Honest Beverages: Healthy, Natural and Gluten-Free

I’ve been meaning to mention Honest Beverages for such a long time.  I actually got a suggestion from someone I went to high school with (thank you, Ashley!) to look into Honest Beverages a long time ago.  I had it in the back of my head when my friends and I went to Deliteful Foods (a couple posts back).  I was so pleased to find quite an assortment of these beverages in both the gluten-free side of the store as well as the regular side.  Being a college student, I only purchased two of them.  They weren’t horribly expensive for beverages, but I was also buying other gluten free goodies, which, as always, were a bit harder on my wallet than I would have liked. 

Honest Beverages was also important for me to try because many of their teas are caffeine free.  About a year ago, I decided I was going to rid my diet of caffeine.  At school, it was ruling my life.  I couldn’t go a couple of hours without having a beverage containing caffeine or I would have a migraine for the rest of the day, sometimes longer.  So, the next break from school we had, I went in cold turkey and switched over to decaf.  After a couple of weeks of what I thought of as withdrawal, I felt better.  The headaches became far less frequent.  I didn’t depend on coffee or soda.  I also gave up soda completely, which didn’t hurt.  Now, when I do have caffeine, it gives me a headache.  Funny how that works, right?  I can only have small bits of it at a time.  It becomes a bit of a hassle at school when I’m up late and I can’t have caffeine to help me, but all in all, I’m glad to have made this choice.  However, it does make finding beverages a little more difficult, at least when it comes to tea.  Honest Beverages was all I needed.

I decided to keep with a certain theme when I chose my two products: pomegranate. For a while now, I’ve had this obsession with pomegranates. It was my friend, Kat, who first introduced me to the greatness of pomegranates and for that I am forever grateful. Now, whenever I see something that is flavored with pomegranate, I instantly grab at it. So I was ecstatic when I found these two products.

Honest Ade Pomegranate Blue was the first one that I picked up.  It was also the first one that I tried because I remember I simply couldn’t resist once we got into the car.  I was instantly pleased with its taste.  It wasn’t too sweet or too bitter and it didn’t taste fake.  It was the most refreshing thing I’d had to drink in a long time.  I felt healthy drinking it.  It had a very light, pleasant flavor.  There was no lingering aftertaste and I was left wanting to make Sam turn the car around so I could buy out the stock of Honest Ade Pomegranate Blue.  The other Honest Ade flavors include Cranberry Lemonade, Limeade, Orange Mango and Superfruit Punch.  All flavors are both caffeine free and gluten free.

The second product was the Honest Tea Pomegranate Red Tea with Goji Berry.  Be careful when looking at the teas.  It will clearly say caffeine free on the labels of those that are indeed caffeine free.  This one is caffeine free because it is made with red tea.  This drink was a bit more of an acquired taste and I found myself liking more the more that I drank it.  It’s a little more bitter than the Honest Ade and not as refreshing, but that isn’t to say it wasn’t tasty.  For those of you who like something a little more bitter than sweet, this is the drink for you.  Other Honest Tea flavors are Assam Black Tea, Black Forest Berry, Community Green Tea, Green Dragon Tea, Jasmine Green Energy Tea, Just Black Tea, Just Green Tea, Lori’s Lemon Tea, Mango Acai White Tea, Moroccan Mint Green Tea, Peach Oh-La-Long, and Perfect White Tea.  Remember, not all of them are caffeine free, but they are all gluten free.

It’s great to see that manufacturers of great beverages are also looking out for gluten.  It’s become so hard to figure out what some ingredients are that it’s a relief to find Honest Beverages and their easy to read labels.  I have to say, even if the labels didn’t clearly say “gluten free,” I think it would be easy to tell because of how natural the ingredients are in these drinks.  It’s all organic.  There’s no high fructose corn syrup, but organic cane sugar instead.  Honest Beverages should be commended not only for its labels, but for being healthy and, most importantly, tasty. 

Miel