Drinking Herbs

This is the start of my herb drinking collection. From left to right there is spearmint, lemon balm and chamomile. It's pretty much insane how much we spend on drinks. There's Starbucks, making my own coffee, juices, milk, soda, gatorade, Emergen-C, tea, hot coco, water, instant breakfast, almond milk (for Max since he's lactose sensitive), italian soda, and that's just whats in the house right now.

Though each seems to have a place and purpose so much of our bulk in groceries and space for storage, could be cut down if we changed our drinking habits. I think our general health overall would improve too. A few years ago I joined Jenny Craig. They told me that so many calories are ingested through drinks that are high in sugar but people don't realize it. After I took a real good look at that Venti mocha Frappucchino, I realized they were right. I've been better since then about balancing high calorie drinks with low calorie meals but I think I can be even better.

Cutting out the soda, gatorade and italian sodas would help my budget but also help lessen the need for supermarket stops and unneeded calories. We don't drink them that often (and the kids never get soda) but they are still expensive and nutritionally lacking. Harvesting our own ingredients is one more step to getting ourselves self-sufficient.

I bought some plants in hopes to create a stash of herbs for making teas and flavored waters to satisfy the desire for something other than water and also give us a supply of antioxdants and other vitamins. We have some lemon and lime trees in the front yard, lemon grass and balm, spearmint, chamomile and china black or green tea. It's not a lot, but its a begining. I'm hoping to find some good information on brewing your own teas and start experimenting when my dried stash gets a little larger.