How you start your morning can impact the rest of your day. If you’re looking to incorporate healthier choices into your morning routine, try a concept known as habit stacking. Building tiny, healthier habits into routines you already have, like enjoying a morning beverage or breakfast before you check your email instead of jumping right into the day’s tasks, can make it easier to stick to a new habit when it’s built into an existing routine.
If you already enjoy the routine of breakfast to start the day, consider swapping sugary drinks for beverages without added sugars like unsweetened green or black tea. When incorporated as part of an overall healthy diet, unsweetened tea can help support heart health.
Choosing beverages with no added sugars can contribute to a healthy heart, according to the American Heart Association, making these recipes perfect for daily habit stacking. Water is needed to keep your body running at its best, and because unsweetened tea is 99.5% water, it provides a delicious way to help hydrate.
Discover more ways to improve daily routines at Heart.org/eatsmart.
Sparkling Green Tea Cranberry Spritzers
Recipe courtesy of the American Heart Association
Servings: 4 (1 1/2 cups per serving)
4 cups water
4 single-serving green tea bags
1 cup 100% cranberry juice or 100% cranberry-pomegranate juice
2 cups ice cubes
1/2 cup low-sodium club soda, chilled
4 orange slices or lime wedges (optional)
In small saucepan over high heat, bring water to boil. Remove pan from heat. Submerge tea bags. Steep 4 minutes. Discard tea bags. Let tea mixture cool 30 minutes. Pour into pitcher. Stir in cranberry juice. Refrigerate 2 hours, or until chilled.
At serving time, put ice cubes in four glasses. Pour tea mixture into glasses. Top each serving with seltzer. Garnish with orange slices.
Tip: To create cranberry-flavored ice cubes, fill ice cube tray with 100% cranberry juice and freeze.
Nutritional information per serving: 32 calories: 0 g total fat (0 g saturated fat, trans fat, polyunsaturated fat and monounsaturated fat); 0 mg cholesterol; 4 mg sodium; 8 mg carbohydrates; 0 g fiber; 8 g total sugars (0 g added sugars); 1 g protein.
