coffee

7 Homemade Ice Pops That Go Beyond Juice

It's time to break out that ice pop mold!

Do you own an ice pop mold? Maybe you bought it for a special recipe once and now it's just taking up space in your cupboard? Now's the time to pull it out. It's hot out. And nothing beats the heat like something frozen.

I'm guessing that the reason you're not using your ice pop mold very often is because you think you need to follow specific ice pop recipes to use it, and lack of time or lack of ingredients is getting in the way. I get it, I've been there. Epicurious has a lot of crowd-pleasing recipes if you want them, but the great thing about an ice pop mold is that you don't need to follow a recipe to use it.

A lot of ingredients that you probably already have in your fridge or pantry can be frozen into perfectly satisfying ice pops—and they don't necessarily need to be sweet. You also don't need to use every mold at the same time or for the same thing: fill each mold with something different and your freezer will suddenly become more exciting than any variety pack you can buy in the ice cream aisle.

Here's some of my favorite things to pour into my ice pop molds:

Coffee and Tea

Next time you make iced coffee or iced tea, make extra and pour it into an ice pop mold. Add a little milk and maybe even some sweetener, and you'll be able to get your caffeine fix in a totally refreshing and unexpected fun new way.

Yogurt

Turn your favorite breakfast yogurt parfait into an ice pop. Stir together some yogurt and jam or fresh fruit and even granola and pour it into ice pop molds.

Smoothies

Any kind of smoothie will also make a great ice pop. Any morning you're making a smoothie, just pour a little bit off into an ice pop mold and you'll have a healthy frozen treat to enjoy in the afternoon or after dinner.

Pudding

If you ever find yourself with leftover pudding, spoon it into ice pop molds and freeze it into a decadent frozen dessert on a stick. Or make (or buy) a batch of pudding just for the purpose of turning it into ice pops—rice pudding pops are surprisingly addictive, and chocolate pudding pops will remind you of the Fudgsicles you grew up with.

Ice Cream

Make your own ice cream bars by softening any kind of ice cream you like, mixing in some fruit, candy, nuts, cookie chunks, jam, chocolate sauce, peanut butter, or what have you, and spooning it into ice pop molds. Be sure to pack them in firmly so they re-freezes in a solid form. Once they're frozen, you can get even more crazy and unmold them, dip them in melted chocolate and re-freeze for chocolate-coated ice cream bars.

Cocktails and Wine

On the hottest summer evening, wouldn't it be nice to nibble a frozen cocktail rather than drink one? Your favorite cocktails can easily turn into ice pops, so long as there is enough water or juice or non-alcoholic liquid in the mix to help them freeze. Wine ice pops are amazing too, and a great way to preserve any wine remaining in a bottle you opened but can't finish. Just mix that wine with some juice or water (use at least equal parts wine and non-alcoholic liquid) and maybe some fresh fruit and freeze it in your ice pop molds.

Water

An ice pop mold is basically a huge ice cube tray that you can put sticks in. But you don't have to put sticks in it. These extra-large ice cubes are especially good for serving a cocktails in pitchers or punch bowls. For an eye-catching touch, tuck a few sprigs of fresh herbs or edible flower petals into each mold before you fill it with water, or add whole berries or slices of fruit.

[via Epicurious]

Don't completely ditch fat-free dressings, and feel free to eat some white vegetables.

Nutrition advice comes so fast and furious, sometimes it’s hard to keep track of what’s good and what’s bad for you. And oftentimes when that advice is boiled down to a hard and fast rule, that rule becomes, well, slightly untrue. So TIME asked some nutrition experts to identify the more common food myths we hear, and the truth behind them.

MYTH: Microwaving foods kills nutrients

Microwaving is actually among the more preferable ways of keeping all the good things in foods like vegetables intact. Boiling can leech out valuable vitamins and minerals, but because microwaving heats up food without using a lot of water, it helps foods to stay nutrient-packed.

MYTH: The more grains, the better

While grains are certainly preferable to refined white flour because they contain more fiber and vitamin B, don’t fall into the multigrain trap. Just because a product has multiple different grains doesn’t mean those grains aren’t processed and stripped of many of the good things you want from them. “In processing grains for convenience, you’re potentially losing the nutrients and changing the degree to which they are absorbed,” says Nicolette Pace, spokesperson for the New York State Dietetic Association.

Check the label and look for the word “whole” before any grains listed. And make sure the whole grains are the first thing among the ingredients, which confirms that they make up the most important part of the food.

Another clue is the fiber content. “If you’re seeing than an 11-cracker serving contains 1g of fiber, there’s probably not a lot of whole grain in there,” says Pace.

MYTH: Fat-free salad dressings are healthier

Fruits and vegetables have fat-soluble nutrients that need fat in order to work–like the lycopene in tomatoes, which has been linked to lower cancer and stroke risk. Opting for a fat-free dressing may deprive you of those benefits. Try olive oil-based options instead, or add avocados and nuts, both of which contain healthy fats, to your salad instead.

MYTH: Avoid white vegetables

Nutrition experts advocate for colorful foods – the brighter, and more diverse the rainbow on your plate, the better. And that’s still true; carrots and strawberries are high in beta carotene, an important antioxidant that fights damaging inflammation in cells, and dark green produce is a rich source of antioxidants, fiber, calcium, and vitamins like C and K.

But that doesn’t mean that their white cousins are nutritional failures. In fact, cauliflower, garlic, onions, mushrooms, and, yes, even potatoes are good sources of fiber, antioxidants, and potassium. And while the white potato has become tuber non grata for dieters, adding a moderate amount of potato to your diet won’t derail weight entirely. In fact, because it’s so full of fiber, a little goes a long way toward making you feel full and eating less overall. “It’s something you can use as a vehicle to build a meal,” says McDaniel. “If you add broccoli and little bit of cheese, it can be a satisfying meal for someone trying to lose weight.”

MYTH: Juice cleanses are cleansing

“People think juice cleanses are a good way to detox the body,” says Jennifer McDaniel, spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. “But I remind my clients that you have a built-in detox organ, the liver, and it’s very good at what it does.” It probably won’t harm you if you go on a juice cleanse for a day or so, but as a way to lose weight, it’s not such a good idea, since it deprives you of proteins and fats, and may lead to losing muscle.

MYTH: Coffee will only make you thirstier

While the caffeine in coffee is a diuretic, meaning it draws water out of your body, the amount of water in coffee means that overall, it can be a thirst quencher. Water is still your best option to stay hydrated, but don’t avoid coffee if you’re a regular java drinker because you think it dehydrate you.

[via TIME]

Top 4 Unhealthy Drinks

It’s important to understand dangerous habits we have, especially those we do on a consistent and daily basis. As long as we refuse to let go, or find healthier alternatives, we continue to leave the toxic tap running into our body while we do very little to get those toxins out. In that vein, let’s look at unhealthy drinks and the top 4 that are causing damage, and in ways we may not have even expected.

Soda

Soda is bad news…period. There is not one thing that soda is good for, besides unclogging drains and fun experiments with rusty nails.

Soda’s are primarily made of 5 ingredients: carbonated water, sugar (sucrose or high fructose corn syrup), caffeine, phosphoric acid, and ‘natural’ colors and flavorings. Each one of these ingredients on their own causes blood sugar spikes and imbalances, adrenal damage, and destroys the delicate pH balance of the body. Combine them altogether and you have one of the most deadly beverages on the planet, and certainly one of the most consumed on top of that.

Then, the ‘impossible’ came true and they made it worse by adding artificial sweeteners like aspartame. This ingredient is a neurological, and ironically, obesity nightmare.

Coke has apparently started introducing stevia, a natural sweetener, to their beverage line, although I’m not certain to what extent. Either way, it doesn’t negate the fact that soda is still something you don’t want to consume on a regular basis. Need a boost of energy? Try these tactics and ditch that soda.

Try standing in front of someone at the coffee perk or in line at the coffee shop and see if you can come out unscathed. Probably not.

Next to soda, regular coffee is the next unhealthy drink that is being consumed in mass across the world. With so much popularity, and so many side effects, people are searching feverishly for good reasons to drink it. Fortunately for them, researchers obliged and noted coffee can help with things like mental clarity and mood (for the first 30 minutes anyway), and even help offset such health challenges like Alzheimer’s and Diabetes.

The hard truth is that regular coffee is NOT a healthy drink and it’s overall report card is not good. Sure it offers some antioxidants, but so does green tea. The fact is, coffee is acidic, dehydrating, adrenal depleting, and disturbs the nervous system to the point of jitters and anxiety.

Here’s the good news…there are coffee products that have reduced acidity, lessens dehydration, limits adrenal fatigue, and doesn’t greatly disturb the nervous system! So now you can have your coffee, and have your body feel as good about it as your mind does!

Alcohol

We all know alcohol is not good for us and is an unhealthy drink. But what else can we go to do lower our inhibitions, increase our confidence, and just forget about ‘life’? It would appear there is no place like an alcohol induced stupor, and many of us have been there (I call it “college or university”).

But it’s not just the alcohol that is the issue. Beer typically contains 4 primary ingredients (aside from water): grains, sugar, yeast, and alcohol. The digestive nightmare that these 4 together create is fully illustrated by the ‘beer gut’, or what others call affectionately the ‘gluten bomb’.

You see, most of us suffer from an issue called Candida. This insidious health challenge lies in our intestinal tract and causes a bacterial imbalance that can cause a whole host of health issues. It’s made worse by sugar, yeast, grains, alcohol, vinegar, and more.

This makes beer an unhealthy drink that is causing all kinds of health problems, and there are few alternatives to turn to, other than making it organic and gluten free.

Milk

Milk is found on breakfast tables across the world every day. If it’s not in our cereal, coffee, tea, or just a glass, it’s found in many foods we eat on a daily basis.

We’ve been ‘told’ that milk is good for you, and it contains things like calcium that proponents swear you just can’t get anywhere else, but when you start to think about cow’s milk and what’s in it you may wonder why you were drinking it all this time.

Fundamentally speaking, cow’s milk is made for calves, just like mother’s milk is made for human babies. Makes sense so far, right? Then, the mass majority of milk out there is pasteurized (which destroys any beneficial bacteria and makes it indigestible by the human physiology), and is laced with hormones and antibiotics.

This takes a seemingly wholesome beverage, and turns it into a dead, processed, and chemically ridden beverage that causes allergies, hormone issues, and potential bone density loss.

There’s a reason natural health practitioners recommend coming off milk as one of their standard practices. Until you make the leap, definitely go the organic way.

[via Healing The Body]