A few years ago, we covered Sodastream's Peguin, a homemade soda system. Last December, Sodastream released their newest model, the Pure. It still produces homemade soda in 30 seconds using reusable BPA-free plastic bottles and carbonators filled with CO2 gas. You can then drink it plain or add anything you want to make flavored carbonated beverages, like pomegranate-orange-ginger soda. Being able to control what goes into your carbonated beverages has obvious health benefits, by replacing or reducing sugar and corn syrup with real fruit juice and other natural ingredients.

Moreover, there are ecological reasons to make your own soda and sparkling water. The recent wave of attention over plastic water bottle was important, but soda and sparkling water seemed to get an easy out in the discussion. The average American drinks over 600 cans of bottles of soda and sparkling water each year, of which 55% aluminum cans and 66% plastic bottles fail to get recycled and end up in landfills. There is also the issue of imported sparkling water, which must often cross continents and oceans to get stores in the US.

The Pure uses one canister of CO2 to make 110 liters (30 gallons) of soda (without batteries or electricity,) which has a vastly smaller carbon footprint than transporting all those cans and bottles to the store and then into your home, not to mention all the material and energy that goes into creating those containers themselves. It's rare that a product is healthier, reduces consumption, and allows for increasing ways for creative experimentation, but Sodastream has achieved it.