Summer Mocktails with a Healthy Twist

Try these at your next BBQ.

Peach Lemonade Slush
1 can of frozen Minute Maid lemonade
1 cup of fresh peaches cubed

Blend together for a quick and delicious slushy!
Health Benefits: Peaches provide a great deal of nutrients with few calories and no fat. Peaches also contain 10 different vitamins with a large peach providing 333 mg of potassium as well as 3g of fiber.

Passion Fruit Summer Drink
1/2 cup mint leaves
2 limes, cut into 1 cm pieces
10 cm fresh ginger (cut into thin sticks)
8 passion fruits
4 oranges, juice
ice cubes
1 cup sparkling soda

Muddle mint leaves, the lime pieces and half of the ginger sticks in a bowl. Then pour it into a pitcher. Cut the passion fruit in half and scoop out the flesh into the pitcher. Add juice from the oranges and ice cubes and stir around. Top it with sparkling soda, a couple of ginger sticks and a mint leaf and serve.
Health Benefits: Fresh Ginger has been used in China for over 2,000 years to help digestion and treat diarrhea, nausea and stomach upsets. Ginger is a very therapeutic root and when used with passion fruit creates a healthy mixture of goodness for mind, body and soul. A cup of passion fruit with the pulp and seeds intact contains 24.5 grams of fiber as well as about 25 percent of your recommended daily value of vitamin A. Passion fruit is also rich in vitamin C and iron.

Pineapple Mint Punch
1 cup sugar syrup
2 cups fresh pineapple
5-6 springs of fresh mint
2 cups of club soda
Juice of 1-2 limes
Pour the sugar syrup into a tall jar. Crush the fresh pineapple and pour it into the jar with its juices. Tear the fresh mint leaves gently and add it to the jar. Squeeze the lime juice into it and top it with the club soda. Refrigerate it for about an hour and enjoy it with some ice cubes and a spring of fresh mint. Add rum for more fun!
Health Benefits: One cup of fresh pineapple chunks contain approximately 82 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of cholesterol, 2 milligrams of sodium, 22 grams of total carbohydrate (including 16 grams of sugar and 2.3 grams of fiber) and 1 gram of protein. One cup of fresh pineapple chunks provides 131% of your vitamin C needs for the day, 2% of vitamin A needs, 2% of calcium and 2% of iron.

Lychee Squash
1 cup lychee pulp
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 cup water

Remove seeds from the lychee pulp and blend the pieces in a blender. Strain the juice with the help of a sieve. Store the juice in a bowl. Boil water in a pan and add sugar. Mix till the sugar melts. When sugar dissolves, add lemon juice and bring the mixture to boil. Cook for 2 minutes and then put the syrup off-flame. Cool the syrup and then add the blended lychee juice in it. Mix well. Refrigerate for 1 hour or add ice cubes before serving.
Health Benefits: The Zhejiang Gonshang University and the West China Hospital at Sichuan University in China conducted two different studies that concluded that the lychee fruit prevents the growth of cancer cells. Lychee contains flavonoids in its pulp which prove very effective against breast cancer in particular. Lychee fruit is also a great source of vitamin C.

My Three Suns
2 cups orange juice
1 quart apple juice
1 pint strawberry sherbet

Pour the orange juice and the apple juice into a large pitcher and stir well. Fill tall frosted glasses with cracked ice, and add the juice. Top each glass with a scoop of sherbet to serve.
 
Health Benefits: Orange juice has both vitamin C and the ability to help with inflammation while apple juice also has vitamin C, polyphenol antioxidants and according to researchers from the University of Massachusetts, helps to avoid with the onset of Alzheimers disease.