Health Hub

Having a Dry July has great health benefits. We've brought together a collection of articles that could help you with your Dry July.

Strawberry Mojito Mocktail

By The Mindful Mocktail on

Ingredients (serves 1)

  • 3 strawberries, sliced
  • 10 mint leaves
  • 1 tbsp lime juice
  • 1 tsp sugar or sweetener of choice
  • 1 cup soda water
  • Extra mint and strawberries to serve

Method

  1. Muddle strawberries and sugar/sweetener in a glass to release the juices. Try to get the strawberry pieces small enough to fit through a straw. You can use a blender for this step if preferred.
  2. Add the lime juice and stir to combine. 
  3. Clap the mint together in your hands to release the scent (you'll know it's worked when your hands smell minty!).
  4. Fill your glass with ice and soda water. Stir to combine.
  5. Garnish with extra mint and strawberry slices. 



For more recipes like this, follow @themindfulmocktail on Instagram

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Watermelon, Strawberry & Lime Mocktail

By The Mindful Mocktail on

Ingredients (serves 2)

  • 2 cups watermelon 
  • 8 strawberries
  • 1/2 cup lime juice

Method

  1. Place all ingredients in a high speed blender and blend until combined. 
  2. Pour into an ice filled glass and garnish. 

Tip: Add some mint for extra kick! 


For more recipes like this, follow @themindfulmocktail on Instagram

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Pomegranate Fizz

By The Mindful Mocktail on

Ingredients

  • 60 mls pomegranate juice
  • Half a lime cut in wedges
  • 6-8 mint leaves
  • 250 mls diet ginger ale

Method

  1. Place lime wedges and pomegranate juice in a tall glass. Muddle until all the juice has been pressed out of the lime. If you don’t have a muddler, use the back end of a wooden spoon or similar.
  2. Clap mint leaves together in your hands a few times to release the scent and add to the glass. Give the mint a gentle press a couple of times with the muddler.
  3. Add plenty of ice to the glass and top with ginger ale. Stir well.
  4. Garnish with pomegranate seeds, mint and lime.


For more recipes like this, follow @themindfulmocktail on Instagram

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Beer before wine and you’ll feel fine? No you won’t says new study

By Kai Hensel on

Plenty of us have been there: waking up after a night out with a thumping headache, feeling sick and swearing never to touch alcohol again. If only there were a way to prevent these terrible hangovers.

It isn’t uncommon for us to mix our drinks, maybe a beer in the pub before moving on to wine. Folk wisdom has something to say about this: “Beer before wine and you’ll feel fine; wine before beer and you’ll feel queer.” This idea is very prevalent and versions of it occur in many languages. In my native country, Germany, for example, we say: “Wein auf Bier, das rat’ ich Dir—Bier auf Wein, das lass’ sein.” This translates as: “Wine on beer, I’ll advise you to drink beer on wine.” 

But it turns out that there is no truth to these...

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Why alcohol makes you feel warm – and other strange effects it has on the brain

By Claire Roston on

Alcohol: why do we drink it? People have been consuming alcohol for at least 10,000 years. And when drinking water was rather risky, alcohol seemed a much safer bet. Amaldus of Villanova, a 14th-century monk, even wrote that alcohol “prolongs life, clears away ill humors, revives the heart and maintains youth”. 

Today people will give you many reasons for their decision to drink and most of these reflect the effects it has on mind and brain. But before you get too sozzled, one thing is for sure: it is certainly not a safer, healthier bet than water.

1. It tastes nice

It depends on what you are drinking (some drinks like alcopops contain more sugar) and people obviously have different taste preferences. The fact that ethanol is...

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Watermelon Crush

By The Mindful Mocktail on

Ingredients

  • 1 cup diced watermelon
  • 25 mls lime juice
  • 10 mint leaves
  • Splash of apple cider vinegar, optional


Method

  1. Muddle watermelon, lime and optional apple cider vinegar in a shaker or mason jar until all the juice is released from the watermelon. If you don't have a muddler, use the back end of a wooden spoon.
  2. Clap the mint leaves together in your hands to release the scent and add it to the watermelon mixture. Give the mint a gentle press with the muddler.
  3. Add a few ice cubes, replace the lid and shake well.
  4. Strain into a small ice filled glass.
  5. Garnish with a lime wheel and extra mint.

Note: if you don’t have a cocktail shaker, you can blend the watermelon, lime, apple cider vinegar and mint together, then strain into an ice filled...

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Who Needs A Healthy Liver?

By Dr Cris Beer on

For the first few years that I worked as a general practitioner I had underestimated the liver's significant role in the general wellbeing of my patients. I had learnt that the liver was important from a physiological point of view and that it helped keep us alive, but I hadn't fully considered how it keeps us feeling well on a day-to-day basis.

I had been taught how to detect liver-function abnormalities in blood testing and how to feel for an enlarged or tender liver - all signs of obvious and severe liver damage. But as for understanding liver damage well before any obvious clinical signs begin to show, I was completely in the dark. I had seen severe liver damage from chronic alcoholism and from liver disease such as hepatitis, but...

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Rose Lemonade

By The Mindful Mocktail on

This pretty, refreshing drink is perfect for one or a crowd. It looks so pretty served in a jug for guests, just increase the quantities.

Ingredients

1/3 cup water 

1/3 cup sweetener of your choice

1/3 cup rose dried rose petals (found in health food shops)

Lemon juice

Sparkling water

- Add water and sweetener to a small saucepan and dissolve over medium-high heat. Don’t let it boil - you don’t want to water to evaporate!

- Turn heat to low, add rose petals and stir.

- Leave on low until the colour fades from the petals. It will only take a few minutes. You can remove from the heat and leave it longer to seep if you want a deeper flavour/colour.

- Strain and leave to cool.

To Serve

- Place 2 TBS rose syrup into each glass.

- Add...

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How To Get A Good Night Sleep

By Melissa Ingram on

Every single one of us needs to simply stop and recharge – regularly! Most of us have experience times where stress is high, deadlines are tight and yet we still seem to be able to move mountains. On the flip side, I can guarantee that all of us have also experienced periods of the same pressure yet feel we are not firing on all cylinders – resulting in lower quality of work being produced or it taking longer to complete.

Allow your body enough time each night to recharge. Start with attempting to get 7 – 8 hours of quality sleep every night. We are all different with regards to the amount of sleep we require to operate optimally, however the average 7 – 8 hours is a great place to start. While we sleep we unplug from our lives and...

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