If you picked the McDonald's triple thick shake as the highest in calories, you'd be wrong. The Tazo Green Tea Frappuccino adds up to 550 calories for 16 ounces - which is the same as the McDonald's shake. And while the Tazo has real green tea, the shake also has some benefits (not that I'm pushing the shake), including high levels of calcium and 13 grams of protein. If you're itching for a fancy green tea dessert, you can try Starbucks' Tazo green iced tea and lemonade, which has 120 calories. Or even better, how about plain green tea, which has zero calories?

The Orange Cr�me Frappuccino Blended Cr�me with whipped cream has 430 calories (save 110 calories by skipping the cream). Starbucks offers a lower-calorie, light version of the Orange Mocha Frappuccino for 150 calories (without whipped cream). Not a perfect choice, but certainly better than the full-calorie versions or the shake.

As a side note - kudos to McDonald's for not listing the shake as a beverage on its menu: It shares the category with desserts, the right place for a shake or any of these beverages.

Glaceau Fruitwater comes in a 20-ounce bottle and has 45 to 50 calories. It's basically water and sugar - not better than plain water, but still better than a soda. The ingredient list calls the added sugar "crystalline fructose," however, that doesn't mean the sugar is from fruit. In fact, it's from cornstarch, just like high-fructose corn syrup.

The VitaminWater is much higher in calories with 125 for 20 ounces and also has crystalline fructose, some food coloring and added vitamins. Keep in mind, for comparison sake, a 12-ounce can of soda, has 140 calories - only 15 calories more than the VitaminWater. Do we even need those extra vitamins?

Also on the market is Tropicana Fruit Squeeze, which has only 50 calories per 20 ounces, with 9 grams of sugar vs. almost 40 grams for VitaminWater. The Fruit Squeeze could be a nice alternative if you don't mind the sucralose (Splenda). Fruit2O, which boasts that it contains no calories, fat or sugar (also with sucralose), is a very sweet option if you're hankering for a diet soda replacement. Gatorade, at 160 calories for a 20-ounce bottle, is really designed to replenish electrolytes for athletes. It's not really a run-of-the-mill thirst quencher.

Now this is a category you can sink your teeth into - or your lips: tasty water without additives. Metromint, one of our favorites, is made with real mint, and it's delicious. There's also Hint, which offers purified water with natural flavors and no calories or artificial sweeteners. The flavors include lime, raspberry-lime and mango-grapefruit, to name a few. Finally, Tasmanian Rain offers water that's collected without ever touching the ground "from the purest skies on Earth," according to the Australia-based company. The water is sold in fancy bottles resembling fine wine, costing around $5 per bottle.

Another way to liven up your bottled water is by using Crystal Light On The Go (lemonade, peach tea, raspberry ice and iced tea). Each packet has 10 calories (sweetened with aspartame) and is designed to be poured into a 16.9-ounce bottle of water.

Enviga claims to actually burn calories. I'm not convinced. The good news is that Enviga has only 5 calories per can (sweetened with aspartame and acesulfame potassium). What about Gatorade's Propel Fitness Water? It has about 30 calories per 24-ounce bottle and about 25 percent of the daily value of B vitamins (niacin, B6, pantothenic acid). Maybe so, but shouldn't we get these B vitamins from food sources, such as bananas or turkey?

And Red Bull is basically a souped-up can of sugar, water, caffeine and other "goodies" (such as taurine) that have very little research supporting their health claims. Each can is about 110 calories. If you want the Red Bull effect without the calories, try the sugar-free version (sweetened with acesulfame, aspartame) at only 10 calories.

Charles Stuart Platkin is a nutrition and public-health advocate, and author of "Breaking the FAT Pattern" (Plume, 2006). Sign up for the free Diet Detective newsletter at www.dietdetective.com.