Lemonade Hack

When you're a diabetic who doesn't care for soda you're very limited on what you can drink. I mostly drink water, unsweetened homemade ice tea, herbal tea, coffee or oat milk. For a while I was using Crystal Light, but that turned out to a headache trigger for me. Since then I've eliminated all products sweetened with aspartame from my diet.

I use stevia to sweeten my hot and cold teas, which seems to be the safest sugar sub on the market. I like it (it has a slight vanilla flavor to me) and I don't have a problem with any aftertaste. If anything it's a bit too sweet, so I use it sparingly. I've also been adding a little lemon juice to my ice tea, as I like that, too.

Typically I drink about two liters altogether per day, and the majority of that is water or tea. I've been looking for something else to add to my options, but fruit juice is loaded with sugar, and too much coffee gives me heartburn. Smoothies are a pain to make and even the lactose-free kind often aggravate my stomach. I literally cannot deal with drinking more oat milk; one glass with my morning oatmeal is more than enough in the oat department.

While I was making some tea I glanced at my lemon juice bottle and a lightbulk went off. I like lemonade almost as much as tea. Lemon juice has only about 1 gram of sugar per tablespoon, so it's diabetic-friendly. Because I'd be the only person in the house drinking it, I didn't want to make up a whole pitcher. So I experimented until I came up with the perfect one-glass recipe:

Diabetic Lemonade by the Glass

16 oz. of water over ice

1-2 tablespoons of lemon juice (I use 2)

2 packets of Truvia, or the sweetener of your choice.

Add everything to a big glass and stir. :)