Summer Hydrating Drinks

Herbal Electrolyte Drink

You can drink this herbal tea hot or cold. Sweeten, as you desire. You can also mix it with juice or add other herbs, such as peppermint, for flavoring.

Ingredients:

1 part nettles (Urtica dioica)
1 part oat straw (Avena sativa)
1 part red clover (Trifolium pratense)
1 part alfalfa (Medicago sativa)
1 part rose hips (Rosa spp.)

Instructions:

1. Mix all the herbs together in a lidded container and store away from light and heat.

2. When you’re ready to mix a fresh batch, put 1 ounce of the dried herb mix (about 1 cup) in a clean quart-canning jar. Fill the jar with boiling water and cover with a lid.

3. After steeping for four hours, strain out the herbs. The infusion will last about three days in the refrigerator.

Coconut Water And It’s Benefits

“It’s a natural isotonic beverage, with the same level of electrolytic balance as we have in our blood. It’s the fluid of life, so to speak.”

In fact, during the Pacific War of 1941-45, both sides in the conflict regularly used coconut water – siphoned directly from the nut – to give emergency plasma transfusions to wounded soldiers.

Most coconut water is still consumed fresh in tropical coastal areas – once exposed to air, the liquid rapidly loses most of its organoleptic and nutritional characteristics, and begins to ferment.

• Coconut Water is More Nutritious than whole milk — Less fat and NO cholesterol!
• Coconut Water is More Healthy than Orange Juice — Much lower calories
• Coconut Water is Better than processed baby milk — It contains lauric acid, which is present in human mother’s milk
• Coconut water is naturally sterile — Water permeates though the filtering husk!
• Coconut water is a universal donor — Its identical to human blood plasma
• Coconut Water is a Natural Isotonic Beverage — The same level we have in our blood.
• Coconut water has saved lives in 3rd world countries thru Coconut IV.

“Coconut water is the very stuff of Nature, biologically Pure, full of Natural Sugars, Salts, and Vitamins to ward off fatigue… and is the next wave of energy drinks BUT natural!” according to Mortin Satin, Chief of the United Nation’s Food & Agriculture Organization.

• Coconut water contains more potassium (at about 294 mg) than most sports drinks (117 mg) and most energy drinks.
• Coconut water has less sodium (25mg) where sports drinks have around 41mg and energy drinks have about 200 mg!
• Coconut water has 5mg of Natural Sugars where sports and energy drinks range from 10-25mg of Altered Sugars.
• Coconut water is very high in Chloride at 118mg, compared to sports drinks at about 39mg.
• Data is based on a 100ml drink.

The English name coconut, first mentioned in English print in 1555, comes from Spanish and Portuguese word coco, which means “monkey face.” Spanish and Portuguese explorers found a resemblance to a monkey’s face in the three round indented markings or “eyes” found at the base of the coconut. On the Nicobar Islands of the Indian Ocean, whole coconuts were used as currency for the purchase of goods until the early part of the twentieth century.

Coconuts are the fruit of the coconut palm, botanically known as cocos nucifera, with nucifera meaning “nut-bearing.” The fruit-bearing palms are native to Malaysia, Polynesia and southern Asia, and are now also prolific in South America, India, the Pacific Islands, Hawaii and Florida. The light, fibrous husk allowed it to easily drift on the oceans to other areas to propagate. In Sanskrit, the coconut palm is known as kalpa vriksha, meaning “tree which gives all that is necessary for living,” since nearly all parts of the tree can be used in some manner or another. The coconut itself has many food uses, including milk, meat, sugar and oil as well as functioning as its own dish and cup. Natives also burned the husk for fuel, but today a seed fiber called coir is taken from the husk and used to make brushes, mats, fishnets, and rope. A very potent fermented toddy or drink is also made from the coconut palm’s sap. Coconut oil, a saturated fat made from dried coconut meat, is used for commercial frying and in candies and margarines, as well as in non-edible products such as soaps and cosmetics.

Although it takes up to a year for coconuts to mature, the trees bloom up to thirteen times a year, so fruit is constantly forming yielding a continuous harvest year-round. An average harvest from one tree runs about 60 coconuts, with some trees yielding three times that amount. The coconut’s name is a bit of a misnomer, since it is botanically classified as a drupe and not a nut. It is the largest seed known.

If you’ve ever opened a fresh coconut, you will have seen the thin, opaque almost clear coconut juice or water, which has a slight almond flavor. Contrary to popular belief, this is not the coconut milk. However, many consume the water as a drink fresh from the coconut, and it can also be used in recipes.

Complied by John Kohler
www.living-foods.com