Healthy drinks inside and outside the home

Every year, as soon as the heat starts, these same doubts are repeated. What do I drink on a terrace? What can I cool off with? So let’s see if some of these options work for you.

What healthy cold drinks can we order away from home?

It is undeniable that this is a complicated decision and that the options are frankly limited in most places, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any!

The main nutritional “enemies” Against which we fight when trying to drink something healthy in a bar, there are two: added sugars and alcohol. It seems an impossible task to think of options that avoid both ingredients, but with a little effort, there is an alternative:

Cold infusions or tea with ice and lemonas an alternative to sodas or bottled iced teas that have a large amount of added sugar. Coffee with ice, as an alternative to cola drinks. If you like bubbles, try mixing it with cold sparkling water. Let’s remember that we can ask for decaffeinated coffee, if we prefer. Alcohol-free beeras an alternative to traditional beer. Sparkling water and lemonas an alternative to carbonated drinks such as tonic or bitter, which despite their bitter taste, have a not inconsiderable amount of sugar. Tomato juice, as an alternative to industrial fruit juices, which, although they may not contain added sugar, are a source of free dissolved sugars included by the WHO in the sugars to be reduced (1). Tomato juice has a much lower sugar content than fruit juices, due to the natural composition of the tomato.

What about “light” or “zero” soft drinks?

Those sodas, it’s true do not contain sugarssince these have been replaced by sweetener, in large quantities.

In no way would it be good advice to change sugar for sweeteners, since although according to what the health authorities tell us its consumption is safe, what we cannot say is that it is harmless (2).

As a summary, let’s remember that sweeteners continue to perpetuate our addiction to artificially sweet flavors and activating the metabolic response to them. And that we also know that others have negative impacts on our health, being the most studied the one that affects the state of the microbiota (the bacteria that live in our digestive system). Therefore they are not an alternative except in specific cases or sporadic situations.

And at home, what options do we have to cool off?

At home the options increase considerably and we have much more room to prepare healthy refreshing drinks or snacks:

Homemade fruit puree popsicles: Reusable lolly molds are sold that we only have to fill with our favorite mixture and freeze. fruit ice cream: blending previously frozen fruit to obtain a creamy texture like ice cream. The banana is a classic, combine it with your favorite fruit. Fruit flavored cold water and mint or mint: a jug of water in which we let mint branches, lemon slices, red berries, a cinnamon stick, cucumber, orange peel rest for a few hours in the fridge… it becomes a water with a different touch and it also makes a nice decorative effect if we have guests or a special dinner a glass of gazpachothat it is without straining to take advantage of all the fiber and we use a quality extra virgin oil and little salt! Homemade watermelon or melon granitas: it is enough to crush these summer fruits so rich in water, freeze them and then crush that ice until you get a slush that is as fresh as possible! Whole Fruit Smoothies: made with an American glass or blender, not with machines that separate the pulp, nothing is thrown away!

Bibliography

Informative note on the intake of sugars recommended in the WHO guideline for adults and children. Sweeteners do not cause cancer but they are not harmless (https://elpais.com/elpais/2017/01/14/ciencia/1484423610_206448.html).