8 Drinks That Can Boost Your Health

Soft drinks, sports drinks, artificial fruit juices are indeed very popular, but they have an adverse effect on your health. Every year, about 1,000s of new beverages hit the market with most offering no tangible benefits to your health as such! These drinks come with a lot of promises and you need to pay good prices for them. These drinks, with no nutritional value, will only load you with calories!

Now the question is, are there healthy drinks that can fight dehydration and allow you to stay energized for the whole day? The answer is "Yes"! The list goes this way:

1. Water: Water, the most primitive choice of liquid for mankind, still holds its charm. Water is required for the proper functioning of your kidneys, brain and heart. Proper hydration helps keep your joints and muscles lubricated. It can even help you in losing weight by suppressing your appetite and speeding up your metabolism. Although 8 glasses of water is recommended per day, you should drink water whenever you feel thirsty.
2. Coffee: Coffee is also a healthy drink when consumed moderately (two or less cups per day). Caffeine has long been known to increase alertness. It is also known to protect your body from Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, certain forms of heart diseases and colon cancer. Recent research also suggests that moderate doses of caffeine can cut post-workout muscle pain by up to 48 percent, thereby making it easier for the beginners to transition from that first week into a much longer exercise program.
3. Milk: Milk, the evergreen choice of kids doesn't necessarily have to be restricted to them. The calcium in milk not only helps strengthen your bones, but it also contributes towards the breakdown of fat stored in the fat cells in your body. If you are on a weight loss plan or are concerned over the fat content in milk, then choose skim milk.
4. Green Tea: Green tea is a storehouse of minerals and antioxidants. It can boost your metabolism (thus helping you lose weight), relax your brain, promote heart health, and can even control diabetes and eczema. The flavonoids and polyphenols present in green tea can help increase your body immunity to remarkable levels, and catechin present in green tea removes sleepiness and works as a stress buster.
5. Raw Fruit or Vegetable Juice: We all know that fruits and vegetables are good for health. But some of us simply reject the idea of having them in abundance because we feel that the tastes are too "dull"! Juicing them is one good option to benefit from the vitamins and minerals of fruits. However, this doesn't apply to any commercial juice because most of them are found to have an increased level of sugar and preservatives.
6. Buttermilk: Also known as "chaach", it is the perfect drink for summer. Buttermilk provides calcium, B complex vitamins, potassium and phosphorous. If prepared from a probiotic bacteria curd, it is also beneficial for your digestive system.
7. Lemonade: Lemon, a citrus fruit, is rich in vitamin C, and hence lemonade has the ability to strengthen the immune system. Lemonade can also increase your energy level in the morning. Basic recipe involves adding lime juice to water or soda, with a pinch of rock salt and cumin powder (jeera) added to enhance its taste.
8. Red wine: It is another healthy drink that requires moderation on your part. It has so many antioxidants that a glass a day is almost recommended by the doctors themselves. One of the most studied benefits of red wine is its heart protective effect. It can help increase "good" HDL cholesterol level and prevent blood from clotting.

Drinks should act as healthy refreshments rather than loading you up with artificial preservatives, sugars and a lot of calories. The artificially manufactured ones, available in the market, can provoke you with their tastes and looks, but it is best to stick to the homemade refreshments which are healthier in terms of their nutritional value. After all, quenching thirst is not the ultimate goal of any healthy drink!