Are you looking for healthy morning beverage ideas?

Or maybe a makeover to your current morning beverage?

Well, I’m still at it. And you know I do love my healthy morning beverage. But perhaps you also know how I like to switch things up…

A couple of months ago, around the time I was experimenting with various herbal detox protocols (which I may blog about elsewhere but let it suffice for the moment to state that poke root and nettle leaf were involved), I stopped drinking my morning coffee.

Yes, let me repeat that.

I stopped drinking my morning coffee.

I didn’t think I would ever see the day!

But let me qualify this. It’s not that I was intending to stop. I just didn’t want it. It was very weird. I started transitioning to yerba mate or black tea, then green tea.

Prior to this odd occurrence, I was drinking my coffee every morning with either some raw butter or MCT oil whizzed up in it, Bulletproof style. This stood me in very good stead for what may have been years.

But after I gave up coffee, I felt my morning drink needed something a little extra to get me going.

The Secret Most Certainly is in the Creamer

Enter my friend, collagen! Systemic Formulas makes a very nice collagen protein supplement. After learning about the benefits of collagen protein, I started adding this to my morning drink.

This brings me to my next morning beverage conundrum. I like heavy cream and I love butter. But recently I’ve been avoiding dairy (not for any philosophical reason as I consumed lots of grass-fed raw milk for years and advocate it as a healthful food for people who can tolerate it.) I just feel better when I avoid most dairy. So…what to use to replace heavy cream?

The perfect replacement for heavy cream would be thick and creamy enough to soften the edge of the morning coffee/tea and also add some fatty goodness. But the taste should not be strongly nutty. And anything too thin is yuck and ruins the flavor of the beverage. Raw heavy cream is a tough act to follow, for sure.

Coconut milk? Yuck! Nut-based creamers? Mostly yuck. Homemade cashew milk? Yes, perhaps- it’s at least passable. Nut Pods? Yes, that’s right! Nut Pods! If you don’t know Nut Pods, it’s a sugar-free, nut-milk-based creamer. It comes in French Vanilla and Hazelnut flavors. I love it, and I used it for several months. You can buy it at Costco if you don’t mind buying two quarts at a time, or Lemon Street Market. Currently, I am taking a break from Nut Pods and I have settled for a couple of tablespoons of plain ol’ canned coconut cream. Not milk, it has to be the cream. It’s thick and tasty and fatty, with a subtle flavor that does not overpower. My new favorite!

So what is it that I’m drinking in the morning these days? A cup of green tea, with coconut cream, a scoop of collagen, and a few drops of stevia. Perfect for rolling out of bed and starting my computer work for the day. (:

And I still do drink coffee, just only in the afternoons.

Nutritiously yours,

Laura Sheehan

​​​​P.S. Did you know that Dr. Sheehan is back? He’s back at the chiropractic table performing adjustments, in addition to helping patients get well naturally through Functional Medicine and Nutrition Response Testing. If you haven’t been in for an adjustment in a while, give us a call (717)-392-6606 to get scheduled for your treatment!