is your favorite. I use one yellow packet per glass of ice tea. It makes it nice and sweet without being overwhelmingly so.

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[Arabesque 7,552]

I have a real issue about artificial sweeteners. Biggest being they don’t stop your craving for sugar. Work at reducing your use of sugar/sweetners until you don’t add any to your drinks. Years ago, I reduced the sugar I added to my tea & coffee till I didn’t need it (2tspn to nothing in 2 mths) & stopped all soft drinks (only tonic Water in my very occasional gin).

You’ll also find as you do you won’t tolerate overly sweet foods either. I’ve cut a lot of sugar out of my diet now - only naturally occurring sugars (like fruit) & I check nutritional panels/ingredients to ensure low sugar content in foods I don’t prepare myself. Haven’t really missed it & I used to always enjoy a sweet treat after dinner.

About a month ago I unknowingly bought rolled oats with honey (why can’t people add their own honey to their oats???). Made up a bowl this week thinking it was my plain unflavoured oats & it was awful. Had to throw it out. So horribly sweet. Of course now there’s not a box of oats to be had anywhere.

[NovaLuna 710]

If I make tea I just sweeten it per glass instead of adding it to the pitcher. One and a half squirts of stevia (I bought the liquid one) and it's the perfect sweetness.

[Puffy-no-more 141]

Ok thank you everyone for the ideas. I will definitely be trying these!

[ChubRub 1,709]

I'm a big fan of Arnold Palmer Zero (half tea, half lemonade). I buy the 12-packs of cans!