How to make Lemon Juice and its benefits

When life gives you lemons, they say, make the ‘best lemonade ever sipped’ out of it. But to make that lemonade, you first need the perfect recipe. 

Lemon juice, also known as neembu paani across India, is one of the favourite summer drinks. It cools the core; it kicks away the heat, and it makes us say, ‘Ahhhh! This was what I needed!” But lemon juice, or lemonade, is not just a refreshing drink. It serves us loads of benefits. 

So, let’s pick up lemon this time, squeeze out its benefits, and make the ‘best lemonade ever’. 

How To Make Lemon Juice – The Perfect Recipe

Lemon juice is one of the simplest things to make in the world, and yet it is not. It takes just a few ingredients. But make sure you don’t miss any.

Ingredients:

• 2 lemons
• Black salt
• Black pepper powder
• Black cumin powder
• Sugar – as per taste
• mint leaves

Recipe:

• Take a jug 
• Squeeze the lemons into it after cutting them into halves (You may either use your hands or a squeezer)
• Add a glass of water
• Add ½ tsp salt, ½ tsp black cumin powder, and 1/4^th tsp black pepper powder (You may adjust these spices as per taste)
• Add 2 tablespoon sugar (adjust accordingly)
• Keep mixing well until all the sugar and salt is dissolved
• Add another glass of water, lots of ice, crushed mint leaves

After tasting and adjusting the sweetness and spices, serve it chilled in glasses to get rid of the summer’s hot. 

Lemon juice not only takes the heat out of us but offers us numerous other benefits as well. Let’s pick each of these lemon juice benefits one by one and cherish this healthy drink even more. 

Lemon Juice Benefits – A Cooling Gem

Most of the benefits of lemon juice are derived from lemon. However, know that consuming whole lemon offers numerous other benefits as well due to its fibre content and rind. 

1. A Vault Of Vitamin C

Lemons are known around the world for their vitamin C content. Whenever a company advertises its vitamin C products, it showcases either numerous lemons or oranges into it. 

100 grams of lemon provide around 53mg of Vitamin C ^[1]

Men need around 90 mg of vitamin C per day, while women need 75 mg. ^[2]

But what’s the thing with vitamin C?

Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, acts as an antioxidant. Antioxidants are required by our bodies to fight off free radicals that clash with our cells and damage them. The result? Damaged cells, ruined immunity, compromised organs, shortened lifespan, etc. ^[3]

Vitamin C is a known hero that doctors recommend to get a boost in immunity. So, drinking a glass or two of lemon juice is sure to give you that much-required immune boost. ^[4]

2. Helps Heart Health

When we speak of lemon juice benefits, we rarely think of heart. Now it is time to change that notion. 

Lemon juice holds the ability to enhance heart health through its

• Vitamin C content ^[5]
• Citric acid content ^[6]
• Other essential plant compounds such as hesperidin, diosmin, etc. ^[7]

In short, drinking lemon juice every day can help your blood vessels relax, protect them through its antioxidant power, lower cholesterol, and improve overall heart health. 

However, remember to include the pulp in your lemon juice as it contains lots of beneficial compounds. 

3. Supports Weight Loss

Lemons are always promoted as a weight loss food around the world. In fact, even Ayurveda puts lemon as something that induces digestive fire, which enhances digestion and increases calorie burning. But what do the studies say?

Lemons have been found to hold the ability to suppress obesity that has resulted from poor diet. The main reason behind this is lemon polyphenols. These polyphenols are essential plant compounds that give lemons their unique refreshing taste. ^[8]

In Korea, when overweight women were pushed into lemon-detox program, the results came out to be positive. The lemon detox program, in which women were fed lemon juice with maple and palm syrup, reduced their ^[9]

• Body fat, and
• Insulin resistance 

This helped them have a healthier weight. 

Lemon juice also works on blood sugar, which indirectly results in a controlled body weight. 

Lemon juice can significantly reduce the peak blood sugar concentration by 30% and delay the peak blood sugar by over 35 minutes compared to water. ^[10]

4. Defensive Against Anemia

Anaemia is when our bodies do not have enough iron in them, which results in fatigue, weakness, and overall compromised health. This is because iron helps transfer oxygen from the lungs to all the corners of our bodies.  ^[11]

Now, lemons do not protect us from iron deficiency by providing iron directly. However, lemon juice enhances the absorption of iron and thereby allows our bodies to have more iron than is normally possible. ^[12]

Our bodies can easily absorb iron from meat but find it harder to do the same in the case of plant-derived iron, which can be enhanced using lemon juice that contains both vitamin C and citric acid. 

5. It May Help Kidneys

Kidney health issues are common these days. But they must be prevented because when kidneys fail to work, they fail to filter out and eliminate toxins from our bodies. This leads to toxin buildup. Having kidney stones is one such issue that can cause them damage. But lemon juice can benefit and help.

Lemon Juice has been found to be effective at preventing the formation of kidney stones in several studies. The reason is its citric acid content, which increases the pH of urine and thus makes the environment unfavourable for stone formation. ^{[13] [14]}

6. Digestive Benefits

Lemon juice has the ability to stimulate the stomach to produce more digestive juices and also speed up the process of food moving from the stomach to the intestines. This is quite beneficial for those who lack digestive juice for proper digestion and also suffer from delayed emptying. ^[15]

Delayed emptying is what causes food to sit for longer in the stomach. This makes us feel nauseated, bloated, and pukish, and leads to heartburn. 

Note that it causes a rise in digestive juices. So, if you already suffer from excess stomach acid, you should avoid drinking lemon juice. 

7. Anti-inflammatory, Anti-fungal, Anti-microbial, etc.

Lemon juice is an excellent agent when it comes to the world of ‘Antis’. The reason behind this is its beneficial plant compounds, including terpenoids.

Lemons are a rich source of terpenoids, which are beneficial plant compounds that are known to possess several properties, such as : 

• anti-inflammatory
• antiseptic
• antioxidant
• anticancer
• antiplasmodial

and many other properties.^[16]

So, the intake of lemon juice is sure to offer us the benefits of terpenoids. However, how much we need to drink to get all these benefits still needs some scientific light.

As we can see, lemon juice is not just an ordinary summer drink. Apart from being refreshing and cooling, it also offers numerous other benefits. This might tempt you enough to reach your fridge and squeeze out a lemon for its benefits. But before you do this, there are things you must know. 

Lemon Juice – Risks and Precautions

Although lemon juice is overall a super-healthy drink, it might not be for some people. Here are a few things to know:

• If you are allergic to citrus fruits, stay away from lemon as it might trigger an allergic response
• Citrus fruits, including lemon, can stimulate your body to release more gastric juices, which can cause heartburn, acid reflux, etc. So, if you already suffer from these issues, observe yourself
• Lemon juice contains tyramine, which can give some people migraine if they are sensitive to it

When making lemon juice, keep the sugar content low to keep it as healthy as possible. Also, because black pepper can cause heat, keep it low too. Apart from this, you are good to squeeze and mix and drink. 

The Bottom Line

Lemon and lemon juice have been infusing chill in the hot Indian summers for a long, long time. They provide us with the much-required respite. But keeping the body cool and calm is not the only thing that lemon juice does.

Lemon juice, or neembu paani, offers us numerous potential health benefits. It helps our heart, supports weight loss, provides us with plenty of vitamin C, protects us against anaemia, enhances digestive health, and whatnot. The list is long. Cool! 

However, as you drink it, know that it can cause your body to release more gastric juices. So, if you suffer from acid reflux, keep a safe distance. Also, if you are allergic to citrus fruits, stay away from lemons. 

So, do you feel like turning the lemons into the ‘perfect lemonade ever’? Go, squeeze, mix, and cherish!

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