This refreshing healthy lemonade recipe is a perfect spring or summer beverage. Sweetened with honey and flavored with real lemons (or lemon juice), this high mineral, liver supporting lemonade is a great add to the weekly menu. This healthy lemonade recipe is so simple and easy to make, our children often ask to make it themselves. We often have a gallon or two in the refrigerator and turn leftovers (if we ever have any!) into popsicles.

GAPS Diet Lemonade- A Healthy Lemonade Recipe

Our family began to transition to an ancestral diet that was more nutrient dense about 10 years ago. We looked for opportunities to make healthier ingredient substitutions in common recipes. Substituting honey as a sweetener for drinks, popsicles, and baked goods was easier than I thought! Now we enjoy many tasty recipes and have extra minerals, vitamins, and other health benefits after making this transition. To read about our story with healing food allergies with the GAPS diet protocol, check out this post.

Health Benefits of Honey

While sugar depletes our bodies of essential minerals, such as magnesium, honey contains minerals and vitamins that give our bodies a boost. We are very intentional about eating high mineral foods. This healthy lemonade recipe, and other nutrient dense drinks like this healthy herbal tea are easy and enjoyable to consume regularly, especially for children. We sweeten all our drinks and baked goods with honey, rather than sugar.

Effect of Honey on Cholesterol, Blood Sugar, Respiration, & Digestion

According to a publication by PubMed:

Honey is a nutritious, healthy, and natural food, to which antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antimicrobial properties have been attributed, mainly due to its content of phenolic compounds.

Effect on cholesterol: A supplementation with 70 g/day of honey for 6 weeks significantly improved the lipid profile of young men (18–30 years) compared to subjects supplemented with sucrose [12]. Specifically, triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC), and low-density lipoproteins (LDL) levels decreased, and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels increased.

In diabetics: Significantly lower increases in blood glucose levels have been observed in subjects with type II diabetes after ingestion of natural honey [21] and clover honey [21,24] compared to the other sugar solutions. A study carried out with healthy and type I diabetic subjects also showed a significantly lower increase in blood glucose levels following Egyptian clover honey consumption, and a significantly higher increase in C-peptide levels [25].

Cough and gastroenteritis in infants: Consumption of honey resulted in significant reductions in frequency [42,43,44,45,46], bothersome [44,45,46], and severity [43,44,45] of nocturnal cough, as well as in the combined symptom score of URTIs [42,44,45,46]. Significant improvements in sleep quality have also been observed in children and parents (source).

Health Benefits of Lemon

Lemon detoxes the liver, stimulates digestion, and offers a slew of health benefits. This healthy lemonade recipe is the easiest way for our whole family to consume fresh lemon juice.

According to a research publication by PubMed:

C. limon (lemon juice) is associated with its anti-oxidative, antiulcer, antihelmintic, insecticidal, anticancer, cytotoxic, and estrogenic activities. In addition, C. limon extracts possess hepatoprotective, anti-hyperglycemic, and antimicrobial properties. The traditional and ethno-medicinal literature revealed that C. limon is very effective in different pathologies. Most of these compounds possessing antioxidant properties would be implicated in offering health benefits by acting as potential nutraceuticals to humans with special reference to disease management of health and disease (source).

Honey Sweetened Lemonade Popsicle Recipe

We love this lemonade recipe made into popsicles as well! We use these convenient silicone molds to turn just about all our drinks and smoothies into popsicles.

3 Ingredient Healthy Lemonade

This healthy lemonade recipe has only 3 ingredients- water, honey, and lemon juice. If you can used fresh squeezed lemon and raw honey, these are ideal. You can also use plain lemon juice from a bottle. Check ingredients to make sure it is just lemon juice (no citric acid) or other ingredients. This is a good brand in a glass bottle (no leaching from acidic lemons in plastic).

healthy homemade lemonade recipe with honey, lemons, filtered water

Healthy Lemonade Recipe

kaylaruetten@gmail.com

Looking for a refreshing, sugar-free lemonade that’s both delicious and healthy? This easy 3-ingredient lemonade recipe is naturally sweetened, perfect for those following a GAPS diet, keto, paleo, or low-carb lifestyle. Made with fresh lemons, pure water, and a natural sweetener, it’s the ultimate thirst-quencher without the sugar crash. Stay hydrated and enjoy a clean, homemade lemonade that’s kid-approved and gut-friendly!

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Equipment

silicone molds

Ingredients

1 gallon filtered water
1 cup raw honey
1/3 cup lemon juice (fresh squeezed or purchased)

Instructions

In a 1 gallon glass jar, mixing bowl, or pot, mix water, honey, and lemon juice together.
Serve over ice, with an additional wedge of lemon, or orange slice garnish (optional).

Notes

If your raw honey is solid, gently warm it until it becomes runny enough to mix into the water and lemon solution. Do not overheat, or some of the beneficial compounds will be destroyed.

Filtered water, raw honey, and fresh squeezed lemon juice are ideal for the health benefits described above.

Keyword GAPS diet drink, healthy lemonade recipe, natural homemade lemonade, sugar-free lemonade

I hope your family enjoys this lemonade as much as ours does!

Resources

Posts

How to Start an Ancestral Diet (without Overwhelm)
What is the GAPS Diet? An Easier Explanation
High Mineral Foods
Healthy Herbal Tea

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