(Health Secrets Newsletter) Eating a variety of fruits and vegetables is healthy in many ways, including combating and preventing cardiovascular disease and obesity, and lowering your risk of cancer. One deliciously refreshing and super healthy way to answer the question of how to get your daily fruit servings is to quench your thirst with easy and pleasing frozen fruit drinks.
All it takes to make your own home frozen drinks is a blender, frozen fruit, juice and other healthy ingredients. Since there is a whole plethora of healthy fruits and other ingredients to choose from, you are limited only by your imagination – and you may be surprised at how well some out of the ordinary combinations work out. For example, people might not ordinarily think of combining watermelon and blueberries; however, those two extremely healthy fruits make a delicious combination when blended together in a frozen drink.
Lycopene-rich watermelon is wonderful for cleansing the kidneys and it was shown in a recent study to be as effective at reducing high blood pressure as dangerous mainstream statin drugs.
Blueberries are one of nature’s richest sources of antioxidants, which are the natural substances that fight damage caused by free radicals. Studies have shown that versatile and delicious blueberries are able to prevent memory loss as well as to fight chronic degenerative diseases – including cardiovascular disease, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, muscular degeneration, cataracts, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
Here is a delicious frozen drink recipe inspired by Italian ice. It combines watermelon, blueberries and other healthy ingredients:
Blueberry Watermelon Freeze
Ingredients:
1 cup 3/4″ cubed red watermelon, frozen*
3/4 cup frozen blueberries
2 tsp. finely-chopped fresh ginger
1/2 cup apple juice
1 Tbsp. lime juice
Crushed ice
Fresh mint, for garnish, optional
Directions:
In a blender, combine the frozen melon, berries, ginger, apple juice, and lime juice. Blend and add ice as needed until it is icy and fine-textured, stopping to scrape down the sides of the blender two or three times. Pour it into a wide glass, garnish with mint and serve, accompanied by a spoon. You can also use a straw to enjoy the freeze as it melts.
*Freeze peeled, cut-up watermelon in a resealable plastic bag.
Makes 1 serving. Per serving: 211 calories, less than 1 g. total fat (0 g. saturated fat), 53 g. carbohydrate, 3 g. protein, 4 g. dietary fiber, 20 mg. sodium.
Additional Tips and Information:
Turn your freezes into creamy delicious smoothies by adding frozen yogurt or ultra healthy raw goat milk.
When you use other liquids, or if you would like to use fresh non-frozen foods, you can help make the mixture icy by freezing the fruit juices you add. An easy way is to simply pour the juices in ice trays and freeze them. Plus, leftover fruit cubes make for their own healthy and refreshing snacks.
As always, for the very healthiest frozen fruit drinks and smoothies choose organic ingredients whenever possible.
For some other healthy and refreshing heat-beating recipes, see:
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