Healthy Drinks and Beverages
My Top Ten Recommendations

Have you tried looking for healthy beverages at your local convenience store? Good luck!

These days, unhealthy beverages like sodas and energy drinks dominate store shelves. They tend to be loaded down with sugar. Usually, they are also chock full of empty calories and devoid of actual nutrients.

Why ingest unnecessary calories, artificial flavors and artificial colors? There are better choices available!

Green tea is not only delicious, it is also amazingly good for you.

The powerful antioxidants and amino acids in green tea have been shown to help you burn fat, exercise longer, concentrate more effectively and fight off illness.

Studies have also shown that it can help improve cardiovascular health and fight inflammation. It may even protect against some types of cancer.

For more about the health benefits and scientific evidence, read

Green Tea Benefits - 16 Things That Make Miracles Possible.

Green tea may have the most health-promoting antioxidants, but oolong tea is a close second.

Some studies have shown that oolong tea promotes weight loss by increasing metabolism and decreasing fat absorption.

Other studies indicate that it promotes heart health and may help control diabetes and eczema.

Oolong Tea Health Benefits - What Scientific Evidence?

In addition to the health benefits, oolong tea has a more robust, aromatic flavor than green tea. It is also more gentle on stomach, therefore a better choice for drinking with meals.

Roasted oolong tea is excellent for the winter months. It really warms you up!

No, I am definitely not suggesting that you drink raw honey straight from the jar! Raw honey has some important health benefits that you should not overlook.

For example, it is an excellent source of vitamins and minerals, comparable to many fruits and vegetables. Honey is also high in antioxidants, complex sugars, complex carbohydrates and beneficial amino acids.

What does all of this mean to you? It means that honey may help you to:

• Exercise longer and harder. 

• Sleep better at night.

• Digest your food more easily.

Honey Health Benefits - 10 Reasons Why The Future Is Sweet

How should you drink raw honey? The options are endless.

You could add a tablespoon or two to a bottle of fresh water, perhaps with a little bit of lemon juice. Or you can drink it with apple cider vinegar.

If you have trouble sleeping, a glass of warm milk sweetened with honey is a soothing way to unwind. Of course, you could also use it to sweeten your favorite type of tea.

The choice is yours!

Fruits and vegetables are good for you.

Many people think this means that fruit juice is just as good for you as real fruit, but if you are buying juice from the store that is usually not the case.

Most commercial fruit juices have been pasteurized using heat.

While this does kill bacteria and make the juice less prone to spoilage, it also destroys many of the valuable nutrients, enzymes and phytochemicals found in raw fruits and veggies.

Many commercial fruit juices also come spiked with high fructose corn syrup, artificial flavors and artificial colors.

The solution?

Make your own fruit and vegetable juices using a juicer!

A good juicer takes out all of the beneficial vitamins, enzymes and phytochemicals from fruit, leaving behind only the indigestible pulp.

Since most people do not eat enough fruits and vegetables, fruit juicing can be a great way to get more of these nutritious foods into your diet.

Some people also juice fruits and vegetables as part of a detox program. There are even different juice “regimens” used to treat specific problems.

If you want to make your own fruit juices at home, it helps to spring for a quality juicer.

Quality juicers extract more juice from the fruit pulp, which saves you money in the long run.

One of the best ways to quench your thirst, especially if you work outside and need to rehydrate yourself frequently, is to just drink plain water.

According to the Mayo Clinic, up to 60 percent of the human body is made up of water, and every system in your body needs it to function.

Unlike sugary drinks, water hydrates you without loading your body down with calories and sugar.

It is also caffeine free, so it is a good way to stay hydrated after you have met your caffeine quota for the day.

What if you simply do not like the taste of plain water?

Try using a bottle with a built-in filter to remove the off flavors that are common in tap water.

For flavor, you could also add a few slices of your favorite fruit, or perhaps a spring of some refreshing herbs, like mint or lemon balm.

Essiac tea is an herbal blend developed by a Canadian nurse named Rene Caisse from an ancient Native American formula.

The tea is used primarily to treat cancer.

However, although there are many anecdotes and personal testimonials to support this use, the scientific evidence is very preliminary and still rather sketchy

Essiac's original formula contains four common North American herbs: sheep sorrel, burdock root, slippery elm bark and rhubarb bark.

Other formulas, such as Flor-Essence, add additional herbs.

These additional herbs may or may not provide additional benefits. Until we know more, it is probably best to stick with the original formula.

Even if Essiac tea's cancer treatment potential is unproven, it is still a good overall health tonic, with herbs that support the immune system and help your body detoxify itself. 

Essiac Herbs Ingredients - Functions And Benefits

Tulsi, also called holy basil, has been used by practitioners of traditional Ayurvedic medicine for thousands of years.

They call it an "elixir of life."

What health benefits does tulsi offer to merit such a lofty title?

Quite a few...and scientists are just beginning to uncover them.

For example, studies have shown that tulsi could help reduce the amount of LDL (bad) cholesterol in your body without affecting the amount of HDL (good) cholesterol.

Tulsi also contains potent antioxidants and has an anti-inflammatory effect on the body. Plus, it may help non-insulin-dependent diabetics regulate their blood sugar.

In addition to its health benefits, tulsi is pleasant-tasting and caffeine-free.

So, if you are trying to cut back on your caffeine intake, consider substituting tulsi for some of the coffee and/or tea you normally drink.

If you have ever considered going on an herbal detox diet, you know that you have a vast selection of products to choose from.

Walk into any natural health store, and you will be surrounded by products promising to help you become healthier (and often skinnier) through herbal detox.

However, not all of these products are worth the money. In fact, many of them are merely tea bags full of psyllium fiber (a laxative).

Also, most herbal detox blends only target one organ or system. For example, they might detox the liver or the blood, but not necessarily both.

Illumination Herbal blend is different. Made from a blend of potent herbs from the Amazon rainforest, it is a fairly complete detox treatment that targets most of your body's systems at once.

Illumination is made from herbal extracts obtained through a special extraction process that includes all of the many phytochemicals, vitamins and trace minerals that are available in the whole plant.

This makes it superior to other detox blends that do not contain all of the constituents of the whole plants they are based on.

If you are looking for an herbal detox tea, this safe but effective blend is a great place to start.

Best Detox Diet Review - Illumination Herbal Blend

Another one of my favorite healthy drinks is rooibos, sometimes incorrectly referred to as "red tea."

Rooibos is not tea at all. It is a tisane, an herbal infusion from a plant that is not even remotely related to Camellia sinensis. The rooibos plant is actually a type of legume.

Rooibos is grown in South Africa, but its popularity has spread to the rest of the world. Rooibos has high levels of antioxidants and no caffeine, so it is a good choice if you want something healthy and caffeine-free to drink.

Rooibos is still a relative newcomer to the healthy beverage scene, so there is not a lot of research yet to back up its reputed health benefits.

However, it was traditionally used in South Africa to soothe colicky babies, to treat asthma and to treat skin conditions.

The few studies that have been done so far suggest that rooibos can help boost the immune system and prevent free radicals from damaging the cells in your body.

It is a good choice if you are looking for something different to drink.

No list of healthy drinks would be complete without mentioning chamomile tea. Although chamomile has not been extensively studied in humans, it has been extensively used by humans for centuries.

Traditionally, chamomile is most commonly used to calm upset stomachs, reduce stress, and induce sleep.

The Medline Plus page on chamomile also mentions that one study suggested that inhaling steam from chamomile tea could help ease cold symptoms.

However, none of the studies performed so far on the benefits of drinking chamomile tea has been large enough or in-depth enough for Medline to recommend the herb for a specific condition.

According to Wikipedia, chamomile has shown some promise for controlling cholesterol and diabetes, and some research has confirmed its traditional uses to treat anxiety and nausea.

However, more research needs to be done, and we will have to wait for science to unlock the secrets of chamomile before we will truly understand the health benefits of this herb.

However,  I also drink it simply because I love the taste.

Chamomile tea (made from whole flowers, not the ground-up powder in a tea bag) tastes amazing. It is fruity and floral all at the same time, like apples dipped in honey.

Some people are allergic to chamomile. In general, you should avoid it if you are allergic to anything in the daisy family.

If you constantly drink soda or other sugar-laden beverages, consider switching over to one of these healthy beverages instead.

Choosing to drink  beverages that are good for you is a small change, but it is one that could have a big impact on your health and well being.

Try it and see!

CBS News. Pomegranate Ranked Healthiest Fruit Juice. July 5, 2008 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/05/earlyshow/health/main4234811.shtml.

Mayo Clinic. Water-how much should you drink every day? http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/water/NU00283

Wikipedia. Ocimum tenuiflorum. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocimum_tenuiflorum.

Wikipedia. Rooibos. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooibos

Medline Plus Supplements. Chamomile. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/natural/patient-chamomile.html.

Wikipedia. Matrixaria recutita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matricaria_recutita

Back to Top of Healthy Drinks

Back to Amazing Green Tea Home

• Home
• Here