What are some things that come to mind when you think about the lemon fruit? For me, it was things like vitamin C, sour, iced tea, and cleaning products. I never really gave much consideration to the health benefits of lemons.
Recently, it seems as though many people are curious about the benefits of lemons. Would it surprise you to know that lemon water was one of the nine most searched for natural health products in 2015? In fact, 1 in 20 google searches today are health related.
So why all of the interest now in a fruit that’s been a part of our culture for centuries? I think part of it is clearly a trend that we’re seeing towards improving our health naturally. So as people are looking for natural products to aid in their health, they’re finding that lemons have some powerful advantages.
Research has shown that clean water and freshly squeezed lemon juice has numerous benefits. For example, one cup of fresh lemon juice provides 187% of your daily recommended serving of vitamin C. Here are just a handful of some other important benefits that lemon water provides:
1. It aids indigestion and detoxification – https://www.yahoo.com/health/lemon-water-for-digestion-legit-or-quit-110010661962.html
2. It helps you feel fuller longer because it contains pectin, a type of fiber found in fruits. – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9322190
3. It contains natural antioxidants that help rejuvenate your skin and heal your body – http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/86/4/1225
4. It helps boost your energy and mood, much like coffee except without the caffeine crash.
There are many more benefits to lemon water. I encourage you to do research on your own to confirm everything that I’ve listed here and find out for yourself. But for now, let me offer one small step that you can take to incorporate lemon water into your daily routine so that you can enjoy all of the advantages of this amazing fruit.
First thing in the morning, meaning as soon you get up and make your way to the kitchen, don’t pour that first cup of coffee, tea, or other favorite caffeinated drink. Instead, pour a glass of water, grab a lemon out of the fridge, cut it in half, and squeeze as much juice as you can from one half into your glass of water. You could use a strainer or a manual juicer to make sure there are no seeds in your water and to get more juice out. Take the next 10 minutes to read the paper, catch up on social media, go through your email, or whatever your normal morning routine is while drinking the glass of lemon water.
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Another option would be to use one or two drops of a high-quality, organic lemon essential oil. An essential oil is a natural oil typically obtained by distillation and having the characteristic fragrance of the plant or other source from which it’s extracted. There are several advantages to using lemon essential oil.
1. It alleviates the acid in the lemon juice, which will erode your tooth enamel if consumed regularly.
2. This particular essential oil is relatively inexpensive, given the effectiveness of the one or two drops you would use. So instead of having to manually juice the fresh lemon every morning, you would simply add a couple of drops of lemon essential oil to your glass of water.
Hopefully you’ve seen the tremendous benefits of lemon water. Every morning, I start my day with essential-oil-infused lemon water! It’s one small step that gives me an easy, refreshing, and healthy way to get going in the morning. For those who may be interested in using lemon essential oil, I included a link to the one I use on the Resources page.
