water Archives - Food And Recipe

April 15, 2023

Why ‘Water Recipes’ Are Taking Over TikTok

On Shelby Hobbs’ dresser sits a Lazy Susan filled every flavor of liquid syrup you can imagine, from raspberry to peach Bellini. Beside the syrups is a container packed to the brim with water flavoring packets including Strawberry Nerds and Crush Orange.

Next to the supplies is an empty space for Hobbs’ water bottle. So, whenever she’s thirsty, all she has to do is grab her cup, dump in her flavoring of choice and fill up the bottle with ice and water.

Hobbs’ inspiration for her “Hydration Station” came from WaterTok, a new trend on TikTok whose hashtag has garnered over 100 million views. Across the app, creators are sharing themselves adding liquid and powdered flavorings to their water with the shared goal of drinking more water.

“I’ve been drinking this for about a month now,” the 21-year-old tells TODAY.com. “It definitely helps that everyone else on TikTok is making them, so it helps me think of new flavor ideas. But honestly, I haven’t made a bad one yet. I can mix whatever I want, and it still tastes good.”

But while WaterTok might be helping people like Hobbs stay hydrated, some people are questioning just how healthy the trend really is, as these flavorings can contain large amounts of sugar or artificial sweeteners, and it could be just another diet culture fad masquerading as a hydration aid.

TODAY.com talked to creators and experts to unpack everything you need to know about WaterTok (aka HydrationTok). Here’s what they said.

Breaking down #WaterTok

Many people participating in the trend say WaterTok is putting the fun back into drinking water. This community of hydration enthusiasts shares “water recipes” with various flavoring packets and liquids to create the optimal water-drinking experience.

Haley Staggs, 21, tells TODAY.com that WaterTok has helped her stay hydrated throughout the day.

Staggs first discovered the trend from a TikToker named Tonya, who goes by @takingmylifebackat42 on the app and has “recipes” for piña colada water, Starbucks Pink Drink water, bubble gum water and more, and shares her weight-loss journey.

“Watching her videos, I thought, ‘I should try that,'” Staggs says. “I went and got the packets and different water flavors and just started making waters. Now I drink over 100 ounces of water a day.”

And she’s not alone. Jaycie Adamson, 24, also stumbled upon the trend on TikTok — and hasn’t looked back since.

Adamson had never been a big water drinker, she tells TODAY.com. When she saw the trend, she thought, “Hm, this could help me drink water but not have to add sugar or calories.” (Many of the popular flavorings are sugar- and calorie-free.) She drove 30 minutes to the closest Dollar General and bought flavoring packets to put in her Stanley tumbler.

“I’m usually so bad at drinking water but this has been so nice to just fill it up at my own house and make water flavor combination I want for the day,” she says. “Honestly, I haven’t made any that taste bad. They all taste wonderful.”

The best “recipe” she’s found so far is a combo of the Pink Starburst and Pink Nerds powdered drink mixes.

Through posting her own WaterTok videos, she says she’s also found a community. People will comment on her TikToks asking her to share more of her favorite flavor combinations.

“I can tell when a trend’s taken over and it definitely feels like that’s happening,” she says. “When a lot of people on Amazon start buying something, the price will change. I bought the cotton candy syrup on Amazon for $10 and now on Amazon it’s over $20.

For Hobbs, WaterTok has helped her cut back on sugary drinks. She would turn to drinks like loaded tea over plain water.

“I don’t even realize how much (water) I’m drinking now. And I feel so much better,” she says. “I haven’t had much caffeine since I’ve started drinking water because I think it just gives me like natural caffeine and just makes me feel better.”

A registered dietitian’s take on #WaterTok

Frances Largeman-Roth, RDN, tells TODAY.com that, in general, anything that helps people drink more water is a positive thing — but there are a few caveats to that.

She loves that people are taking their hydration to the next level with this trend. But her No. 1 piece of advice is to stay away from artificially flavored and colored syrups.

“Since these TikToks feature sugar-free syrups, the influencers don’t seem to be adding sugar to their water,” she says. “However, I do think that making your water super sweet isn’t great in the long run as it may put you in the mindset that all beverages need to be overly sweet and flavored to be enjoyed.”

The first thing that Largeman-Roth thought of when she heard about WaterTok, she says, is Crystal Light.

She says that she remembers how popular it was in the ‘80s and ‘90s for moms looking to lose weight to add Pink Lemonade Crytal Light packets to their water — which is why this trend may reek of toxic diet culture.

“I feel like #WaterTok might be the 2023 answer to Crystal Light with people trying to have a pleasurable flavor experience without any calories or carbs (or very few),” she says.

“I think it’s gaining in popularity because lots of people know they should be drinking more water and fewer sweetened drinks like soda, but plain water feels boring to them.

“Plus, it’s a fun thing to make and drink! We went through a coffee phase and a mocktail phase, so it makes sense that as we head toward the summer, we’ll be going through a water phase.”

But while drinking water is important, so is monitoring the amount you consume.

Largeman-Roth says when you drink more water than your kidneys can process, it can lead to hyponatremia, or low sodium levels.

“Sodium is a mineral that is important for the functioning of our heart, so it needs to stay in balance,” she explains. “When we flood our systems with excessive amounts of water, low sodium levels can lead to low heart rate, confusion, drowsiness and headaches.”

The U.S. National Academy of Medicine suggests an adequate intake of daily fluids of about 15.5 cups (3.7 liters) for men and about 11.5 cups (2.7 liters) for women.

Largeman-Roth also warns that if an individual is dealing with disordered eating, they may lean in too drastically to this trend, using excessive water-drinking as a weight-loss tool to trick themselves into thinking they’re not hungry. Instead of allowing themselves to enjoy a banana split now and then, they’ll turn to “banana split water.”

“People definitely use coffee as a replacement for breakfast. Coffee is a beverage, not a meal. The same is true for flavored waters,” she says.

At the end of the day, Largeman-Roth will always encourage people to just drink plain water when they’re looking to hydrate. But, she says, adding ice — either plain or cubes of frozen lemon or watermelon juice — definitely helps to perk it up.

“Or go the au naturel route and make (water) with fresh fruit and herbs,” she says. “And if you’re working out a lot or just sweat a ton, adding a flavored hydration mix can be helpful in staying hydrated.”

April 14, 2023

Why Flavored Water Recipes Are Trending on TikTok

If you spend any amount of time on TikTok, you have almost assuredly been lured by the algorithm into a particularly weird niche of beverage videos in recent days. You’ve likely seen a woman, probably a thin woman, smiling as she fills her giant Stanley tumbler with crushed ice and purified water. That all seems perfectly normal, but then the woman pulls out an arsenal of syrups, powders, and liquid flavor enhancers that transform her boring glass of H2O into “birthday cake water” or “peach ring water.” Welcome to #watertok.

In this hydration-obsessed corner of TikTok, where videos hashtagged with #watertok have been viewed more than 84 million times, creators present a slew of “recipes” for spicing up water, that beverage we all need to survive. A particularly prolific creator in the trend is a woman named Tonya, who uses the handle @takingmylifebackat42. Since 2022, she’s racked up millions of views on videos in which she makes a wide range of low-calorie foods, but her water recipes are especially popular. She has recipes for bubblegum water, banana split water, unicorn cotton candy water and, of course, she has an affiliate code where you can purchase syrups to make your own flavored waters (and help her make a little bit of cash).

The people who post #watertok videos receive tons of comments, and some of these dismissively insist that what these creators are making is actually juice, or glorified Kool-Aid, or soda. But while I can’t really get worked up about whether or not these gross-sounding beverages can be reasonably called water, what’s actually upsetting is that #watertok is yet another diet culture fad that has gone mainstream via social media.

The recipes for lemon cake water and strawberry Starburst water didn’t spring fully formed out of the ether. The key thing that most of these water additives, which include sugar-free flavor packets made by brands like Hawaiian Punch and Crystal Light, have in common is that they’re made with artificial sweeteners, and thus, have zero or very few calories. Drinks like these have long been popular in the bariatric surgery community, where people who have undergone surgery are restricted to extremely low calorie diets.

In this context, it’s easy to see why something that tastes like a dessert but doesn’t have any calories has mainstream appeal right now, considering how many people, celebrities and regular folks alike, are taking semaglutide drugs originally intended to treat diabetes to lose weight. If thin is back in, as many cultural experts have observed in recent months, then so are the modern versions of Snackwell’s diet desserts. There is also likely some connection to the “loaded tea” phenomenon, where sugar-free drinks originally made with products from the multi-level marketing company Herbalife have achieved popularity on social media and in small towns across the country. But because it’s 2023, when nothing garners more “likes” and eyeballs than a ridiculous recipe, the popularity of #watertok also has a lot to do with creators packing drinks with an over-the-top number of additives solely for the purpose of driving views.

On some level, I get it. I’m a Stanley tumbler girlie, and an unabashed beverage girlie. I am not surprised that TikTok served this content to me, because I can’t get enough of a weird recipe trend. And for people who hate the taste of plain water, and there are many, the idea of getting hydrated while not drinking a beverage you loathe must be pretty enticing. But good grief, unless you have an actual medical need, just throw a slice of lemon in there or something.

March 24, 2023

This malabi rose water pudding recipe is a simple, silken joy

Malabi (Rose Water Milk Pudding)

Active time:30 mins

Total time:30 mins, plus 3 hours chilling time

Servings:6

Active time:30 mins

Total time:30 mins, plus 3 hours chilling time

Servings:6

Comment

I don’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday, but I know which direction I was facing the first time I had malabi. (Southeast.) If not for the urging of my server, I might have skipped right past it on the menu. To think I almost missed it.

This exquisite dessert has enraptured me like no other.

With likely ancestral roots in Persia, malabi is a staple conclusion to Middle Eastern meals, long ubiquitous in Israel, for example — in restaurants, in storefronts ’round about town, from mall kiosks and street carts.

Malabi is rose water milk pudding — delicate in flavor, firm but creamy, not too sweet — most often topped with a simple berry sauce and chopped pistachios. The final flourish is up to the chef. Mine is topped with shredded halvah. Others, coconut flakes and dried fruit. It’s to be enjoyed as a whole: Sink your spoon in for each bite and savor the sum of its parts.

It’s impossible for me to think about malabi and not consider it through the prism of a pandemic-altered world, and how easily food — steeped in time and place, carved into memory, craved — connects us with ease to our past, our present and our future. What more easily than a specific dish can remind us equally of where we’ve been and of where we next wish to go?

I’ve thought a great deal about malabi in the past few years. I’ve missed it. A close friend and I, sharing a devotion to fine sweets, used to meet about once a month to eat malabi at MishMish, a Mediterranean restaurant in Montclair, N.J. We soon started to order lighter fare for our mains to ensure plenty of room for dessert. Malabi was, for us, entirely the point.

The first summer of the pandemic, in the new abnormal, our only option was to order it as takeout. I arrived to find a handled brown paper bag with my name on it waiting for me on a small table outside, right about where I once sat eating malabi for the very first time. Through the front glass, I glimpsed rows of tables, empty and dark, and saw no one when I took the bag and left.

Back home, my friend Aleta arrived, and we ate our malabi at opposite ends of my outdoor table. We were glad to have it, of course, but it wasn’t the same, because the world, and we, sitting far apart, were no longer the same. Neither of us suggested we do it again.

The restaurant soon closed. I spoke to the chef and owner, Meny Vaknin, a few months later, and he told me I could still buy malabi over the counter at the restaurant’s sister establishment, Marcel, a casual eatery at the opposite end of town. It wouldn’t come with the berry sauce and pistachios, nor with the shredded halvah, but he invited me to call ahead and he’d have those parts ready for me.

It seemed fitting for what was then our ongoing reality: something prized, something sweet, separated into parts, gathered and assembled as best we were able.

Things are better now. As we’ve emerged, falteringly at times, many of us have been fortunate to find what we loved, what nourished us, still there — or perhaps finding its way back. Marcel now stocks malabi in small Mason jars with the berry sauce included.

I used to contemplate what for me would represent that we’d truly made it through to the other side, and it always arrived in one simple vision: friends, at a table in a crowded restaurant, indoors, unmasked, talking, laughing. Eating malabi.

Malabi (Rose Water Milk Pudding)

The velvety little secret of a milk pudding is that it’s an ideal dessert for dinner parties. It both demands to be made ahead and stores beautifully. All that’s left to do is spoon on the simple berry sauce and add any toppings before serving.

Preparing the cornstarch mixture first allows you to whisk the milk and cream without pause, important, as it can scald easily on the bottom of the pot.

If lumps form (a cornstarch culprit), simply ladle malabi into your ramekins or jars over a mesh strainer.

For the berry sauce, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, either solo or mixed, work well. Vaknin serves his malabi with a half strawberry, half blueberry sauce with lemon zest. Strain through a mesh strainer to avoid seeds and skins.

Shredded halvah is so lovely on top but may prove elusive. You can sprinkle your malabi with regular halvah, grated, but I tend to skip it if I can’t have the melt-in-your-mouth shredded.

Consider using small Mason jars, often available at local hardware stores, for easy storage, transport and a delightful serve (especially outdoors). And who doesn’t like to eat out of a jar?

Make Ahead: The malabi must be refrigerated until set, at least 3 hours. The berry sauce should be cooled or refrigerated before serving.

Storage: Refrigerate the pudding, covered, for up to 5 days. If the surface weeps, fold a small piece of towel and touch gently where needed to wick up the moisture. Refrigerate the sauce in an airtight container for up to 7 days.

Where to Buy: Rose water can be found at well-stocked supermarkets, Middle Eastern markets and online. Shredded halvah can be found at kosher and Middle Eastern markets and online.

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Scant 1/3 cup (40 grams) cornstarch (may substitute potato starch)
2 1/3 cups (560 milliliters) whole milk, divided
2 cups (475 milliliters) heavy cream
1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch fine salt
2 teaspoons rose water

One (10-ounce/284-gram) bag frozen berries or 1 pint fresh
2 tablespoons granulated sugar, plus more to taste
Finely grated zest of 1/2 lemon (optional)

For the suggested toppings

Coarsely chopped unsalted, roasted pistachios
Fresh berries of your choosing
Shredded halvah
Chopped dried apricots
Shredded or flaked unsweetened coconut

In a small bowl or measuring cup, whisk together the cornstarch with 1/3 cup (80 milliliters) milk until smooth.

In a medium pot over medium-high heat, combine the remaining 2 cups (480 milliliters) milk, cream, sugar, vanilla and salt, whisking continuously, until it reaches a gentle boil, about 8 minutes.

When the mixture begins to rise, reduce the heat to low. Re-whisk the milk-cornstarch slurry to recombine and slowly add it, whisking continuously, and increase the heat to medium. Continue to whisk until the mixture returns to a gentle boil and thickens slightly — enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 1 minute. Remove from the heat and whisk in the rose water.

Ladle about 3/4 cup (180 milliliters) of the mixture into 8-ounce ramekins, small bowls or jars, leaving about 1 inch at the top to allow room for the berry sauce and toppings.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or until set.

Make the berry sauce: While the malabi chills, in a small pot over low to medium-low heat, combine the berries, sugar and lemon zest, if using, and cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture gently simmers and the berries break down, about 10 minutes. (If your berries are frozen, this may take a few more minutes.) Taste and add more sugar, if desired, then remove from the heat. Use an immersion blender to puree the sauce until smooth. Strain through a mesh strainer to avoid seeds and skins, if needed. Let cool completely.

Just before serving, spoon about 2 tablespoons of the berry sauce and about 1 tablespoon of pistachios over the malabi. If desired, add any other toppings of your choosing.

Per serving (3/4 cup malabi, 2 tablespoons sauce, 1 tablespoon pistachios)

Calories: 523; Total Fat: 36 g; Saturated Fat: 20 g; Cholesterol: 120 mg; Sodium: 162 mg; Carbohydrates: 46 g; Dietary Fiber: 3 g; Sugar: 162 g; Protein: 7 g

This analysis is an estimate based on available ingredients and this preparation. It should not substitute for a dietitian’s or nutritionist’s advice.

Adapted by food writer Jessica Stolzberg from a recipe by chef Meny Vaknin of Marcel in Montclair, N.J.

Tested by Ann Maloney; email questions to voraciously@washpost.com.

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