6 Healthy Drinks You Should Add To Your Diet
You can never go wrong with water since it’s unquestionably the best beverage to consume for our bodies. But there are instances when drinking water feels like a chore. Certainly, there are days when you’d like to guzzle a glass of juice or soda, but you don’t want to take in all the damaging effects that come along with it. While water may be the healthiest beverage, it’s not the only healthy drink you can consume.
As you make the positive change to be more cautious about your body, this should include not only what you eat, but also what you drink. These two should come together. Eating healthy will become futile if you’re also chugging a liter of juice or whipped cream and syrup-filled coffee every single day.
This article lists down six of the healthiest drinks that you can start to incorporate into your diet.
1. Pomegranate Juice
The pomegranate fruit has been consistently given praise for all of the positive effects it brings. It’s one of the fruits that’s tightly packed with antioxidants. This is why having a glass of pomegranate every now and then is good for your body. Just make sure that you’re drinking the juice itself, and not the artificial one that’s loaded with sugar or other sweeteners.
Here are the health benefits of pomegranate juice:
- It’s rich in antioxidants, judging from the red color that it derives from polyphenols; making it work as well as resveratrol does in wine – you can discover this and more benefits here.
- It may stop the growth of cancer cells, particularly prostate cancer.
- It improves digestion, by reducing inflammation in the gut.
- It may also block inflammation that contributes to cartilage damage and osteoporosis.
- It lowers blood pressure.
2. Green Tea
If you’re looking for a relaxing beverage to help you de-stress, green tea is one of the best tea options you can go for. It’s also one of the best beverages to drink for weight loss, and it’s packed with many powerful nutrients and antioxidants.
If you’re exercising every day, it’s a good idea to boost your workout with green tea. That way, the caffeine can pump up your energy levels, thus, enabling you to do more workouts.
This is very beneficial, not just for those who are looking to lose weight, but also to improve their overall heart health.
Here are other convincing health benefits of drinking green tea:
- It contains healthy bioactive compounds like polyphenols that are linked to a possible reduction in the growth of cancer cells.
- It increases fat burning, making it ideal for those who are aiming to lose weight.
- It may protect the brain from Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases.
3. Low Fat Milk
Low-fat milk, and even skimmed milk, aren’t just meant to provide for the calcium needs of children. Even adults need it, too. They need it for the essential nutrients it contains. Plus, the lower fat content makes it great for keeping your weight in check.
Low-fat milk is one of the healthiest beverages you should include in your diet for the following reasons:
- While it contains more calories than skimmed milk does, it also contains lower calories than whole milk or full cream milk.
- It’s packed not just with bone-strengthening vitamins, but also phosphorus and Vitamin D.
- It’s an excellent source of protein, which is necessary for the repair of cells and regulation of the immune system.
- It helps prevent weight gain, as it keeps you full.
4. Coffee
Coffee is healthy. You just have to make sure that you’re taking in coffee in its most natural sense. This means drinking coffee that’s directly roasted from the beans, with no creamer and sugar. If you do need to have a sweetener, keep it minimal and go for natural sweeteners instead like honey or stevia.
Coffee is a healthy beverage, since it improves your energy levels and mood. Physical health isn’t the only qualifying factor for good health. You’ll have to take very good care of your mental health as well.
Moreover, coffee brings with it other health benefits such as:
- Promotes fat burning
- Increases metabolism
- May promote better processing of glucose or sugar in the body
- May lower the chance of developing neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s disease
- May reduce the breakage in DNA strands, therefore making your cells healthier
5. Orange Juice
A glass of freshly squeezed orange juice isn’t just refreshing, but also extremely healthy. Especially during the flu or allergy season, it helps to have a glass of orange juice every day. You may know by now that it’s rich in Vitamin C.
Moreover, it also boasts of high levels of quercetin, which is a form of flavanol that can be found in many plants and vegetables. Because of this, drinking orange juice has incredible benefits for you:
- It boosts immunity. Since it’s packed with Vitamin C, you’re protected from colds and flu.
- It aids in weight loss, as it’s low in calories and has zero fat.
- It may break down the formation of calcium oxalate in the kidneys, because of the high concentration of citrate.
6. Black Tea
Like green tea, black tea also has tremendous effects in aiding weight loss. Among all other types of tea, this has one of the highest concentrations of polyphenols, which are powerful antioxidants to help you reduce weight.
To convince you to start drinking black tea, here are some benefits you’ll gain from it:
- It may protect against atherosclerosis or the buildup of plaque in the walls of the arteries.
- It reduces blood pressure.
- It may protect against diabetes.
Conclusion
With so many options, getting confused about the kind of beverage that’s good for your body is inevitable. Apart from deciding on your own, you may also want to take the advice of a medical professional. This way, they can also give you insights on the best beverage suited to your health concerns. Most importantly, don’t take water for granted.
Once you realize the great effects of these healthy beverages on your body, you’ll soon be saying goodbye to sodas and artificial drinks in no time.
