A few months ago I completely weaned myself off sodas and went soda-free for a couple of months. At first it was tough breaking that addiction, especially because my body and mind simply craved soda. Honestly, the decision to cut out soda from my diet was partly due to health and environmental concerns, but mostly it was an economical decision! Simply put, after having quit my job I needed to consciously drink liquids that would replenish what I needed in exchange for the smallest cost possible. Of course, this meant I mostly drank water.

Still, the cravings never truly disappeared and one day John introduced me to natural sodas, made from natural ingredients, devoid of high fructose corn syrup and artificial preservatives. Since then, I've discovered Hansen's Natural Sodas and every now and then indulge myself in some cheap and natural sodas.

Value

At the Stop & Shop down the street from my house Hansen's natural sodas are available for $.59 per can, plus a $.05 deposit. Sixty four cents is considerably cheaper than a Coca-Cola or Pepsi product and is better for your body too. Still, for $.64 you simply do not get much nutritional value from a Hansen's natural soda and by no means is it good for you, it's just better than artificially sweetened over processed sodas.

Straight from Hansen's site, the nutritional facts for one serving (one can) are:

• 150 Calories
• 0 g Total Fat
• 0 mg Sodium
• 39 g Total Carb
• 39 g Sugars 39g
• 0 g Protein

In other words, empty calories and sugar. Sometimes though you crave a sweet sugary soda, and during those times you could do a lot worse than buying a Hansen's natural soda.

Score: 3 / 5

Quality

It's very, very tasty. I'll admit, I've gone on somewhat of a bender on these sodas, as I've always loved orange soda and the Mandarin-Lime taste is quite appealing to me. The ingredients are all natural, which is refreshing for a soda. In fact, this orange soda is not even orange!

Check it out:

The bubbles means it's breathing

And again, straight from Hansen's site, here are the Ingredients:

"Pure triple filtered carbonated water, cane sugar, citric acid, natural flavors with extracts of yucatan mandarin and colima lime"

I'd certainly rather drink those natural ingredients rather than some artificial chemical concocted in some corporate laboratory.

Score: 3.5 / 5

Innovation

Now, though Hansen's contains only natural cane sugar we can't quite credit them for the innovation. In fact, Hansen's only changed to cane sugar from high fructose corn syrup this past April, as the FDA announced that drinks could not be labeled natural if they contained high fructose corn syrup. They state that they were planning the change earlier but in either case it's not highly inventive to use a natural ingredient instead of an artificial chemical. I will credit Hansen's with having flavors not commonly found in sodas though. For instance they have kiwi strawberry, mango orange and pomegranate flavored sodas.

Score: 3 / 5

Social Benefit

Their sodas come in aluminum cans, which are much, much more recyclable than plastic. They get points for using aluminum over plastic bottles. However, taking a look at some of Hansen's other products, they do use plenty of plastic. Also, aluminum is not a green material by any means and soda is certainly not a necessary food item.

In this country, we're faced with an obesity epidemic, and though natural sodas are certainly healthier than other sodas loaded with high fructose corn syrup and artificial preservatives, these sodas are still by no means healthy.

Score: 1 / 5

Orange can, clear soda

Freestyle!

Part of our review process here at OTIBR includes reaching out to the companies we review to give them a chance to let us know of their work behind the scenes. For instance, my review for organic Australian blood oranges was enhanced by Global Organics NZ LTD informing me that they ship their food via sea freight, not air freight as I assumed. Before publishing this review for Hansen's Mandarin Lime Soda, I e-mailed the company looking for a few answers on their environmental policy. Seeing how many of their products utilized plastic bottles, that are more difficult to recycle than aluminum or glass we reached out to Hansen's via their online e-mail form. Upon receiving a response it was apparent that Hansen's was a bit confused by our site, as they looked at our review as a marketing opportunity, which if you read our disclosure policy or our about us section is clearly not the case!

We responded back to Hansen's that we are a review site, not a marketing site and requested that our e-mail be forwarded to someone who could make a public statement or at least provide us with some more information. It's been three weeks and we've yet to hear back from Hansen's so we've moved on. Some companies get it and some do not. For instance Sweet Leaf promotes consumers and media to write about their product and even posts images of Sweet Leaf drinks for media and fans to use! Sweet Leaf also responded to our e-mails in a timely and honest fashion. Hansen's on the other hand seems to be very un-organized, especially as parts of their web-site list that their product still uses high fructose corn syrup, though they do not!

I mention all of this here, because it's certainly affected my perception of the company. It's partly why we have a freestyle section, as there is no other place to mention this poor experience with Hansen's the company. It made me reconsider purchasing their product as I'm a big proponent of the line of thinking that a company is concerned with quality in all aspects or they are not. If the service is shoddy on this end, it makes me question their quality assurance in their manufacturing too. It's a shame for Hansen's as they make a tasty natural cheap soda, but perhaps we get what we pay for?

Score: 8 / 22

Hansen's natural sodas are available at Stop & Shop, Shaw's and other supermarkets.

Complete Score: 18.5 / 42 = 44%

A few years back when I first heard of the Atkins diet I laughed. Now, I'm not one to go on diets; I eat what I eat, sticking to a food plan seems a bit bizarre to me. Still, this Atkins diet of avoiding carbohydrates was straight up looney tunes to me. I could never give up bread! I also love bagels and can't imagine avoiding carbohydrates, especially now that I ride my bicycle everywhere and need the extra energy.

Carbohydrates and fake cheese FTW!

So long story short, I do make a conscious effort to eat natural organic foods, as they taste better and food without artificial chemicals is a big plus for our health. This trend started about the same time I quit my full time job. Knowing I'd be without health insurance I made a conscious effort to put good food in my system. Naturally, my decrease in consistent cash flow also led me to seek out non-meat meals, for health and cost reasons.

Tasty fake cream cheese inside!

At some point I tried out Soya Kaas: A Natural Cream Cheese Alternative and found it not only looked and tasted similar to cream cheese, I actually enjoyed it better than cream cheese! As John's vegan brother says, "why eat dairy if you don't have to?"

Why indeed?

Value

At $3.99 per 8 oz. container at Whole Foods, Soya Kaas is not cheap, but it's not extraordinarily more expensive than regular cream cheese. Considering it also has no cholesterol and is relatively low in fat (9 grams per 28 gram serving), it's worth the extra $.75 - $1.00 over regular dairy cream cheese.

Score: 3.5 / 5

Quality

It looks like cream cheese, smells like cream cheese, spreads like cream cheese and tastes even better than cream cheese. What's not to like?

It's made out of 51% organic ingredients. In total the ingredients are Tofu (Filtered Water, Organic Soy Beans, Calcium Sulfate), Non-hydrogenated Soy Oil, Caseinate (which is a milk protein synthesized from dried skim milk, so it's not 100% dairy free), Lactic Acid (from corn), Citric Acid, Carob and Carrageenan (a seaweed extract) Gums, Soy Lecithin, Natural Flavors and Sea Salt.

Overall, the ingredients used and the awesome taste make Soya Kaas not just a tasty alternative to cream cheese, but a superior product in general.

Score: 4.5 / 5

Alternative music meets cream cheese?

Innovation

When I first say the blue and white container of Soya Kaas at Whole Foods, I thought no way that tastes anything like cream cheese. Even though this was after trying soy butter and other soy products, and admitting they were close in taste to what they were imitating, I still thought there was just no way it could taste like cream cheese. Still, being adventurous with my food intake, I figured frack it, let's give it a shot.

The first thing I noticed upon getting home was the remarkably difficult plastic wrap covering the fake cream cheese inside the container. For some reason Soya Kaas chose to make it extremely difficult to peal back the plastic wrap in one motion, instead using a piece of plastic that falls apart as you pull it off. Really got to hand it to them, I thought I've seen all the various difficult to open packaging there is but this one really just falls apart as you try to peal it. Annoying but unique.

Onto the "cheese"! As I've noted numerous times already, this white spread really truly does taste like cream cheese. It's actually better tasting than most cream cheese spreads I've had. Spread a bit of this stuff on a warm crisp bagel and it'll melt and sink into the nooks and crannies and generally taste wicked good. All I know is that the soy bean is nature's most magical creation. It contorts into so many different food items it's quite insane. Props to you soy bean, props to you!

Score: 4.5 / 5

Social Benefit

Aside from the small plastic container, Soya Kaas is great for the environment. By relying on soy beans and other natural products, instead of relying on cows, Soya Kaas has a positive impact on reducing green house emissions. Unbeknownst to many people, cows are a leading producer of methane, a greenhouse gas. Though it's biological in nature, these gases do have a noticeable impact on global warming due to the sheer number of cows in the U.S. and abroad. It's not so much that cows are bad for the environment, rather millions upon millions of cows concentrated in small areas are bad for the environment and bad for themselves. By choosing a product that does not rely on cows you're helping to reduce the global demand for cows and helping to make sure they get a little more breathing space and we get a little less cow gas blowing hot air around.

Score: 4.25 / 5

Soya Kass + Bagel = Delicious Breakfast

Freestyle!

This "alternative" to cream cheese tastes great! In fact, while writing this review I made myself so hungry I simply had to have another bagel with alternative cream cheese and strawberry jam and orange fig spread (hmmm real fruit sugar and fake cheese on bread....drooool). If you're concerned about cholestrorol, cow gas, or need a lactose free alternative to cream cheese, give Soya Kaas: A Natural Cream Cheese Alternative a shot. I cannot guarantee you'll like it but I love it!

Carbohydrates and fake cheese FTW!

Score: 18 / 22

Soya Kaas: A Natural Cream Cheese Alternative is available at Whole foods for $3.99.

Complete Score: 34.75 / 42 = 82.7%