Phase & care: P1. Herbal tea, honey and lemon juice are all early phase on my list. Tolerances vary per person.
I drank a lot of coffee before all this, and I still do more than I should. What I needed was something to reach for in the afternoon that wasn’t a fourth coffee and wasn’t a soft drink. This jug lives in my fridge from May to September.
Ingredients
Makes: about 1 litre (4 cups) · about 10 kcal a cup, no fat
- 1 litre (4 cups) water
- 4 chamomile tea bags, or 4 tsp loose chamomile
- 2 tsp (10 ml) honey
- Juice of half a lemon, about 1 tbsp (15 ml)
- 2 thin lemon slices, to serve
- Ice
Method
- Boil the water and take it off the heat for a minute. Chamomile turns bitter in water at a full rolling boil.
- Add the tea and steep 6 minutes. Longer than that and it gets astringent.
- Lift the bags out. Do not squeeze them, that’s where the bitterness hides.
- Stir the honey in while the tea is still warm so it dissolves properly.
- Cool to room temperature, then chill for at least 2 hours.
- Add the lemon juice just before serving, not before chilling, so it stays fresh tasting.
- Pour over ice with a lemon slice.
Fat: zero.
Notes from my kitchen
Lemon added early goes dull in the fridge. Added at the end it tastes bright. Same tea, completely different drink.
Keeps three days covered. After that it tastes flat and I start again.
For a party version, top each glass with a splash of sparkling water. It looks like something and nobody asks what you’re not drinking.
Stepan’s Rule: make the safe option the easy option. If the jug is already in the fridge, I drink the jug. If it needs making, I drink whatever is nearest, and whatever is nearest is rarely on my side.
Not medical advice. Patient to patient.
PancreasZen has the full drinks chapter plus the fat budget system that tells you whether anything else in your day fits. Get the book.