Finding a sweet, healthy drink that you can bring along to picnics or share at the dinner table can be tricky. Does a flavoured drink always have to be paired with such high quantities of sugar and artificial ingredients?
Some drink brands have low sugar but an endless list of artificial additives. Others have natural ingredients but an excess of sugar. All offering up either zero nutritional value or a microbiome nightmare!
We struggled to find a healthy alternative — so we decided to create it!
As a trained chef and proud Maori, Jamu Wild Water co-founder, Tahi, tapped into her creative recipe skills and botanical knowledge. It resulted in a collection of wildly tasty drinks. But flavour wasn’t our only focus...
Each recipe contains all-natural ingredients that will give your immune and digestive health a nourishing boost, and rewild you from the inside out.
So, how exactly are we different?
The all-natural Jamu ingredients list…
Jamu contains zero sugar and zero artificial preservatives or sweeteners. Instead, we have a concise list of ingredients that have been specially chosen to support immune and digestive health, rebalance the microbiome, and simply taste delicious!
You can find a full breakdown of ingredients on each Jamu Wild Water product page, but there are several star ingredients in Jamu that really make our drinks stand out from a rather sugary crowd…
Plant fibre
Fibre in a sparkling drink? That’s right! Every can of Jamu contains 20% of a growing 11-15 year old's daily fibre needs (17% for adults). We use chicory root inulin to provide a source of prebiotic plant fibre that’s great for your gut microbiome!
Natural, plant-based sweeteners
We use the stevia plant to sweeten Jamu Wild Water. The leaves of this plant contain compounds known as steviol glycosides that are 300 times sweeter than sugar! So a little goes a long way. It’s a brilliant, natural alternative to sugar and sweeteners that removes all the worries of health and dental issues.
Related Read | A Guide To Stevia Leaf: It's Origins And Health Benefits
Vitamin C and zinc
For an extra immune-boosting kick, we add Vitamin C and Zinc to our recipes too. Both can provide vital support to your immune system and help protect your cells.
Botanical extracts
Each Jamu Wild Water flavour is paired with some brilliant botanicals that provide you with lots of additional benefits. From dandelion and echinacea which are rich in antioxidants, to marshmallow root which provides more gut-friendly prebiotic fibre!
In every Jamu Wild Water recipe, refreshing flavour has been perfectly entwined with a nourishing ingredients list.
It’s resulted in a wildly tasty, functional beverage with zero sugar and zero artificial nasties!
What ingredients do other brands use?
Have a peek at the ingredients list of some big brand drinks and you’ll be amazed at the quantities and qualities of some of their ingredients.
High amounts of sugar and long lists of preservatives, colours, stabilisers and sweeteners are common.
Below, we’ve listed some of the usual, low-nutrition, and unhealthy culprits that you might find…
Artificial sweeteners
Sucralose and Acesulfame K are two common, artificially created sweeteners that you’ll find in hundreds of drinks brands. These additives have no nutritional value in the body and mostly pass through our gut without being absorbed. Some scientists are worried as these sweeteners are also not captured at wastewater treatment plants and could threaten aquatic habitats.
Artificial Preservatives
Synthetic preservatives like sodium metabisulphite are common in many drink brands. Although approved for use in food and drinks, it has an astonishing number of other industrial uses, including in photography development and tree stump removal!
Excess sugar
One of the biggest culprits is sugar. Fruit juices can be particularly misleading as although natural, they may have added sugar and are lacking the accompanying fibre that whole fruit would provide. A high-sugar diet is linked to lots of negative health issues, including weight gain, gut inflammation, diabetes and dental cavities.
All of these ingredients are usually chosen by other brands because they’re a readily available or cheap way to improve the shelf life or enhance the flavour of a beverage.
Ultimately these ingredients aren’t chosen for their nourishing qualities.
However, here at Jamu, we put nourishment at the forefront of every ingredient list we create. We even won an award for it!
So why is Jamu better?
Jamu contains zero sugar and zero artificial sweeteners or preservatives. No long ingredients list of artificially created compounds and no excess sugar to cause health or dental issues.
In each can, you’ll simply find a selection of natural, botanical ingredients. Each specially chosen for its taste and actively nourishing benefits, but also to reconnect us with nature and to rewild our microbiome.
With every can of Jamu you will…
...Give your immunity a boost with 38% of your daily Vitamin C and zinc needs.
...Reduce your daily sugar intake, as unlike other brands our ingredient list contains zero sugar!
...Rebalance your microbiome with prebiotic plant-based fibre which promotes the growth of good bacteria in your gut.
...Improve your overall health, as a healthy microbiome makes for a healthy mind and body!
