Is Sparkling Ice Healthy? 10 Things You Should Know

Is Sparkling Ice a healthy beverage option?

Many “sugar free” drinks are not actually healthy when you look into the details. Sparkling Ice has some added “healthy” ingredients that basic diet soda doesn’t have… But is Sparkling Ice really good for you, overall?

Sparkling Ice is free of sugar and artificial colors, and it has some healthy ingredients like green tea extract, vitamins, and antioxidants. However, Sparkling Ice also has the artificial sweetener sucralose, which may raise the risk of insulin resistance and other health issues. Therefore, its healthiness is questionable.

Below, we’ll look closely at Sparkling Ice ingredients and nutrition. We’ll discuss whether it’s good for weight loss, whether it raises blood sugar, and more! I’ll also answer the question of whether Sparkling Ice is better than soda.

Is Sparkling Ice Good for You?

Here are 10 specific questions I’ll be exploring about Sparkling Ice nutrition. Click any of them to skip ahead to that section—or keep scrolling to read them all:

1. What Ingredients Are in Sparkling Ice?
2. Does Sparkling Ice Have Artificial Sweeteners?
3. Is Sparkling Ice Good for Weight Loss?
4. Does Sparkling Ice Raise Blood Sugar?
5. Why Does Sparkling Ice Have 5 Calories?
6. Does Sparkling Ice Have Electrolytes?
7. Does Sparkling Ice Have Caffeine?
8. Does Sparkling Ice Count As Water Intake?
9. Is Sparkling Ice Healthier Than Soda?
10. Is Sparkling Ice Vegan?

1. What Ingredients Are in Sparkling Ice?

Let’s start by actually looking at some Sparkling Ice ingredients. Below is a table showing two product lines—the Classic (Zero Sugar) and the Caffeine line. I will not cover Sparkling Ice Spiked (hard seltzer) in this post.

I’ll share my takeaway points below the table:

Sparkling Ice Product	Ingredients
Sparkling Ice Zero Sugar (Grape Raspberry)	Carbonated Water, Natural Flavors, Malic Acid, Apple Juice Concentrate, Potassium Benzoate (To Ensure Freshness), Fruit And Vegetable Juice (For Color), Citric Acid, Tartaric Acid, Sucralose, Raspberry Juice Concentrate, Green Tea Extract, Gum Arabic, Retinol (Vitamin A), Niacinamide (Vitamin B3), Ester Gum, Calcium Pantothenate (Vitamin B5), Cholecalciferol (Vitamin D3), Biotin, Cyanocobalamin (Vitamin B12), Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6).
Sparkling Ice Caffeine (Cherry Vanilla)	Carbonated Water, Malic Acid, Natural Flavors, Fruit And Vegetable Juice (For Color), Potassium Benzoate (To Ensure Freshness), Citric Acid, Sucralose, Caffeine From Natural Sources, Green Tea Extract, Retinol (Vitamin A), Niacinamide (Vitamin B3), Calcium Pantothenate (Vitamin B5), Cholecalciferol (Vitamin D3), Biotin, Cyanocobalamin (Vitamin B12), Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6).

Here are the biggest points I notice from these ingredients:

• Sparkling Ice has sucralose. On the bright side, Sparkling Ice doesn’t have sugar. But instead, it has sucralose. This is a bit of a controversial artificial sweeteners, and it’s likely the worst aspect of Sparkling Ice, nutritionally. I’ll explore this topic more below.

• Sparkling Ice is free of artificial colors. Many similar drinks have artificial colors. But such dyes are controversial for safety, so I’d consider it positive that Sparkling Ice doesn’t have any. Instead Sparkling Ice is colored with fruit and vegetable juice.

• Sparkling Ice has green tea extract. Green tea extract is often touted for health benefits like weight loss, skin health, brain health, blood pressure regulation, blood sugar regulation, exercise recovery, and more. I’m not sure if the dose in Sparkling Ice is large enough to do much… but it seems like a nice little addition, anyway.

• Sparkling Ice has added vitamins and antioxidants. I wouldn’t consider this a huge benefit, as most of these vitamins would likely be absorbed better from whole foods anyway. In fact, there’s even a potential risk that such isolated nutrients can become negative for health. But on balance, it’s probably still beneficial.

• Sparkling Ice does not have added electrolytes. This is a neutral point, really. Unless you’re exercising or sweating hard, you usually don’t need added electrolytes in your drinks. But if you’re looking for that… look elsewhere.

In my opinion, the main concern in Sparkling Ice for most people would just be the artificial sweetener, sucralose. So we’ll cover that in-depth in the next section.

Related Question:

• Does Sparkling Ice have corn syrup? Sparkling Ice does not have high-fructose corn syrup, any other corn syrup, or any kind of added sugar. Instead, it is sweetened with sucralose.

2. Does Sparkling Ice Have Artificial Sweeteners?

Sparkling Ice contains the artificial sweetener sucralose. Sucralose is FDA approved and generally recognized as safe, but there remains some controversy around the long-term health impacts, particularly on gut bacteria and insulin sensitivity.

The most widely controversial artificial sweetener is probably aspartame. Personally, I avoid aspartame because of the research showing possible connections to depression. Sparkling Ice does not have aspartame.

Another sweetener people sometimes have questions about is xylitol, especially since it is bad for dogs. Sparkling Ice does not contain xylitol.

So let’s look at the health concerns around the actual sweetener in Sparkling Ice—sucralose:

• Sucralose seems to be a migraine trigger for some people. (source, source)
• Sucralose may cause insulin resistance through multiple mechanisms (more on that below).
• Sucralose has been shown to have a surprisingly minimal effect on weight loss.

Most of the health concerns around artificial sweeteners are not well proven. But for many people, the risk feels hazardous anyway. There’s just some uncertainty about how the human body reacts long-term to any of these artificial sweeteners.

Therefore, some consumers may feel uneasy consuming such sweeteners in large quantities, like having Sparkling Ice every day. Here’s a video that covers more on the science around artificial sweeteners.

The next two sections will include more about the potential impact of sucralose on weight loss and blood sugar levels.

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3. Is Sparkling Ice Good for Weight Loss?

One of the main reasons people choose low-calorie drinks like Sparkling Ice is to lose weight. But the evidence actually shows that artificial sweeteners (like sucralose) are surprisingly ineffective for weight loss.

That is, you’d expect that switching from sugar to artificial sweeteners would cause significant weight-loss… but in most studies, they cause little to no weight loss.

One explanation is this: Artificial sweeteners keep you accustomed to sweet foods. So you still get cravings for sweets, and you’ll probably end up eating those calories from somewhere.

That said, the studies I reviewed suggested that sucralose doesn’t cause weight gain, either. So, the sucralose in Sparkling Ice likely won’t affect your weight one way or the other, based on the evidence.

Remember: The key to weight loss is your overall calorie balance. So if your goal is weight loss, then consider tracking your calories as I describe in this post—or else follow some of these 18 tips for weight loss without counting calories.

Related Question:

• Is Sparkling Ice good for bodybuilders who are cutting? Since bodybuilders often track their overall calorie balance, they should be able to achieve fat loss while drinking Sparkling Ice. This means Sparkling Ice would be a fine beverage while cutting. Just make sure you stay in a calorie deficit overall.

4. Does Sparkling Ice Raise Blood Sugar?

I didn’t find any peer-reviewed research directly on whether Sparkling Ice raises blood sugar. However, Sparkling Ice does have sucralose, which has been shown to affect blood glucose and insulin levels in some studies.

Sucralose is not absorbed in the small intestine like normal sugar, so it ends up in the large intestine. Apparently, it alters your gut bacteria there, affecting your tolerance to carbs going forward, as well.

So theoretically, drinking a lot of Sparkling Ice may worsen your blood sugar control. However, this hasn’t been tested directly, to my knowledge.

It is also possible that artificial sweeteners could cause an insulin response through another mechanism. That is, the sweet taste of artificial sweeteners may potentially trigger an insulin response even without real sugar in your bloodstream.

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