Keeping hydrated when the hottest months arrive is important for our body and many people come up with the “problem” that they do not like to hydrate with water, which should always be the first option, because obviously it has no flavor. In these cases a good alternative can be homemade lemonade, made by ourselves.

Besides being a refreshing drink and already with a certain flavor, which can help us drink a little more, it also has other benefits for our body. We tell you how to prepare lemonade in your own home and what it contributes to our body.

How to prepare homemade lemonade (and how to tune the traditional recipe)

Preparing homemade lemonade can not be simpler: we only need a few lemons of juice, cold water and ice. Personally, I usually use the juice of two lemons for every two liters of water: this way I can not have a very strong flavor and so I do not have to use any sweetener (the traditional lemonade recipe uses sugar to mitigate the acid taste of the lemon ). If you use Meyer lemons, which are sweeter, you will not need to sweeten them either.

Lemonade also admits many variations that you can try to combine or even find the one you like the most. Here are some ideas …

  • Include some mint leaves or mint leaves to give a fresher touch to our soda: we can serve it with a slice of fresh lemon.
  • Add other fruits to give a touch of different flavor: we can use, for example, strawberries. We just have to pass two handfuls of strawberries to the blender and then add our already prepared lemonade and liquefy everything well. We leave it in the fridge to serve well cold and voila! an original lemonade.
  • Use water with gas to prepare our lemonade (instead of tap water): ideal to achieve another type of flavor and texture.
  • Freeze slices of lemon or pieces of other fresh fruits to use as if they were ice cubes: this way you will prevent the drink from getting too heavy.

What are the benefits of lemonade?

In addition to helping to keep us hydrated, lemonade, thanks to lemon juice, provides vitamin C to our body , an immune system enhancer. It also helps us cope with heavy digestion, since it increases gastric secretion: a lemonade or a homemade lemon sorbet after a copious meal can help us to better digestion.

Something interesting is that drinking homemade lemonade can displace the consumption of other less healthy drinks such as sugary drinks. Although it may seem like a lie to us, many people get hydrated daily with sugary soft drinks and nothing else: going from this type of drink to a natural homemade lemonade, in which we control the ingredients, can be beneficial for them.

It is important, also, to disprove some myths: perhaps the best known of all is that water with lemon, taken on an empty stomach, thins. As dietitian-nutritionist Aitor Sánchez points out in this interview on the Ser chain, water with lemon, whether cold or warm, fasting or during the day, is simply water with lemon. Neither has detox power, nor does it make us lose weight: it simply hydrates us.