nykeiko eats: One lemon a day keeps the doctors away..maybe.

Warm lemon water. It's simple and based on multiple articles, pretty healthy for the body. It's actually very old news.  I know many people who try to keep it up but not consistent about it. For many, drinking lemon juice might be too harsh on their teeth enamel (there are easy solutions to this!) or simply not pleasant (unless sourness turns your taste bud on). I have been drinking lemon water with cold water for about two years now (I think even longer). I drink it because it's my potent dose of vitamin C which I don't get enough of due to the lack of fruits we consume at home. I go through phases too but it's usually depending on lemon availability which I have friends buy in bulk for me at Cotsco or Freshdirect. I never really loved drinking it but now, I have added a new twist to my lemon water and am obsessed! It has also forced me to drink it with warm water now which is apparently a lot better than drinking it cold.

My recipe: Squeeze one lemon (Meyer's lemons are the best!), two dried sour plums and mix with 2-3 cups of warm water. Let it sit for about 5-10 minutes (or as long as you want for the sweetness of the plum to sip in) and voilà! You can add honey if you want to counter the sourness but I don't do it except when I have a cough or sick. I put everything in my glass water bottle to bring it to work so eventually, the plums bath in there for a couple of waters sometimes and taste so much better. I look forward to drinking this daily now and forget that it is good for me.

Anyway, I don't think it's a drink everyone likes. I was so excited about this that I let some of my colleagues taste but their enthusiasm were absent. Oh well!

I got the dried plums from my last trip to Taiwan but you can find these at many of the Asian grocers. The plums I got were introduced to me by my aunts. The plums are organic, meaty and more sweet than sour. I'm just afraid now that I'll run out of the plums soon since I love eating them on their own as well. When I mention that I eat dried plums to any person that is Asian, they immediately ask me if I'm pregnant (My mom happily purchased three large bags of plum for me.) Apparently craving dried plums is a thing for pregnant women. Then I must have been pregnant since the age of 10 because I have always loved eating dried plum or li hing mui.