How to Make Lemonade and the Health Benefits of Lemons

Lemons are quite a curious fruit; they're not really a fruit you can pick off the tree and bite into; they're too bitter and unpleasant.  They are intriguing because they are sort of demoted as a fruit to one only used for juicing, for dressing salads and in marmalade and jams. 

I'm blessed enough to have my own lemon tree in my garden.  It produces HUGE juicy lemons.  The skins are very thick, but they still hold a great flavour, and oddly they produce no pips.  Anyway, I needed to find a way to start consuming all these free lemons I suddenly found myself with!  As it is a lovely hot summer here in Portugal, I thought I would find a low calorie lemonade recipe to try out, and naturally I'm happy to share it with you ;)

Me and my lemon tree with organic homemade lemonade

Fresh organic lemonade/lemon juice is well known as a treatment for kidney stones, and in line with this, it is considered a blood purifier and stomach cleanser, as well as an immune system booster.  Lemons help flush the toxins from our body, enhancing enzyme function, which stimulates our liver.

Of course, we all know lemons as being the flavour of sore throat sweets and lemsip for when you have a cold or the flu.  This is because it is a great treater of sore throats and fevers because they increase perspiration, breaking a fever. And of course, due to lemons' antibacterial properties, they are great to fight mouth and throat infections.  Of course, they are also a natural antiseptic.

Lemons are rich in potassium; a very important mineral for general all-round health, and essential for proper heart function.  With such a refreshing and tasty flavour, lemons keep us cool and hydrated in the summer - because they also help lower body temperature and lower high blood pressure.

All of these great attributes of lemons are down to its richness in vitamins such as vitamin C, A, E, B6, thiamin, niacin, riboflavin, copper, calcium, iron and magnesium, so to help you get some more of those delicious lemons into your diet, here is a video of my fresh organic homemade lemonade recipe:-

Ingredients

8 organic lemons, 6 cups of mineral or filtered water, 2 cups of sweetener plus a handful of ice.

Method to the madness:

Pick the lemons (or buy them!!)  Wash them thoroughly, then extract the zest/peel of two or three lemons using a grater.  Set aside. In a saucepan, add two cups of water and 1.5 to 2 cups of sweetener (splenda or stevia, or maple syrup or honey). Add the zest.  Heat up slowly for 5 minutes and turn off. With a strainer, add this mixture to a large recipient. Extract the lemon juice of the 8 lemons.  Mix both mixtures together in the large recipient you chose.  Add 4 cups of cold filtered water to the mixture. Add ice and serve.

Don't forget to fill up your popsicle moulds for delicious lemon lolly pops!  Feel free to subscribe to my youtube channel here and also please visit my Instagram page, my facebook page, my pinterest page and my twitter account.

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