The Everyday Drink

My wife and I've invented a nice drink for ourselves to chug down throughout the day to stay hydrated. We've always had filtered water to drink, but this drink adds a nice flavor and doesn't have any downsides (as far as I can tell).

Here it is:

A pint of filtered water
1/2 teaspoon of stevia blend
a splash of chlorophyll
4-5 drops of vanilla


It makes a really nice drink. Stevia is a sweetener that does not mess with your blood sugar and actually works to stabilize your glucose tolerance (click for a study on that).

The taste is a slightly sweet, minty flavor. If you use too much stevia, it will taste bitter. But the normal taste of stevia is very agreeable. It is not an acquired taste, just a nice sweetness.

Stevia has an interesting story over the past twenty years. This book tells the story of how the FDA actually tried to ban it, acting on commands from the sugar industry. Imagine the impact of a natural (not chemical), calorie-free sweetener coming along that was cheap to produce (it grows natively in the U.S.). It would kill the sugar industry instantly. They are right to be afraid.

As it stands now, stevia can be sold as a "dietary supplement" but they can't say it's a sweetener on the label!! How funny is that?? Also, stevia cannot be an ingredient in any product, it has to be sold separately and the customers can then put it into their own recipes.

Here is a nice stevia cookbook.

Anyway, we're now thinking of adding boiled ginger to our drink. I'll let you know how that works out. It seems like it would be a great, non-carbonated ginger ale, which was always one of my favorites when I used to drink soda.

The price of stevia at this time (2006) is still quite high. The jar I usually buy costs $20, but the good thing is that it takes more than 2 months to use the whole thing, because you use such small quantities at a time. Still, it's too high. As stevia is grown more and more in the U.S. and Brazil and other countries, the price will come down 80-90%, I'm sure. My naturopath says you can grow it at home. I'm going to try next spring.

Try the drink! Even just stevia in water is nice too.

For breakfast, we often eat tofu scrambler. It's a high-protein, vegetarian meal that is quite tasty, especially if you add garlic and a little ginger to this recipe.

Actually, with garlic, ginger and turmeric, this recipe has all three top cancer-preventing herbs as recommended by Dr. Andrew Weil in his new book "Healthy Aging."