Introduction

Drink to Your Health
by Anne McIntyre

To Life!

From juices and teas to soups and smoothies, this imaginative collection of delicious drinks from around the world has been compiled to help you look and feel great. These luscious and easy-to-prepare recipes will help lift your spirits and soothe your soul, and warm you up and cool you down, as well as recover from a wide range of illnesses and ailments. Features include:

• In-depth profiles of the healing qualities and benefits of twenty-five key ingredients — from almonds and apples to barley and beetroot, and from garlic and ginger to oats and onions

• More than 120 recipes from sources around the world — from China and Russia to North and South America, the Caribbean, and Europe

• Specifics for vegetarians, vegans, and people suffering from certain food intolerances

• Traditional wisdom married with discoveries from modern medical science

• Gorgeous full-color illustrations and detailed step-by-step instructions

Beautiful, informative, and comforting, Drink to Your Health will show you simple ways to make yourself feel a lot better.

Liquid is vital to life, whether it is drunk in the form of plain, unadulterated water, or exotic concoctions on festive occasions, and drinks fulfil a whole range of functions in our lives. Certainly they may satisfy our immediate needs by quenching our thirst, but they can also cool and refresh us on a hot day or warm us on a cold winter's day. Drinks can be packed with nutrients that nourish and strengthen us, providing the raw materials and energy to heal us in mind and body when we are unwell. They have the ability to increase our vitality and even our longevity, as well as to console and calm us in times of stress or trauma.

For centuries drinking has formed part of both social and religious ceremonies all over the world, and it still plays a symbolic role in our lives today. On social and business occasions we often drink together almost as a ritual to ease communication. With a drink we toast the health of a friend, the happiness of a bridal couple and the birth of a new baby, or celebrate a wedding anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas. Or we may simply enjoy a good chat over a drink.

The importance of water

When we consider that the body is made up of seventy-five percent water, it is hardly surprising that we need to drink regularly to keep our bodies functioning well. Adults lose about 3 quarts of water every day (more if you do a lot of physical exercise): 2 1/2 cups in perspiration, 5 cups in breathing out and almost 1 quart in urine. This liquid must all be replaced. In fact, our bodies can survive longer without food than they can without water. The right balance of water is essential for the function of every cell in the body.

Sufficient water drunk in one form or another is necessary to bulk out waste products in the bowel to prevent constipation and subsequent bowel problems. It is also needed to flush wastes and toxins out through the skin in the form of sweat and via the bladder as urine to prevent irritation to the kidneys or bladder. During a fever, diarrhea, or vomiting, it is vital to drink plenty of liquid to prevent dehydration. After a night on the town, drinking copious amounts of water or fruit juice will flush out the kidneys and reduce the likelihood of a hangover.

Many of us tend not to drink as much as we need to keep ourselves in tiptop condition. If plain water does not seem inviting enough, there are numerous more flavorsome ways to take water into the body. The recipes in this book — for fruit juices, smoothies, vegetable juices, cocktails of vegetables or fruits, soups, and teas — will entice even reluctant drinkers to imbibe a little more.

Tea

Whether it is Chinese, Indian, or herbal, tea is a perfectly natural drink without any artificial additives, and has been part of our lives for thousands of years. Apart from water, some of us drink more tea than any other drink and we can make good use of this medium by finding a repertoire of health-promoting teas that appeal to our taste buds. Each herbal tea not only has its own unique flavor, but also a range of medicinal benefits well known to those in the world of herbal medicine. The herbal teas in this book have been chosen for their therapeutic effects as well as their light aromatic flavors, and make a delightful change from your normal brew.

Because "normal" tea contains caffeine it has had a bad press during the last few years, particularly since stress plays a significant part in the development of health problems and caffeine exacerbates the effects of stress. More recently, however, tea (Chinese, Indian, or Japanese) has been found to contain antioxidants in the form of flavonoids. These help to protect the body against free radicals, which contribute to chronic illness such as heart disease and cancer. One of the flavonoids, catechin, is also found in apple and grape skins. One drawback concerning tea consumption is that it contains polyphenols, which can interfere with iron absorption. For this reason, it is best to drink tea between meals rather than with your food, particularly if you are vegetarian.

Coffee

In Europe, the Middle East, and North, Central, and South America, coffee is the preferred stimulant for regular intake. Many people agree that it is hard to find a more attractive drink to get them up in the morning and keep them going throughout a busy day, but those who drink a lot of coffee may have a price to pay. Caffeine may overstimulate the nervous system and exacerbate the effects of stress. It can lead to tiredness, irritability, anxiety, or insomnia, and is a common cause of headaches, migraine, hormone imbalances, and indigestion. Decaffeinated coffee can reduce the harmful impact on the nervous system in determined coffee drinkers. Alternatively, adding cardamom, as is done in the Middle East, helps to neutralize the effects of caffeine. Strong coffee made in a cafetiere or percolator has been shown to raise blood cholesterol, increasing the risk of arterial and heart disease. However, both ordinary and decaffeinated coffee contain antioxidants, which actually help to reduce the risk of heart disease. The laxative and diuretic effects of coffee can be useful, but may have you needing a bathroom when it is not convenient.

Juices

Raw fruit and vegetable juices are said to be the richest available sources of vitamins, minerals, and enzymes. Drunk in this form, these pass rapidly into the bloodstream because they require very little breaking down in the digestive tract. Juices seem to radiate pure life force. People who drink fresh juices regularly say that since they have been doing so they have felt more energetic, their skin has been clearer, their hair shinier, and their resilience to infection greater. Specific fruit and vegetable juices, chosen for their therapeutic properties, can be used to treat minor health disorders, such as skin problems, sluggish bowels, arthritis, and a whole range of other problems that are discussed on the following pages. Use freshly squeezed or extracted juices for the recipes whenever possible and drink them immediately to derive maximum benefit. All that you need to make your own juices is a good juicer (see Appendix for details).

Milk drinks

Smoothies, delicious, thick, creamy blends of fruits, fruit juices, and milk or yogurt, have been popular for some time, especially in the hot states and in hot countries all over the world. They are now fast catching on as fashionable drinks everywhere else. Certainly, there is every reason for smoothies to be popular. As well as tasting absolutely delicious, they are filling and nutritious. In fact, they make an ideal breakfast or a snack for any busy person who does not have time to prepare a proper meal because they are quick and easy to make — all you need are the ingredients and a blender. Because smoothies are cold, however, they are not the best form of liquid intake in the winter or for ayone who suffers from poor circulation and a sluggish metabolism. (Warm milk drinks with plenty of spices are preferable in these instances.)

All the milky drinks in this book can be prepared using cow's, goat's, or ewe's milk products. Alternatively, if you are vegan or suffer from a lactose intolerance, you can use soy milk, rice milk, almond milk, or oat milk, all of which are suitable for people who have a tendency to allergies, frequent respiratory infections, phlegm, menopausal symptoms, or bowel problems. If you are watching your weight or are concerned about a tendency to raised cholesterol, high blood pressure, or heart disease, choose low-fat milk and yogurt. Fat is necessary for the absorption of vitamins A and D and calcium (which are fat soluble), so it is important not to cut it out of your diet entirely. For this reason it is best to use whole milk for growing children and those concerned about osteoporosis, including menopausal women and the elderly.

Soups

Soups come in all shapes and forms from a light, thin appetizer for a meal to a thick, textured soup, with chunky vegetables and grains or legumes that makes a meal in itself. Eaten hot in winter, their wonderful warming properties are enhanced by plenty of onions, garlic, leeks, and pungent spices. In summer cucumber, lettuce, and avocado soups are refreshing, eaten cool or chilled, with light aromatic herbs such as mint and cilantro leaves. Soups are always tastier and more nutritious when made with real vegetable or chicken stock.

Ingredients

When buying the raw ingredients for your drinks, it is important to buy the best quality you can. The fresher the produce, the richer it is in valuable nutrients. Certain nutrients, for example vitamins A and C and folic acid, diminish during storage, so buy small quantities of fruit and vegetables at a time and use them quickly. If you want to make drinks with ingredients that are out of season it is possible to use frozen, canned, or dried versions, though the results, in some cases, may be inferior in taste, nutrition, and vitality. If you are using canned fruit, choose fruit that is preserved in fruit juice or water rather than a heavy syrup. When using dried fruit try to find fruit that has been sun-dried rather than sulfur-dried, even though it may not look quite as attractive; sulfur can cause allergic reactions in some people.

Buy organic fruit and vegetables whenever possible to avoid the risk of health problems related to pesticides. You will not have to remove the peel from most organic produce. It is worth noting that many vital nutrients lie just below the skin, as in the case of potatoes and apples. Always choose ripe fruit because they give a sweeter taste and smoother texture to your juices and smoothies.

Alcohol-free drinks are a fashionable way to get you looking and feeling your best. The recipes in this book are not just boring alternatives for teetotallers or health fanatics, but have been selected to stimulate the senses and scintillate the taste buds, at the same time as improving health and vitality. Enlivened with a variety of herbs and spices, these drinks are bursting with ingredients to keep us feeling on top of the world, but they will also enhance the healing process when we are not at our best. Vitamins, minerals, and trace elements, protein, essential fatty acids, complex carbohydrates, and a whole range of therapeutic phytochemicals are all here, playing leading roles in delicious drinks with which we can truly toast your good health. Cheers!

Copyright © 2000 Gaia Books Limited
Text Copyright © 2000 Anne Mcintyre

About the Author

Anne McIntyre, Fellow of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists, is a practicing medical herbalist and the author of many books, including Herbs for Common Ailments, Simple Home Remedies for Common Ailments, The Complete Women's Herbal, and The Complete Floral Healer. She has lectured widely in herbal medicine and has been interviewed frequently for magazines, newspapers, radio, and television.