The Non-Alcoholic's Dilemma

I went through the whole index and couldn't find a suitable thread to cover this, so I'm hoping you guys will humor me and offer me some advice.

Due to recent changes in my body (i.e., another body growing inside of me, specifically ) I cannot drink alcohol or excessive amounts of caffeine for an extended period of time. Being something of a beverage junkie -- particularly in the alcoholic and caffeinated realm -- this has been something of a culture shock for me.

I have been experimenting with different combinations of drink, things to drink, etc., that do not have caffeine or alcohol in them (unfortunately, they often involve copious amounts of sugar, but, you know, what are you going to do? You gotta give in somewhere.) I don't like "diet" drinks as I can always taste the sugar substitutes in these drinks and find them quite bothersome. (On a slightly unrelated note; I think Coke Zero has done a nice job on compromising on this point -- their concoction really isn't half bad!)

Anyway. I think I've worked out the home problem well enough. I've been purchasing a variety of fruit juices and mixes and what-not to try and cope there. The main problem comes in for me when we go out to a restaurant or a bar and I'm given the dilemma of what to order.

Here's why this is a problem:

- I'm not really a fan of Sprite / 7UP, etc. so those are generally out. (I will, however, drink a Shirley Temple or a Kiddy Cocktail, so maybe I should be having a few of those -- it would definitely recall some early wedding nostalgia, haha.)

- I don't like pineapple, apple, coconut or tomato juice.

- I generally drink a glass of Coke with lunch, so by the time we go out for dinner, I've had my "quota" of caffeine for the day and I'm not looking to consume any more.

- [Decaffeinated] coffee is generally "meh" for me, and I'd think it's probably unlikely that most places would serve decaffeinated espresso drinks. (With the exception of a coffee shop, of course.)

- Most of the time, the NA beers a place will offer would be, like, O'Douls or Sharps. Yuck.

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What do I usually order when I go out to a restaurant these days?

Well, depending on my mood, I will often try the following:

- Sparkling water with lime and/or lemon.

- Cranberry and club soda with a splash of Rose's Lime

- Cranberry juice

- Any interesting soda that isn't caffeinated (i.e., today I had some Japanese soda when we went to a sushi place)

- Non-caffeinated tea

- Virgin Strawberry daiquiri (although I dislike the cheap mixes a lot of places use - and I say this from someone who worked behind a bar and hated our daiquiri mix, haha)

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I guess my real question is: do you guys have any interesting suggestions for what to order when you're out? I know a lot of bars & restaurants these days offer exotic cocktails with different types of juices, and that's an option, I suppose, but what do you do when you're at the typical restaurant with a limited selection? Is there really anything more adventurous I could try?

I'm just looking for ideas, mostly. I know this post probably kind of comes off a little whiny and self-righteous, but you know, sometimes I wish God would have said, "Okay, you can't have alcohol, but I'll let you drink caffeine." Or vice versa. Because it's amazing to me how many "typical" drinks you'll find at a given bar or restaurant involve one or the other, unless you're willing to settle for water, or decaf coffee. Blech.

Anyway, thanks in advance for any advice you guys might have!

Yours moodily,

If you're in an ethnic restaurant, check out whatever they've got from back home. This ranges from tamarind juice, horchata (a sweet, spiced rice-based drink), and alcohol-free sangria in Hispanic places, exotic fruits in Asian places (guanabana/soursop is great), ginger juice or baobab juice at Yassa. I've found carrot juice at a number of Middle Eastern and Mexican places.

So lots of options if you go to interesting places.

LOVE the tamarind juice too.

Cranberry and grapefruit juice mixed.

Give this a try - 2/3 7up, 1/3 tonic. - Just give it a try. It adds a sour /bitter note to the finish of the sweet 7up.

Club / cran / tonic / lime. I really like a splash of tonic in sodas.

First, congratulations!

Having just finished up my own N/A adventure, here's what I did. Like others said - I'd order a house made ginger ale, etc when available. Or an iced herbal tea (Big Bowl and Wow Bao have a Hibiscus Tea I'm a little addicted to)

I would make gallons of decaffeinated Iced Tea at home and we switched our morning blend to 1/2 caffeinated, which we're still drinking. (I was always ok with some caffeine, and frankly, through my first trimester I would have been sleeping under my desk without it)

If you enjoy beer, Clausthaler and Bitburger Drive are both pretty good. Clausthaler comes in a regular and an amber. The regular tastes a little like Beck's. (Yes, they have .5% of alchohol, but you'll not drink more than one or two, they're filling.) More of the local establishments are stocking these.

Good luck to you! I always found avoiding nitrites and cheeses harder than booze.

Good luck to you! I always found avoiding nitrites and cheeses harder than booze.

Oh, yeah. Don't even get me started on the food part. I'm a huge dairy person, myself, so cheese - yeah. Having to avoid all those yummy, soft cheeses and raw milk cheeses, wah. And we went for sushi last night and there, I can't even really eat anything; I've given up on even trying to order anything "cooked" and just eat regular entrees, which, at the place near my house, pale in comparison to the quality of their sushi.

I appreciate the advice so far. Yes, I definitely like trying some of the different options at ethic places. At Xni-Pec I had the melon juice and at Atotonilco, I always have the strawberry/papaya juice if they offer that. (It's awesome just by itself; who needs alcohol!) I've also been drinking milkshakes every now and then, which I'm sure isn't great for my waistline ultimately, but man, are they good. (Especially when they're made with real ice cream & milk.)

My biggest dilemma has been finding something interesting in more pedestrian places, but please --- any suggestions are appreciated.

Congrats, Nora! I didn't even realize you were pregnant, but the absense of margarita should have made me wonder.

I agree that tonic with a splash of cranberry is a good non-caffeinated soda. Also, if you like milkshakes, what about chocolate milk. Most places will have milk and chocolate sauce, of some sort. Lemonade?

Sometimes at the old bar I worked at I would experiment making cream sodas with soda water, grenadine or chocolate sauce or caramel or sweet juice, with a little heavy cream or half and half.

Good luck!

as a recovering A my recent faves have been green tea (caffeinated for me but can be bought decaffienated), coca cola (deceffienated version can still be quite tasty), orange juice, chocolate protein mix (optimum nutrition) and water with vitamin C powder... with the exception of coca cola (regualar kind not diet) you can intake a lot of the above mentioned stuff and it should benefit both your body and mind... good health to you!

FWIW my wife had a coffee yogurt everyday and sometimes a glass of wine after a hard day at work while she was pregnant with our daughter who is 12 now and just got a perfect, maxed out, top of the pile.... iSAT math score with the english 10 points below perfect. Her birth weight was just shy of 12 lbs and she's now taller than mom...

whatever choice you make is the best one for you! Best of luck for you and your passenger!

Actually tonic and anything else containing quinine (Including Schweppe's Bitter Lemon) are not allowed during pregnancy. Green tea is also not recommended. The tea can cause changes in cellular structure. And apparently, there was a time when quinine was given to women to encourage miscarriage.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Green-Tea-Sid ... &id=133518

http://www.beveragedaily.com/news/ng.as ... nant-women

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/drug-i ... n/DR202499

The thing about pregnant women avoiding all alcohol is a perfect example of folk science being spread by public interest groups. The studies which invented Fetal Alchohol Syndrome were based on subjects who had histories of extreme alcohol abuse. The idea that one glass of chardonnay in a healthy mother with good prenatal care will cause such problems is voodoo, not science.

http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/FetalA ... drome.html

Here's how I look at this sort of thing. Get a $2 bill out of your wallet. (I'm sure you have one.) Look at the Founders, arranged on the back. Realize that all their mothers went around every day mildly buzzed from the hard cider and ale people routinely drank instead of unclean water. Just think what Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, James Madison, John Hancock, etc. could have amounted to if only they hadn't all been victims of FAS...

Mike G,

I generally agree with you, but this is a hugely sensitive topic. Personally, I think in the first trimester, you probably should not drink at all. After that, a glass of wine here and there is probably fine. Frankly, I'd order a glass of wine with dinner and just not be able to finish it. I didn't enjoy it and my taste buds just didn't work the same.

When pregnant with my first, I'd share a beer and sneak a hot dog at a baseball game (liquor and nitrites!). But as a general rule, avoiding these things is a good idea.

yeah i think maybe a good rule would be to avoid abuse or moderate to high consumption of questionable substances

And, not to take this too far off topic, but I would say that the one thing I found hardest to avoid as a pregnant woman was unsolicited advice... it's everywhere!

Greenfish, I stayed away from alcohol and caffeine too, and, like you, ended up with a lot of juice or fun-killing ice water with lemon. The chi-chi restaurants usually had something like Ame or another wine-like juice, but it's a lot harder at the more normal, family restaurants. I really like the looks of Dry Soda, but I haven't found it anywhere in the city.

Egg creams?

the one thing I found hardest to avoid as a pregnant woman was unsolicited advice... it's everywhere!

Yes, my wife said it was that and painful delivery stories ("So one foot was coming out my sternum, and the doctor said I've never seen a breech birth this wide before, and...") In moments like these, I think a pregnant woman's best friend is a glassy-eyed stare and the words "How lovely for you" as you back away quickly. You can pretty much get away with anything in a social situation, when you're pregnant, one because you're keeping the species going, two because everyone knows you're so hopped up on hormones that you could outplay Charlie Parker on the alto sax.

And, not to take this too far off topic, but I would say that the one thing I found hardest to avoid as a pregnant woman was unsolicited advice... it's everywhere!

Hahaha! I couldn't agree with you more.

For the record, I really don't personally see anything wrong with having a glass of wine every now and then (with food), and have done so a few times. I am lucky to say that I can't even finish a glass now, let alone do I have much of a craving for it. So, it's not so much the fact that I'm strictly trying to avoid wine, etc., as the fact that I generally wouldn't want to drink it. (Even if I did, I would still be striving for a sense of moderation.)

I mean, you get to the point where it's like -- what can you drink? Herbal teas are bad, soda is loaded with chemicals and caffeine and sugar (as are most juice blends served at restaurants), you're not supposed to really be drinking alcohol -- and gah -- who orders plain milk at a restaurant? (I'm one of those people who likes to see the carton my milk came from if I'm drinking it straight. :/)

Water with lemon gets really boring really fast, especially when you try to avoid tap water (which is something I do -- you'd be surprised how many restaurants don't serve bottled water.) Not to sound like I'm complaining, but that's why I started this thread. You guys have been really helpful so far, like I said and I do appreciate the tips.

Nora,

Congratulations! I can't answer your question directly, but I've had one memorable non-alcoholic fancy drink (I'm really not a beverage person; I get by happily on water and herbal teas)--a pink peppercorn lemonade thing at Custom House. I'd go back just for that drink. Also, I believe the Shawn McClain restaurants (at least Custom House and Spring) carry an outstanding selection of teas, including some unusual fruit varieties. If you need recommendations for non-caffeinated teas for home, I'm your person. (My body can tolerate very, very little caffeine.)

Again, congrats!

Sharon

I have suggestion that is tasty:
highball glass
fill with ice
a few shakes of Angostora Bitters
squeeze of quarter of an orange
fill with gingerale (the best they have)
pour into shaker, shake hard 15 timer
pour back into highball, add more ice if needed
garnish with strip of orange zest and 2 marichino cherries

voila! With alll the steps feels very special.

psychchef

Thanks for the nice suggestion, pyschchef. My only question is this: don't you have a problem shaking up the ginger ale, given the carbonation in it? I would generally just semi-vigorously stir a drink like this.

I like your suggestion, though, because a lot of bars have those ingredients. Thanks!

Sorry about that. got carried away. Since it is carbonated, I also would just stir a few times.
psychchef

Here's what I drink at home (not sure you can get it out, but it's so tasty AND good for you)

1/3 apple juice (pref. unfiltered, organic, blah blah)
1/3 100% cranberry juice (no sugar, can't drink it straight!)
1/3 100% pomegranate juice

it's an antioxidant cocktail! Make it festive by mixing to taste with bubbly water of choice (but not sweet sodas) and serve in a fancy glass with a lime slice.

I found a really cool site for you to check out. It is just for pregnant women and even has a recipe for drinks that you can make at home. Pregnant Drinks. Also, I figured I'd throw in a list of things you should avoid while pregnant, although you probably already know.

CG
bachelor degree nursing online

Limonada - the South American version of lemonade made with limes, is sour enough to almost be like a mixed drink. Really, most places south of the border will offer all kinds of yummy drinks; licuados, homemade sodas like morados, the aforementioned horchata and jamaica...

Congratulations! It's a wild ride, but soon you will have a little GreenFish to turn on to all manner of foods! This is such a great place to raise a kid - Sparky and I were going over how many places in the world he's visited through food: Korea, Ireland, London, Persia, Greece, Mexico, pretty much all of South America, Japan, China, Vietnam, Montenegro, India, Thailand, Malaysia...