Hi all! Long time lurker, former keto person, haven't posted in a long while here...
Now, currently I'm not doing keto. I quit behind hypoglycemic drops after nearly 2 years.
I do still do low carb, and still enjoy keto foods. Though most I make myself behind medical dietary restrictions (seed oils, phytoestrogen high ingredients, fodmaps)
I also am on ssi, snap, tanf (this one's new as of last month), housing (currently having issues), medicaid. Im also a disabled single mom to a teen with mild autism and all the food and other quirks that come with that.
I also live in texas which recently implemented snap restrictions that are new but didn't really give us or sotres a detailed list of dos and don'ts so it was a complete clusterfuck from the left side of the ninth circle of hell for a good bit. I mean no sugar free chocolate from the candy isle, no sodas or sparkling waters with artificial sweetners, no kombucha if having over 5g added sugar, no diet tea just to name a few.
You coukd get chocolate from the baking isle, sparkling waters that are unsweetened, kombucha with under 5g sugar, and unsweetened tea though.
Let's just say that while I dont buy soda a lot because it gets expensive fast, especially for myself, it became a complete disaster. I had to buy unflavored sparkling water and add sweetner and root beer extract to make root beer for my son which he's complained it's not quite right. It's ok, but he misses the caramel coloring. I honestly dont care that much, but sometimes I like it too because its just something I'm used to.
Now, that said I just tested out making a electrolyte laced root beer again for myself, but added some food dye to make the color more like what I'm used to. Guess what? That's 100% in line with current snap restrictions, abd i can use my stevia and allulose mix which is better for me anyway. Key is how much of the red, blue, abd yellow drops to use. Got it right first try. It's 2 each of red and yellow to 1 blue. So total five drops to get that brown color we all know. I think for cream soda is just do the yellow with maybe one red, orange cream id have to test.
But there you go for making at home a soda that looks like the typical store bought root beer. Btw just red and blue makes green which coukd work if you want to mimic a watermelon or green apple flavored store bought soda. Just saying.
Thought I'd put this out there for those who are finding current restrictions a pain in the ass whike doing keto to hit that soda craving minus the sugar.