“Nastea” Morning Drink

I’m not a doctor and I don’t provide medical advice of any kind. This post is merely an anecdote of my experimentation with various nutritional powders.

Although the winters in Las Vegas are quite mild, just about every winter I can remember has been accompanied by one or two colds or sicknesses of some kind. Each time I got sick I would try some remedy or other – turmeric powder, vitamins, cayenne powder, honey, lemon juice, ginger and various teas. As soon as I felt better, I would stop taking them.

A couple of years ago when I was sick, it occurred to me that I should create a concoction of various healthful powders to take daily, as a health tonic, to help prevent colds and whatever other gremlins may come my way. I researched a lot of powders online. Some of them listed intriguing benefits like providing antioxidants and improving brain function but were associated with negative side effects such as nausea, dizziness, vomiting, and negatively combining with other medicines or compounds to create undesirable outcomes. I finally settled on this list of powders with associated benefits:

Turmeric: anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, lowers risk of heart disease and cancer

Green Tea: improved brain function, increased fat burning, antioxidants, antibacterial

Kale: vitamins, supports liver function, calcium, eye and skin health

Stinging Nettle: vitamins and minerals, helps skin, bones, joints, and hay fever

Cayenne: helps digestion, improves metabolism, antifungal, relieves pain, may reduce cancer, decongestant

I buy these powders either online or in bulk at a local health food store which offers a discount if you buy a pound or more.

I have a one-gallon plastic container into which I mix all the powders in roughly equal amounts, except for the cayenne. Because cayenne is extremely hot, I only add a few tablespoons of it to the one-gallon mixture. I make sure to leave about half a quart empty in the gallon tub so there’s room to mix the ingredients when shaking the tub. Once all the ingredients are in the tub, I shake it vigorously to mix them thoroughly.

Every day before breakfast, I fill a clear glass one-liter beer stein with water and mix in a heaping tablespoon of the powder. The resulting “drink” is quite spicy because of the cayenne, and has a very earthy taste. It’s spicy in my throat as it goes down and is often spicy during bowel movements.

As long as the ingredients are healthy, I’m not concerned with how it tastes. My kids can’t tolerate it, even in small amounts, and my wife only drinks it when she’s feeling sick. Because the taste can be off-putting, I named it “Nastea”, in jest, because it’s a “tea” which tastes “nasty”.

In the last few years since I’ve been taking this daily, I haven’t gotten sick a single time. The other morning I woke up with a sore throat. I drank my Nastea, and in a few hours I felt fine. It’s possible this drink has staved off multiple sicknesses. It’s also possible I’m just voluntarily subjecting myself to a yucky-tasting drink and spicy, powdery poops.

If you try this Nastea drink, you can be the judge.