John Myers
Commercially available soft drinks and lemonades often contain little fruit juice but a lot of added sugar and flavorings. The best alternative to unhealthy fattening foods: make your own lemonade. Our recipes for refreshing and fruity lemonades are perfect for hot summer days.
Iced lemonades are popular in summer. However, ready-made mixed drinks often contain a lot of sugar. In the summer of 2020, a study by the Bremen consumer advice center criticized the high sugar content in most commercially available soft drinks.
Many lemonades, drinks, soft drinks and fruit juice drinks therefore contained up to 12 percent sugar, on average it was 8.5 percent: calculated on a 330 ml bottle, that corresponds to nine sugar cubes. With one or two soft drinks, you can quickly reach the value of added sugar that the German Society for Nutrition (DGE) recommends as the maximum daily amount.
Nine sugar cubes per 330ml bottle
Natural or artificial flavors were also added to around 85 percent of the drinks. Most products also contained additives – notably antioxidants such as ascorbic acid or citric acid, which are said to protect against color changes caused by oxygen. But stabilizers and thickeners were also used in more than half of the samples. Less would often have been more here.
The healthy alternative: make lemonade yourself
If you want to enjoy a refreshing, tingling lemonade that doesn’t contain tons of sugar and flavorings, you can easily mix your favorite lemonade yourself. We have put together three recipes for refreshing lemonades.
Making lemonade yourself is surprisingly easy: You only need a few ingredients and you can refine the lemonade with fruits and herbs according to your personal taste.
Lemonade – do-it-yourself recipes
The basic ingredients for homemade lemonade:
- Mineral water (sparkling or still)
- fruit juice
- Fruit or herbal syrup, e.g. elderflower syrup
- Fresh herbs and fruits as well as ice cubes for decoration
Make lemonade yourself
Ingredients for about 1.8 liters of lemonade
- 150 grams of sugar
- 200 ml lemon juice
- 1 l mineral water (sparkling or still, depending on taste)
- 400 ml tap water
- 2 fresh organic lemons
- 1 small piece of ginger
- lemon balm or peppermint
Make lemonade yourself – that’s how it works
- Peel ginger and cut very small.
- Boil the ginger with 400 ml water and sugar until the sugar has dissolved. Then strain and let cool.
- Pour the lemon juice and cold water over the syrup.
- Slice the lemons, remove the seeds and add to the lemonade along with the mint or lemon balm.
- Serve with ice cubes.
Tip: You can also cook larger quantities of the syrup and store them in the fridge.
Make your own orange lemonade
Ingredients for approx. 1.3 liters of orange soda
- 3 oranges (at least one of which is organic)
- 1/2 organic lemon
- 150ml of water
- 80 grams of sugar
- 1 liter mineral water
Make orange lemonade yourself – that’s how it works
- Wash and dry one orange and the lemon. Then grate the peel. Boil with 150 ml of water and the sugar and cook until the sugar has completely dissolved. Let cool down.
- Squeeze two and a half oranges and half a lemon. Then mix with the syrup and pour through a fine sieve.
- Top up the syrup with ice-cold mineral water. Slice the remaining half an orange and add to the lemonade.
- Serve with ice cubes.
Make your own apple and herb lemonade
Ingredients for approx. 1.5 l lemonade:
- Herbs of your choice (basil, mint, lemon balm, lemon thyme etc.)
- 500 ml apple juice
- 1 lemon
- 50 grams of sugar
- 1 liter mineral water
Make your own apple and herb lemonade – this is how it works
- Set aside some nice herbs for decoration. Wash, pluck, and chop the remaining herbs.
- Bring the apple juice and the juice of half a lemon to a boil with the sugar until the sugar dissolves. Then turn off the heat, add the herbs and let the mixture steep until it cools.
- Pour through a fine sieve.
- Pour cold mineral water over the herb and apple mixture and decorate with ice cubes, lemon slices, and fresh herbs.
