5 drinks that taste ’eeew’ but are surprisingly good for you

Kombucha: The fermented drink is said to improve your digestion by rebalancing your gut bacteria. Picture: Pexels / Geraud pfeiffer

Kombucha: The fermented drink is said to improve your digestion by rebalancing your gut bacteria. Picture: Pexels / Geraud pfeiffer

Published Apr 21, 2021

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Not all healthy things taste good, some are hard to swallow even though the health benefits can not be denied.

Take a look at some of the health drinks that are disgusting to down but good for you.

Kombucha

The fermented drink is said to improve your digestion by rebalancing your gut bacteria, and it increases your energy levels and even helps you deal with stress.

The Big Book of Kombucha also describes it as an adaptogen, meaning it helps the body achieve balance and decreases the negative effects of stress.

Though you’ll often, if not always, get a slimy strand of bacterial culture when you sip (it’s totally normal, and good for you!), the most shocking part about it is seen when you brew it at home or go behind the scenes at a production plant.

Baby mice wine

This health tonic is mainly found in China. It’s made by drowning infant mice in rice wine and then letting it ferment and absorb the rodent flavour. Chefspencil explains that in ancient times when villagers ran out of money to buy medicine for their ailments, they turned to this traditional wine to deal with diseases.

The strange concoction apparently has many healing properties that include curing hepatic and liver disease as well as asthma.

Potato juice

According to Chefspencil, people in the fitness blogosphere are actually juicing raw potatoes and drinking it for health benefits. The claims include the idea that potato juice "de-acidifies" your body and helps to cure gastric ulcers.

The only trouble is, the idea of changing the acid pH level in your body has been thoroughly debunked.

Kumis

Kumis is the ancient Turkic word for fermented horse milk. The drink is similar to kefir, but because it’s made from horse milk, which has more sugar in it than that from cows or goats, it has a higher level of alcohol when fermented.

If it’s distilled into a spirit it becomes araka or arkhi, with a light body and a slightly sour flavour, with an after-taste reminiscent of almonds. Its origins come from ancient Mongolia, but it has spread throughout Central Asia over time.

Coffee and orange juice

Adding butter to your coffee is weird enough, but combining orange juice and coffee is really out there. At Infusion Coffee & Tea in Tempe, Arizona, though, a coffee-orange juice combination is on the menu as SprOJ.

The Phoenix New-Times described the taste as "strangely neutral," which doesn't exactly sound like a winning review.

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