Now, let’s cover energy drinks. In theory, these are a great idea, but in practice, most commercially produced energy drinks do not provide healthy results. They are designed to give you a short-term fix with massive quantities of caffeine and sugar, combined with a questionable cocktail of herbs, vitamins, and amino acids such as guanine and taurine. Guanine is a stimulant derived from the guarana plant, which is high in caffeine, while the amino acid taurine serves to concentrate caffeine in the body.
Energy drinks have been blamed, rightly or wrongly, for a number of deaths. Many experts consider them to be unhealthy and perhaps dangerous to consume, particularly in combination with other active substances such as alcohol, tobacco, and more caffeine. Instead of consuming substances that squeeze the body for a short-term energy rush, why not make your own probiotic energy drink using safe and wholesome foods? These drinks can nourish the body and boost energy levels naturally. You can find many of the ingredients you need in your kitchen or cupboard.
Start with a base of kefir, water kefir, rejuvelac, or kombucha. Then add any of the ingredients below, each of which has been proven to have a positive effect on a person’s energy. As always, if you are suffering from a particular medical condition, consult a qualified physician or natural health expert before making your own energy drinks or consuming any of the following substances that your body may not have encountered before (such as ginseng).
Cinnamon and Honey: Cinnamon has a warming flavor that adds a special touch to many foods and drinks. Honey, especially raw and unpasteurized honey with its enzymes intact, delivers a simple carbohydrate boost to your body. In a recent study, researchers found that cinnamon enhanced participants’ brain functions and cognitive processing. Participants who smelled cinnamon or chewed cinnamon gum achieved better scores on a computer test of several different cognitive and memory functions. Separate research showed that taking half a teaspoon of honey sprinkled with cinnamon, around 3:00 p.m. each day, increases the body’s vitality within a week at this time of the day when many people’s body clocks are on a low ebb. It seems that a sprinkle of cinnamon is all you need to add to a homemade energy drink to get these benefits (and even the smell alone might do the job!). Large quantities of cinnamon can be toxic.
Citrus: Have you ever drank a glass of orange juice and felt more alert? When I stopped drinking coffee regularly many years ago, I often drank orange juice in the morning, and I swore it helped me wake up. It turns out I was not imagining this. Research has shown that both the smell of citrus and the acidity of the juice can awaken your body. Plus, it provides a great flavoring for any kefir, kombucha, natural soda, or energy drink. Try squeezing a little orange, lemon, lime, mandarin, or grapefruit juice into your drink.
Green Tea: Green tea can help increase your energy levels in several ways. First, since it contains some caffeine, you get a short-term boost. Typically, green tea contains much less caffeine than a cup of coffee, an energy drink, or a caffeinated soda. If you want the other benefits of green tea without the caffeine, you can opt for naturally decaffeinated green tea. To put green tea’s caffeine level in perspective, consider the following list of the typical quantities of caffeine in these common sources. I think you’ll find that green tea contains a smaller amount of caffeine than most alternatives:
• Green tea (8 oz): 25–40 mg of caffeine
• Black tea (8 oz): 15–60 mg
• Coca-Cola® (8 oz): 20–30 mg
• Monster™/Red Bull™/Rockstar™ Energy Drinks (8.0–8.4 oz): 80–92 mg
• 5-Hour Energy™ (2 oz): 207 mg
• Dark Chocolate (1.5 oz): 26 mg
• Milk chocolate (1.5 oz): 9 mg
The second way that green tea boosts your energy level is with a natural substance it contains called L-theanine, which has been shown to increase alertness without the jitters of caffeine. And third, EGCG is a powerful antioxidant in green tea that scrubs your body of free radicals. This should help you feel more energetic over time.
Ginseng: Thousands of years’ worth of testing on humans has demonstrated ginseng’s near-magical properties to the people of China, Korea, Japan, and beyond. More recently, Western studies have verified that panax ginseng (the most effective kind) really does boost energy. It may reach this result by improving blood flow to the brain. This is a natural increase that can be sustainable; it has none of the ups and downs associated with caffeine. Ginseng also is revered in Asia for its effect on sexual potency, which may also be related to the improved blood flow to the brain. Studies have proven that people who take ginseng before a test have better memory recognition and higher scores.
There are several kinds of ginseng, including American and Siberian, but panax ginseng (also known as red ginseng, Chinese red ginseng, or Korean ginseng) is the one that works best. I’ve tried a lot of herbs that are said to be good for one thing or another. Not one of them has ever worked on me the way panax ginseng does. If your energy is at a low ebb or you are feeling like you are getting a cold, drinking a strong cup of red ginseng tea might give you new life. It lifts me up a couple of levels on the energy meter and puts me back in a place where I feel like my body has the strength to fight off a pesky cold. If I felt like taking a nap before consuming ginseng, I often feel like running a mile or two after taking it (not always right away but within a few hours).
As for its potency powers? I will let you try it and see for yourself. Of course, make sure your physician approves if you have a medical condition or are on any medication, especially since I view ginseng as the strongest energy supplement in this chapter. Ginseng tea, extract, and powder generally are the best ways to add this to a probiotic beverage. It seems to deliver the most benefit at doses above 200 mg, but the label for the tea or extract you get may or may not include this information. Following the label directions is the best place to start, and from there you can adjust the amounts to your liking. If you cannot find ginseng locally at an Asian market or health food store, try conducting an online search for “red ginseng.” It’s worth every penny.
Mint: The smell and taste of mint can revive the senses. Try using a sprig of mint as an edible garnish or crush some mint and then soak it in water to make an extract for flavoring drinks. Another simple option is to brew some peppermint, spearmint, or pennyroyal tea, cool it, and add it to drinks.
Putting It All Together
There is a recipe below for a homemade probiotic energy drink, which includes all of these suggested enhancers. You do not need to include all of them; just use the ones you like and have available. If you need a big boost, though, I would suggest trying the ginseng, as it often has a stronger effect on energy levels than any other food. From citrus to cinnamon to mint tea, you may already have some of the others in your kitchen or cupboard.
Tea Bag Time Savers
If you do not have the time to brew up your own concoction, then here is a real time saver that just costs a few dollars. A number of tea companies, including Lipton®, Celestial Seasonings™, and Bigelow®/AriZona Iced Tea®, make and sell tea bags that include several energy-enhancing ingredients. All are available at stores that sell herbal teas or online. Lipton makes lemon ginseng green tea, Celestial Seasonings makes honey lemon ginseng green tea, and Bigelow (branded as AriZona) makes green tea with ginseng and honey. Rather than chasing down all the ingredients and measuring them, you could spend a few dollars for a box of twenty-five tea bags. Each time you needed an energy drink, you could heat a half cup or so of water, brew the tea bag in it until it cools a bit, then top off the cup with water kefir, rejuvelac, or kombucha. Add a little more honey, cinnamon, mint, or citrus squeeze if you wish. Wow, that was easy!
Here are the recipes for green drinks (which come first) and the energy drink (at the end of this chapter).
Makes 4–6 cups
Sweet and dark fruit hide the two cups of baby spinach in this drink. You could use baby kale or other greens also. All fruit can be fresh or frozen.
• 1 ripe banana
• ½ cup orange juice
• 1 cup blueberries
• 1 cup pineapple
• 1 cup yogurt
• 2 cups baby spinach
• Honey or sugar, to taste
Place all ingredients in a blender. Blend, taste, adjust with additional honey or sugar, and serve.
Makes 2–3 cups
This recipe uses chia seeds, which are incredibly nutritious and available at health food stores. If you prefer, you could substitute poppy seeds, hemp seed hearts, flax seeds, or ground flaxseed meal . . . or leave out the seeds if you just want the green chocolate! If you use chia, then presoak it as follows: put the chia seeds in a small cup, cover it with a little of the liquid you will use in the recipe (such as kombucha or kefir), and let the seeds soak for 5 minutes. Pour this into your blender, scraping in as many of the sticky seeds as you can get. Feel free to use as much spirulina, green powder, or spinach as you can handle.
• 1 cup chocolate ice cream or frozen yogurt (or 1 cup yogurt + 1 packet cocoa mix)
• 1–3 tbsps chia seeds (presoaked as described above)
• 1–3 tbsps (or more) spirulina or green juice powder or 1 cup baby spinach greens
• ¼ tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup kombucha, kefir, or rejuvelac
• Optional: Handful of fresh mint leaves
• Garnish with a sprig of fresh mint
Place all ingredients in a blender. Blend, taste, adjust with additional honey or sugar, and serve.
Kale, Banana, and Pear Smoothie
Makes 2–3 cups
This recipe combines some very healthy greens with an overpowering quantity of sweet, custardy fruit (bananas and pears). Kale is easy to grow in the home garden and it is quite cold-hardy; we are able to grow it almost year-round. If you can only find tougher, mature kale leaves, then tear off the leafy parts and omit the stems. Another idea is to run your kale through a juicer first and just add the juice to this smoothie. Or you can substitute baby spinach leaves.
• 2 bananas
• 1 cup milk or CRASH alternative
• 2 ripe pears, peeled and cut
• 2 cups baby kale or baby spinach
• ½ cup yogurt or cottage cheese
Place all ingredients in a blender. Blend, taste, adjust with additional honey or sugar, and serve.
Makes about 4–5 cups
Kvass is a traditional Russian drink, which usually is made with beets or dried rye bread. It is a sour-salty beverage. This recipe skips the rye bread, using only beets, greens, and celery. Due to these additional vegetables, it should be blended. You can culture this with yogurt whey, sauerkraut or natural pickle juice, or vegetable starter culture, or you can just skip the starter and rely on naturally present lactobacteria to ferment the vegetables a little more slowly (organic beets and celery have plenty of naturally present cultures). Like many fermented foods and drinks, kvass is an acquired taste. Those who do enjoy it often swear by its health benefits, some of them drinking kvass on a daily basis.
• 3 large beets, peeled and cut into cubes
• 1 quart water
• 1 stick celery, chopped
• Handful of baby spinach or baby kale
• 2 tsps whey/starter culture
• Optional: 1½–2 tsps sea salt
• Optional: 2 tbsps ginger (chopped) or 1 clove garlic (crushed)
Place all ingredients in a blender, blend them together, and then move the drink to a container or jar. Cover it loosely and allow your beverage to ferment at room temperature for 3–5 days. Before drinking, add a little salt or sugar if you wish.
This could be called V7, V9, or however many veggies you end up adding, though I don’t wish to confuse it with a particular canned vegetable juice. You can make this as salty or spicy as you want by adding salt and jalapeno pepper. For an extra probiotic kick, throw in a little sauerkraut or natural pickles if you have some! If this smoothie is too fibrous for you, then another option is to run these veggies through a juicer and just add their juice to the blender along with the other ingredients.
• 1 cup tomato juice
• ½ cup carrot juice
• ½ cup kombucha, water kefir, or rejuvelac
• ½ cucumber, peeled
• 1 small celery stalk
• ¼ cup bell pepper
• ½ cup baby spinach or baby kale greens
• 1 small clove of garlic (crushed) or small handful of fresh chives
• 1 tsp lemon or lime juice
• Salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper, to taste
• Optional: ½ jalapeno pepper
• Optional: ¼ cup sauerkraut or natural pickles
Place all ingredients in a blender. Blend, taste, adjust with additional honey or sugar, and serve.
Makes about 2 cups
You can buy dried seaweed in Asian and health food stores. Look for kelp (kombu), though most other kinds will work fine. Try incorporating a few different kinds of seaweed to create a diverse range of nutrition and taste. To rehydrate the seaweed, soak it in water for at least 2 hours or until it is soft. The seaweed will still be firm, but moist throughout.
• ½ cup dried seaweed (soaked in water for at least 2 hours or until tender)
• 1–1½ cups carrot juice
• ½ cup kombucha, water kefir, or rejuvelac
• ¼ inch fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
• Optional: 1 banana, if you want to go the sweeter route
Makes about 2 cups
• 1 cup water, boiled
• 200 milligrams panax ginseng (extract or powder) or 1 panax ginseng tea bag (100–500 milligram strength)
• 1 tsp dried green tea leaves or 1 green tea bag
• Squeeze of lemon, lime, grapefruit, or orange
• 1 cup kombucha, water kefir, or cider
• Honey or sugar, to taste
Pour water (slightly below boiling temperature) over ginseng and green tea. Let steep for 3 minutes. Remove tea bags or pour tea liquid into another cup or container, straining out the tea leaves if needed. Then let the tea sit or place in the refrigerator until it cools to below 100°F. Mix in honey or sugar if you wish. Then combine with other ingredients. Garnish with a sprig of mint or a slice of citrus.
Makes 2–3 cups
• 2 cups kombucha or water kefir
• Juice of 1 grapefruit
• ¼ cup Mint Soda Syrup
Combine all ingredients and serve. Garnish with fresh mint.
Mandarin Orange Spice Energy Drink
• 2 cups natural cider
• Juice of 3–4 mandarin oranges or tangerines
• Pinch of cinnamon
• Thin slice of ginger (peeled) or pinch of powdered ginger
• Optional: Pinch of allspice or 1 clove
Combine orange juice with spices. If you have time, put this in the refrigerator and let it sit for a few minutes or hours. Then combine with cider.
