Hibiscus Iced Tea Sparkler Mocktail Monday w/ Rebecca

By 310 Nutrition

Hibiscus Iced Tea Sparkler Mocktail Monday w/ Rebecca

Transcript

Hey guys, what's up. My name is Rebecca and we're here at 310 nutrition. Today is Mocktail Monday and for today's recipe, we're gonna be making a hibiscus iced tea sparkler using 310's hibiscus tea as well as our lemonade.

In addition to what you see here, 310 has a wide array of products you can check out at the bottom of this video.

So, anyway, today’s Mocktail is a knock off of the very popular Starbucks drink called the very, very hibiscus refresher. You've probably seen it, especially in the summer months. It has a bright pomegranate E color and a lot of berries floating around in it. So that's what we're gonna be making today but it's gonna be a healthier version with way less sugar and therefore less calories. 

I'd like to start up this video by just talking about why mocktails. So, drinks although seemingly benign or still liquid, right? Wrong, drinks often contain a lot of calories and sugar and therefore unwanted sugar and unwanted calories. And, if you're trying to reach certain health fitness weight goals it's definitely important to not just look at what you're eating but also look at what you're drinking. 

 And, I would like to show you guys some research that I think would be of interest to you just to put the calories and sugars in drinks into perspective for you guys. So, keep in mind I'm not a nutritionist therefore, whenever I do present research or just stats to you guys, I'm gonna take out my computer because I don't to accidentally turn facts into fiction by slipping up on something.  

So, let me grab my computer and we’ll dive in. Alright. So, the 2015- 2020 dietary guidelines for Americans recommended added sugars make up no more than 10 percent of your daily calories. For a 2000 calorie diet that's about 12 teaspoons of sugar per day. On the other hand, the American Heart Association actually recommends that you consume even less sugar. For men, they say the maximum amount of added sugar you should eat in a day is 150 calories or 9 teaspoons. For women, it's 100 calories or 6 teaspoons.

And, depending on what you're ordering, a single Starbucks drink while we're on the topic of, while we're making a Starbucks drink today, I thought I would throw in from Starbucks facts. 

Today what you're ordering a Starbucks drink can contain more than the recommended daily amount of sugar you should be having as a whole. Just something to think about. Now, I also want to talk a little bit about the dangers of sugar with some additional research.

Research shows that frequently drinking sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with an increased risk of obesity and weight gain as well as developing high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic inflammation, and also an increased risk of certain types of cancer.

To continue driving this point home, here are some more stats. Half of adults have at least one sugary drink each day and about 20 percent have two or more. Been there. Adults who drink one sugary drink or more per day or 27 percent more likely to be overweight or obese than non-drinkers. 

If you were to replace your daily 12 ounce can of coke with water it would save 52,560 calories per year or about 15 pounds. So, that's a lot. A Harvard led study in the journal circulation found that people who drink two or more sugar-sweetened beverages a day have a thirty-one percent higher risk of early death for cardiovascular disease. Each additional sodas, sports drinks, or sugary drink increase the risk by ten percent.

Simply put cutting down on or removing sugary drinks from your diet, diet will benefit your health, big time. And thanks for mocktails, you don't have to give up on enjoying yummy or tasty drinks. There's plenty of healthy swaps you can use to create your favorite drink it have significantly less calories, less sugar, I mean other unhealthy ingredients. 

That being said, I wanted to re-create a low sugar calorie conscious version of this very popular summer Starbucks drink. Really been hot in LA, so, it's the perfect mocktail to be sipping around at this moment. 

That being said, we just gonna quickly go over what you gonna need for today's recipe. So, it's gonna be 1 sachet of 310 hibiscus tea. Half a stick of their lemonade in the original flavor. To make a tea you gonna need 16 ounces of water to add the sparkling twist to a hibiscus tea you need about 4 ounces of sparkling water of your choice and then about a half of a cup of raspberries and blackberries or that's what I'm using for today. You can pick any berries of your choice and then we gonna need some ice and if you would like Stevia, Stevia is a zero-calorie sugar. 

If you want to make it a little bit sweeter you can add Stevia but before we jump into actually making today's mocktail I thought I would tell you guys a little bit more about the two 310 products I'm using for this recipe.

I'm gonna grab the camera and reposition it so I can show you guys the packaging you could see the ingredients and, yeah, let's get, let's jump it for, so bear with me.

Alright, guys so here we have 310 hibiscus tea. As you can see the bottom is non-GMO, vegan gluten-free. As a whole, 310 is ultra-committed to delivering products with only the cleanest ingredients. So, you'll see a lot of similar labeling on some of their other products and you can check again those out at the bottom of this video.

Anyways, I wanted to show you guys the packaging. I love 310 cause the packaging is really pretty, it's super clear. I love that I get pictures of all of the ingredients that are in the tea. So, in terms of ingredients, I wanted to highlight a few. They all, all of these ingredients have different powerful health benefits but I just wanted to hone in on a couple.

For starters the hibiscus, it's really flavorful that it gives the tea that we're about to make a really bright pomegranate E color. So it's loaded with antioxidants including vitamin C and since antioxidants help the body fight against free radicals it's great to load up on them to support healthy cells in aging. 

Green tea is known to be a great metabolism booster. I reviewed several studies suggested green tea may be able to speed up the metabolism by 45 percent and increase fat burning by 10 to 16 percent. And while 45 percent may seem insignificant it can mean burning an extra 70 to 100 calories per day. And over time, that really adds up so, green tea is a great supplement to help you reach your health fitness and weight goals.

The next one, what are we talking about, where are you? It's Guarana and it may help promote fat loss by supporting the process of lipolysis aka the breakdown of fat. And this may help you to drop some of that stubborn weight that you're hanging on to. 

The next ingredient that we're going to talk about is Roiboose, I hope I'm pronouncing that right. Research shows that Roiboos tea has shown to increase leptin which is a satiating hormone in your body. And leptin can help to reduce the hunger cues that will leave you feeling hungry. So, in turn, this may help increase the feelings of fullness thereby potentially reducing the number of calories you consume each day. 

As a whole, 310 hibiscus tea is an antioxidant powerhouse. Like I said with many potential metabolism benefits as well as other benefits.

So, let's move on to the lemonade. Alright. So, this is a single flavor box but 310 also has kind of a sampler pack with a variety of other lemonade flavors like there's a peach one that's probably my favorite, a blackberry, but, yeah, definitely, again check out the variety box at the bottom of this video. 

So, for starters, you can now, now you've taken a look at this again, non-GMO, no preservatives, no artificial flavors or sweeteners. So, really clean ingredients.

Slip to the back, so as you can see, it only has 10 calories, no artificial sweeteners or colors. It also contains let's see on the variety box that lists out the, what I'm about to talk about. But anyways, it contains a lot of alkalizing minerals like calcium and magnesium, potassium, and therefore that helps support a balanced PH in the body. And it's thought that when the body is too acidic, it can actually wreak havoc overall health and even your weight loss goals. 

So, the solution to that is to focus on consuming more alkaline food that promotes a balanced PH and 310 lemonade will assist you with that. So, another ingredient in the lemonade is a green select phytozome which is a potent green tea extract that contains a high concentration of easily absorbable EGCG. Study shows that EGCG may help metabolize fatty acids in the body which helps breakdown fat and increase the metabolism to burn more calories. And more calories burned equals weight loss. In fact this study shows that green tea phytozome  can potentially help you lose 3 times more weight when combined with the reduced-calorie diet than with following a low-calorie diet alone. 

So, these lemonades are totally delicious, and although they have no added sugars, taste really sweet. They're kind of magical in that sense. But, yeah, they can add a burst of flavor to plain water as well as other mocktails and as a whole that can make, staying hydrated easier and more delicious. 

So, now you've seen the ingredients for today's mocktail. Trying to make that pretty, let's jump in to actually making our hibiscus ice tea sparkler. 

Okay, now that you've seen what the deal is with 310, why I love their products for mocktails. Let's get started in making our hibiscus ice tea sparkler. 

So, for starters, you may need 16 ounces of water like I said. We're gonna bring out water to a boil. Once it is boiled you're going to pop your hibiscus ice tea by in it and you're going to let it steep and cool. 

So, I've done this in advance. For steeping the tea, you can do it for as little as like 3 to 5 minutes or I do it for as long as the tea is cooling. I really like it to have a strong taste. So, depending on your preference you can steep it for as little or as long as you like. Just before you start making the mocktail make sure that the tea is cold. 

Once you've done that you're gonna need to take your half a cup of berries, whatever those berries of your choice are. And you're gonna muddled them. So, I just literally did this in a measuring cup with a spoon and kind of mushed them together. 

Berries are marvelous, it's excellent. So, you're gonna take your berries and probably you definitely want to remove the tea bag and I give it a nice squeeze cause I guess I'd like all the extra flavor.

You probably want a pitcher for this, this will serve about 2 people. So, when you're adding all of your ingredients together, definitely do it in a pitcher, won't work in a cup but anyways, you gonna take your berries that have been muddled and put in them into the pitcher. Lovely noise. Excellent. Okay.

Next step, you're going to use 310 lemonade. Gosh, how am I gonna open this? Here we go. So, you can use half a stick of a full stick. This don't have any added sugar but they are sweet which is why there's so great in making mocktails. That being said, try them out before and see what they taste like and see how much you wanna add. I'm feeling sweet today so I'm gonna do the full stick. Alright. Now, we're gonna go ahead and mix it around. Probably use the bigger spoon. So, it's a really easy recipe that's super gratifying. Let me tell you. 

Once it's gonna mix you're going to top off your cocktail or mocktail with about you know what I said about 4 ounces. But really you can eyeball it. If you want more fizz go ahead and add more. If you want less, add less. So I'm gonna eyeball it. That looks good to me, cool. Well, extra dash it never hurt. Once you've added this sparkling water, you are at the last step and you`re going to add the ice. 

Splash them. Alright, and now I made a mess. So, there you have your hibiscus ice tea sparkler all set and ready to drink. I do recommend kind of sometimes kins with the muddled berries if you enjoyed that in your mocktail. May have to scoop them out as you can see on the top the ice obviously there and it blocks the berries from getting through. But, you're ready to serve your mocktail.

Let's begin. Now, I've like really made a mess and I didn't grab a paper towel before starting this so, yes I'm scooting this off to the side. But, hey! we're all human, right. 

Cheers! I'm rather set. I'm making a mess everywhere. That is delicious. Honestly, I think this is better than Starbucks drink. 

In light of that, I know I mentioned in the beginning that I will tell you guys in tips or I think I mentioned, but I'm gonna tell you guys some tips and tricks for if you're not making your own mocktail at home, what you can do when you're ordering out to decrease the amount of calories and sugar in the drinks that you're ordering.

And, I'm kind of geared it like a little Starbucks centered but you can apply this to any drink anywhere. So I had to write this down for you guys. 

So, you can first and foremost watch your portion size. So, at Starbucks you gonna have short, tall, grande, vente. Having a short or tall can save you hundreds of calories in comparison to grande or vente. Another tip is to ask for unsweetened drink or a reduction in the number of sweetener pumps used. And that's just a really simple way to cut down the amount of calories in sugar there in your beverage. 

Another tip is to change your milk choice. Choose nonfat milk or almond milk or simply ask for the light or skinny version of your drink. Do keep in mind that the Almond milk that Starbuck uses is sweetened. Usually, when I make mocktails, I use the unsweetened version. Recently I have been using sweetened Almond milk because I said kind of sweet mood recently. Anyways, checking out with the milk is, is another tip. And, those are my tips

Definitely check out the other 310 products at the bottom of this video. And that's if for today's Mocktail Monday. I hope you guys enjoyed it and I will see you next week.