Any Day is a Great Day to Show Your Heart Some Love with These Tasty Drinks!
Plus, use leftover ingredients like strawberries and date syrup to make snacks, like frozen yogurt bites and smoothie bowls!
What do all of these ingredients we are about to see have in common? You guessed it - they have heart-healthy properties!
Compounds found in food, such as vitamin C, antioxidants, and fiber can have beneficial affects on the body, especially for the heart. Vitamin C can be found in many fruits and vegetables, including oranges, lemons, strawberries, kiwifruit, and beets, all of which we will see in these recipes.
Antioxidant is an umbrella term for many different compounds that have positive effects on the body. Some compounds that fall under the antioxidant umbrella include, polyphenols, anthocyanins, carotenoids, and even vitamin C. Antioxidants help to fight oxidative stress - stress inside our bodies on a cellular level. Oxidative stress is unfortunately a part of life and may be caused by many things in our environments, like the air we breathe and the food we consume, and even exercise. For this reason, it is helpful to consume healthful foods, like fruits and vegetables, that can help us promote better health in our bodies! Zero-proof cocktail ingredients that provide us with antioxidants include, strawberries, oranges, lemon, kiwifruits, beets, basil, pomegranate, dates, Brazil nuts, and hibiscus.
Fiber is also important for heart health. Generally, juices do not supply fiber unless they include the pulp. The Strawberry Kiwi Basilito cocktail uses whole fruit, but is strained. However, I saved the pulp and used it to make yogurt bites and a smoothie bowl (recipes to follow). Strawberries, oranges, kiwifruit, and dates contain fiber, as do so many other fruits and vegetables, but we can find even more in legumes and whole grains!
Our bodies produce nitric oxide, a compound that helps to increase blood flow and improve heart health. Both Brazil nuts and beets, ingredients in the Beet Root Lemonade, promote nitric oxide production.
Are you ready to try some of these ingredients together?
Call it the Vegan Vampire! – Erin L., referring to the vibrant color of the Beet Root Lemonade
The following three recipes list club soda and date syrup in the ingredients. These are optional. You can use more or less, or none at all. It all depends on your taste and your goals. Some club sodas contain sodium, look out for that if you need to keep your salt to a minimum - not all of them contain salt/sodium though. Alternatively, you could use plain sparkling/carbonated water, which I think is almost the same, or tonic water. Read the labels to see what works best for you.
Beet Root Lemonade
aka The Vegan Vampire
I love beets, purple/red and golden, but I have not tried to juice them myself yet. For convenience, I used beet root juice from the store for this beet root lemonade - and it turned out so good! That is not salt you see on the rim of the glasses, that is crushed Brazil nuts held on using lemon juice.
Beet Root Lemonade
This recipe makes 2-4 drinks, depending on how much ice and club soda you add to the juice mixture.
Ingredients
225 ml beet root juice
100-125 ml lemon juice
4 tablespoons date syrup (optional)
2-4 ounces club soda per drink (optional)
2-3 Brazil nuts (crushed) for garnish (optional)
3 lemon slices - one to rim glasses (optional, needed if using Brazil nut rim) and two for garnish (optional)
ice
Directions
The ingredients listed above are a guide. Beet root juice is pretty earthy and lemon juice is tart, so start with your beet juice and add enough lemon for your liking! This is how I made ours:
Juice 100-125 ml of lemon juice.
Pour 225 ml of beet root juice into a jar or shaker. We use Lakewood brand Pure Beet.
Add some lemon juice to the beet root juice. Keep adding until you find the perfect mix of tart and earthy.
Stir in date syrup, if you choose to use it. The sweetness can be a nice addition to the bold lemon and beet root juice mix. I actually like my drink without the date syrup. Anderson likes his with extra date syrup. Find my date syrup recipe here.
Mince/crush Brazil nuts as fine as you can and put in a shallow bowl (or a glass rimmer). You could even use a small food processor for a fine powder.
Use the lemon slice to rim the outer edge of the glass with lemon juice, then rotate the glass with the outer edge in the minced Brazil nuts, to coat the entire edge of the glass.
Put ice into glasses.
Pour the juice over the ice.
Add desired amount of club soda to the glasses.
Put a lemon slice in each drink - squeeze the lemon for added tartness.
Enjoy!
Pomegranate & Orange Cooler
This drink is so light and refreshing, I had to call it a cooler. The orange and pomegranate go so nicely together - a little sweet and a little tangy. This is the most simple drink of the three to make, so give it a try and let me know what you think.
Pomegranate & Orange Cooler
This recipe makes 2-4 drinks, depending on how much ice and club soda you add to the juice mixture.
Ingredients
150 ml pomegranate juice
150 ml orange juice
2 tablespoons date syrup (optional)
2-4 ounces club soda per drink (optional)
2 slices of orange for garnish (optional)
pomegranate seeds for garnish (optional)
ice
Directions
The ingredients listed above are a guide. Make the drinks to your liking! This is how I made ours:
Juice about 150 ml of orange juice, either by hand or with a juicer. This was 3 medium/large oranges for us. Alternatively, you could use orange juice from the store.
Mix 150 ml of orange juice with 150 ml of pomegranate juice. We use Lakewood brand Pure Pomegranate.
Stir in date syrup, if you choose to use it. I tried this recipe with various amounts of date syrup and also no date syrup. Anderson likes his sweeter, but I actually like it best with no date syrup added. Find my date syrup recipe here.
Put ice into glasses.
Pour the juice over the ice.
Add desired amount of club soda to the glasses.
Add a slice of orange to each drink.
Enjoy!
Strawberry Kiwi Basilitos
May 2020, we decided to have a couple of drinks outside with our neighbors for Memorial Day. I had tried a blueberry mojito for the first time the previous fall and thought it was alright - my favorite part was the blueberries! I decided to try something new while expanding on the standard mojito recipe. They turned out amazing and got some great reviews from the neighbors we shared with. I called them Blueberry Lemonade Basilitos (recipe to follow). This year, I decided to try a new twist, sticking with the heart-healthy theme, and created Strawberry Kiwi Basilitos. These drinks brought up some nostalgia for drinking Snapple back in high school. My Basilitos are a bit more nutritious though!
Strawberry Kiwi Basilito
This recipe makes 2 drinks.
Ingredients
4-5 medium-large strawberries, chopped (save a few slices for garnish)
1/2 a kiwifruit, chopped (skin removed - I used mine in a smoothie bowl, recipe to follow)
6 ounces cold-brewed hibiscus tea
4 fresh basil leaves (2 for drink mix, 2 for garnish)
2-3 tablespoons date syrup (optional)
2-4 ounces club soda per drink (optional)
ice or frozen grapes
Directions
Again, the ingredients listed are a guide, make your drinks to your liking!
For the hibiscus tea, I use 1-1.5 tablespoons dry leaves/flowers or 2-3 teabags. My favorite are the Frontier Co-op Hibiscus Flowers. I add 24 ounces of water to a large jar and allow the tea to steep for at least 3-4 hours in the fridge. My jar usually ends up sitting in the fridge overnight steeping before I remove the tea leaves - which is totally okay!
For the Basilitos, muddle strawberries, kiwifruit, and 2 basil leaves in something with a flat bottom, like a mason jar. You will be left with juice and pulp in your container.
Separate the juice from the pulp, setting the pulp aside for another recipe later (like a smoothie bowl).
To the juice, add the hibiscus tea and desired date syrup (date syrup recipe). Mix together.
Add frozen grapes or ice to glasses.
Pour the juice/tea mix over the ice.
Add desired club soda to drinks.
Garnish with basil leaf and strawberry slice.
Enjoy!
Why zero-proof?
Alcohol can increase the risk of some types of cancer and chronic conditions, like hypertension, heart disease, and liver disease. The CDC recommends that adults who choose to drink limit their intake to one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men, maximum. What is "one drink"? A drink is equal to 12 ounces of beer (5% ABV), 8 ounces of malt (7% ABV), 5 ounces of wine (12% ABV), and 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits (40% ABV = 80 proof), like rum or whiskey. ABV is the abbreviation for alcohol by volume.
I have tried all of these recipes as zero-proof cocktails. I have also tried the Beet Root Lemonade and the Pomegranate & Orange Cooler with a little clear rum (my new favorite is the Brinley Gold Shipwreck White Reserve Rum). They were both quite nice, although I do favor the Vegan Vampire + rum if I am looking for more than a zero-proof cocktail. I enjoy all three of these drinks as zero-proof cocktails though - they are very refreshing and full of healthful nutrients!
What's Next?
Now that I have graduated Rutgers University with my Bachelor of Science in Nutritional Sciences, Dietetics option, I plan to bring more content to the Befittwell site. The 5+ Heart-Healthy Foods and the heart-healthy recipe are going to be coming out in the future, followed by the smoothie bowl and frozen yogurt bites mentioned in this post. After that, I have so many ideas, I am not sure where I will start yet! What would you like to see here?
With Love, Kathleen
References:
Why Zero Proof? More Alcohol risks
**Some of these links are to scientific studies which may be behind pay walls, but at minimum, the abstracts should be visible to everyone.
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