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Tag: healthy snacks

  • How to Make a “Medicine Ball,” Starbucks’s Slightly Controversial Tea Drink – POPSUGAR Australia

    How to Make a “Medicine Ball,” Starbucks’s Slightly Controversial Tea Drink – POPSUGAR Australia

    When you’re searching for relief from the discomfort of a cold or the flu, you likely hit up the drugstore’s cold and flu aisle. But at least some people also swing by their local Starbucks for a semi-controversial, cult-favorite drink. Yes, we’re talking about the Starbucks “Medicine Ball,” a soothing tea blend that has garnered a loyal following for its comforting effects.

    We’re believers that the best forms of relief come from the most unexpected places, and that anything that offers a glimmer of comfort amidst the discomfort of sickness is worth its weight in gold. The only problem with the Starbucks Medicine Ball drink is that you have to leave your house to get it – and, if you’re drinking it because you’re not feeling well, that means potentially exposing the hard-working baristas to your germs. With that in mind, we pulled together a Starbucks Medicine Ball recipe, to help you recreate the soothing comfort in the safety of your own home.

    What’s In a Starbucks Medicine Ball?

    Firstly, it’s crucial to point out that the Starbucks Medicine Ball does not contain actual medicine. At Starbucks, the drink is officially known as Honey Citrus Mint Tea. The menu states it was a popular customer creation that ended up on the regular menu. The soothing beverage combines Jade Citrus Mint green tea, Peach Tranquility herbal tea (a tea made with sweet peach, pineapple, chamomile blossoms, and lemon verbena), hot water, steamed lemonade, and honey.

    This drink does contain a small amount of caffeine, as it is made with a green tea which naturally contains this stimulant. But the overall caffeine level of this drink is relatively low compared to other Starbucks beverages, making it a comforting choice for those looking for a warm, soothing option with a hint of a caffeine pick-me-up.

    And while, again, the Starbucks Medicine Ball does not contain any true medicine, some people find that consuming honey helps ease their sore throat somewhat, while mint may help clear congestion temporarily.

    How To Order the Starbucks “Medicine Ball” Drink

    To order a Medicine Ball at Starbucks, simply approach the counter and ask for a Honey Citrus Mint Tea, the drink’s official name. If desired, you can customize your tea drink by asking for more or less lemonade and/or honey if you want it sweeter or not-as-sweet.

    A word of warning: some baristas aren’t huge fans of the Starbucks Medicine Ball, as evidenced by several Reddit threads like this one. The main complaint seems to be its popularity among sick people, who put baristas’ health at risk by coming into stores in person to order the drink. So keep in mind that if you are sick and contagious, you may not be considered the kindest patron if you’re prancing into a crowded Starbucks store, sniffling and sneezing – potentially exposing other customers to your illness. If you’re sick and you want to enjoy this drink, send a friend to snag one for you, hit up the drive-through (while wearing a mask), or make our Starbucks Medicine Ball recipe at home instead.

    Related: Is It Rude to Lie About Being Sick? And 21 Other Illness Etiquette Questions

    Starbucks Medicine Ball Tea Recipe

    To recreate the soothing Starbucks Medicine Ball tea at home, you’ll need the following ingredients:

    • 1 bag of Teavana Jade Citrus Mint Green Tea
    • 1 bag of Teavana Peach Tranquility Herbal Tea
    • 8 ounces of hot water
    • 8 ounces of steamed lemonade
    • 1 tablespoon of honey

    Steps:

    1. Heat your water to a near-boil and pour 8 ounces into a mug.
    2. Add both tea bags to the mug and allow them to steep for about 3-5 minutes.
    3. While the tea is steeping, heat your lemonade. You can do this by either heating it on the stove or by using a microwave. Aim for it to be hot but not boiling.
    4. Remove the tea bags from the mug, ensuring to squeeze them gently to extract the flavorful tea without releasing bitterness.
    5. Add the hot lemonade to your mug with the steeped tea.
    6. Stir in a tablespoon of honey, adjusting according to your sweetness preference.
    7. Enjoy your homemade Starbucks Medicine Ball, perfect for soothing a sore throat or just warming up on a chilly day.

    If you don’t have access to Teavana teas, you can use other brands of green tea, mint tea, and peach tea to recreate this concoction. And if you don’t have lemonade on hand, a healthy squeeze of lemon juice can do in a pinch, although you may need to increase the amount of water and honey you use to compensate.

    Then, sip and enjoy the soothing sensation. Ahhh…

    Lauren Manaker is an award-winning registered dietitian and freelance writer who is passionate about providing evidence-based nutrition information in a fun and interesting way.

    Lauren manaker

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  • 7 High-Protein, Filling Snacks for Weight Loss

    7 High-Protein, Filling Snacks for Weight Loss

    Having a high-protein, fibre-rich snack helps keep your metabolism running and hunger at bay between meals. Here are 7 healthy snack ideas to try!

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  • 7 High-Protein, Filling Snacks for Weight Loss

    7 High-Protein, Filling Snacks for Weight Loss

    Having a high-protein, fibre-rich snack helps keep your metabolism running and hunger at bay between meals. Here are 7 healthy snack ideas to try!

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  • 8 Healthy Homemade Energy Snacks

    8 Healthy Homemade Energy Snacks

    Need a quick snack to get back your energy? Try one of these 8 healthy and nutritious homemade snacks and feel instantly recharged!

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  • 8 Healthy Homemade Energy Snacks

    8 Healthy Homemade Energy Snacks

    Need a quick snack to get back your energy? Try one of these 8 healthy and nutritious homemade snacks and feel instantly recharged!

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  • Should I drink sugar-free fizzy drinks every day? – Catherine Saxelby’s Foodwatch

    Should I drink sugar-free fizzy drinks every day? – Catherine Saxelby’s Foodwatch

    Sugar-free soft drinks, which have been around in various forms for almost 40 years, still have their problems. Remember Tab? Remember Coke Zero? Yes, they tasted sweet and saved you drinking some 40 teaspoons of sugar from each 375 ml can, but are they really healthier than regular soft drinks?

    Brownie points

    When you choose a diet drink, you may end up indulging in other sweet, kilojoule-dense options because you’ve been ‘good’. So, you’ll often see someone sipping a sugar-free drink while eating a chocolate bar, croissant or brownie. It confuses our brains.

    Weight loss … or weight gain?

    Sugar substitutes do little in the way of weight loss. In fact, the opposite may be true: some diet-beverage drinkers gain weight and have an increased risk of chronic diseases.

    A 2010 study published in Physiology & Behavior concluded that regularly consuming sugar-sweetened drinks could lead to weight gain and an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

    In 2013, however, researchers had 200 people replace their sugary drinks with diet varieties or water for 6 months. Their conclusion? The sugar-free-beverage drinkers actually ate fewer desserts than the water drinkers. So there’s that.

    A too-sweet taste?

    When you drink them regularly, no-sugar soft drinks get you used to a sweet taste. This is a long-term problem for weight loss, as well as for people with type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease. If your body is used to getting a super-sweet hit from diet soft drinks, it makes managing appetite much more difficult.

    The sweetness signal tells our bodies to prepare for kilojoules (or calories) and our appetite is generated in readiness, but no kilojoules arrive. So we’re likely go out and consume other foods. In other words, sweeteners prep our bodies for a sugar fix but then don’t deliver. So sweeteners interfere with the learned responses that normally contribute to glucose and energy homeostasis.

    Bubbles on a glass of sugarfree cola

    How safe are they?

    We know these sweeteners are safe, but what we don’t know are their long-term effects on appetite. So let’s just say, the scientific jury is still out on their long-term effects.

    The bottom line

    The key is only having sugar-free soft drinks as an occasional treat, not every day or when you feel thirsty. Long term, we don’t really know what these sweeteners are doing to our bodies. One or two is fine (say, if you’re going out to a club), but regularly consuming these zero-sugar drinks may lead to long-term overconsumption of other foods.

    Foodwatch

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