I’ve previously mentioned that I visited the Good Food Show in London. It was around the time that I was doing a lot of late night shifts in preparation for the peak season at work and I wanted something to keep me going while I was there.

This is where I found Stur, it is a liquid water enhancer and they are so great. There are 6 different flavours; cranberry and pomegranate, tea and lemon, green apple, blackcurrant and apple, tea and peach and orange and mango. My favourite has to be the tea and peach one so far!

Per serving you get 100% of your daily vitamin C, no sugar, calories or fat, all natural flavours and they are lightly sweetened with natural stevia extract. Then in each bottle you get 30 servings, however I have to disagree with this as I think I must have got half of the amount out of each bottle I’ve tried so far.

There are two good bits of information in the box the drinks came in.

“Good to know…vitamin C contributes to the normal functioning of the immune system and the reduction of tiredness and fatigue”

“Enjoy a…varied balanced diet, drink plenty of water and maintain an active lifestyle for good health.”

What makes it a great company is that it is family-run and it was originally for the founders’ pregnant wife to drink more water. They are passionate about better health and happiness.

Check out their website here for more information and prices.

The Protein Drinks Co.

The company has a wide range of drinks with all kinds of health benefits. They have breakfast drinks, weight loss drinks, protein shakes, drinks with added muscle and many more.

My lovely selection!

Their mission is to change the way that people eat on-the-go and help them to face each day with the strength needed to succeed and do more.

They share all the benefits of protein on their website to make sure that the customer fully understands it.

All of their little bottles are handy to take wherever you go. Whether you’re on the move, at work or even at the gym, you need to have your daily dose of protein so you keep your strength and energy levels up and repair the muscles you’ve been working on. That is why they created these drinks!

Their aim is to make it simple, convenient and delicious to fuel your body so that you can focus on the other needs in your life.

There is a section on the importance of all different nutrients but I don’t want to go into detail about that right now and I will post something on it in a couple of days.

They tell you all about how they produce their drinks, and in a nutshell – they start with milk, add all of the ingredients to make each individual drink with its different benefits and then they package it up for you to enjoy.

They even have a whole section on their website called “The Protein Kitchen” with ideas to pack protein into your dinner, definitely worth checking out!

From the lovely people at The Protein Drinks Co I received a whole range of their products. I received two of their breakfast drinks – B-Fast and UFIT Breakfast, UFIT in Strawberry and Chocolate flavours, USLIM, Collagen+ Beauty Milk and GoHealth – Balance and Joint Protection. 12 drinks in all flavours, I couldn’t wait to get stuck in and try them!

The first drink that I tried was UFIT Breakfast Drink in Smooth Chocolate Flavour, and oh my, it was delicious! Just like a chocolate milkshake but not as thick, I could definitely get used to drinking it everyday. The bottles for these breakfast drinks are very colourful so they definitely catch your eye and stand out on the supermarket shelves. On the bottle it says exactly what it has – rich in calcium, high in protein, vitamins + fibre, longlasting wholegrain energy and to keep hunger at bay 15g protein. There are 217 calories in the bottle, and for my breakfast I’m pretty happy with that! I checked out the prices and they are normally £2 in Tesco but are currently on offer at £1. Even if you only get a couple, it will be well worth it! I also got sent the Strawberry and Banana flavours, not to my personal taste but they were still really yummy!

To be honest with you, they all tasted the same but had their different properties which made them significantly different. I would happily have their breakfast drinks everyday! I don't have a favourite based on flavour, but I really liked the idea of GoHealth drinks so I will definitely go out to get some more of those!

What do you think of health drinks? Have you tried any of these?

teapigs Matcha Green Tea Drink Review

teapigs describe it as a superhero amongst teas, and I must say I agree! These drinks are made from a super-concentrated green tea powder, which is packed with all kinds of antioxidants and nutrients.

The matcha used in the drinks originates from Japan. In particular the Nisho region, here the tealeaves are grown under cover to produce a lot of amino acids and chlorophyll. The leaves are dried and slowly ground into a fine powder. The powder is packed and sealed straight away so all the nutrients are locked in.

That’s a little bit about the history of matcha and this product is an amazing twist on green tea (hence my reason for choosing this product).

So for the actual product, it comes in 3 different flavours – elderflower, apple and grapefruit.

It contains all natural ingredients and there is no added sugar, which is excellent news, as I personally do not think that green tea needs any added sugar.

Each of the flavours have less than 32 cals/100ml but the apple and grapefruit actually have less than 23 cals/100ml so you aren’t drinking away your daily calorie intake as you would be with your morning coffee.

My favourite flavour has to be the grapefruit one! But obviously they are all delicious. I think I need a t-shirt say I LOVE Green Tea.

These cute little cartons are so useful to grab and go if you are in a rush. teapigs also recommends drinking one before your workout but I also think having one as a pick me up during the day works well too.

To get your own you can head to teapigs.co.uk and you can get 10% off on the majority of their products (excludes matcha kits and any deals) by using the code adele.

I cannot recommend these drinks, and even the company, enough. So get ordering!

The only product I tried on this occasion was the matcha tea drinks as this fitted in best with my blog, but don’t forget that there are plenty of other teas and products that they offer.

I made myself a little wish list:

Eva Solo Tea Maker

Glass Storage Jars

teapigs Mug

Everyday Brew

Chocolate Flake Tea

Chilli Chai

Mao feng Green Tea

I had to stop my wish list here otherwise it would be neverending.

Don’t forget to check them out on Facebook and Twitter and also sign up to the newsletter! There will be lots of updates and surprises in the newsletter.

The teapigs website is packed full with more information than I can begin to tell you about so I am going to leave some of it a mystery so you can check it out for yourself. Don’t forget to use the 10% off code and don’t hesitate to get in touch if you want to know more from me.

Now as a little added extra for my wonderful readers, I'm doing my very first giveaway! All you need to do is enter below and the draw will be done next week. I will then contact the winner.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

*This post was sponsored by teapigs and all views and opinions are 100% my own.

Upbeat Review

Here’s some exciting news for you all, I got some goodies from the lovely people at Upbeat on Saturday! A nice surprise in the middle of my two exams. They sent me some great things! 

Of course the idea was to try the product so they sent me some vouchers to try two of their drinks and then some money off vouchers, so I treated my housemates to a few for them to try as well! 

They also sent me a little information leaflet, an oyster card holder (handy as mine is breaking!), a pad of paper (I’m always writing notes down!), an adorable little USB stick, a canvas bag (to carry my upbeat drinks in!) and a little diagram where you turn it to say how active, your weight and it tells you how much protein you should have daily.

So I’ll get on with the review now! They do three flavours of the drink – strawberry, mango and passion fruit, and blueberry and raspberry. I only managed to get the last two; they didn’t have the strawberry one left :(

The thing that caught my eye first was the “fuel the gap” next to the logo. It is a high protein dairy drink, which you find the dairy aisle by the milk. All of the drinks are no more than 150 calories and they are low in fat, sound good yet? 99% of the drink is made from three ingredients, which are fresh whey protein, fruit puree, and fruit juice from concentrate. It is also suitable for vegetarians don’t you worry!

If you look at the nutrition information per bottle:

You can see that there is 20g of protein in just one little bottle, how great is that? There is 11.9g of carbohydrate of which sugars is 11.3g, in the information leaflet I received it says that they have half the sugar of most fruit juices and smoothies. Also from the nutrition information you can see that there is 130mg of calcium, which it says is 16% of your daily intake, again that’s pretty good too!

So the list of ingredients looks like this:

Whey protein concentrate (an extract of milk) blended with fruit puree, juice from concentrate and sweetener.

Ingredients: whey protein concentrate from milk (91%), blueberry puree (4%), raspberry puree (3%), raspberry juice from concentrate (1%), stabiliser (pectin), acidity regulator (lactic acid), natural flavourings, sweetener (sucralose).

As you can see they were right about the 99% of the ingredients and the rest are just to help balance out all the flavours and blend it all together, plus a bit of sweetener never goes a miss!

They are really big on the whole protein as part of your diet! It’s quite nice to see that because a lot of the time companies are all about lower sugar or reduced fat products and they don’t focus on all the requirements needed in a food product. So I’m amazed at how much is packed into only 250ml!

So here are some fun facts about protein that was in my information leaflet:

Did you know protein maintains muscles and supports strong bones, which helps keep you in great shape?

It’s a core nutrient that is essential to stay healthy and maintain your natural stamina.

Try aim for around 10-20g of protein as a snack and 20-30g with each main meal.

I tried both the flavours for breakfast on consecutive days. On the first day I had the mango and passion fruit drink before a long day in the library! It wasn’t to my taste at first, I haven’t always liked the taste of mango and it was a bit thicker than I had expected. You can really taste the mango with only a hint of passion fruit (a shame if you ask me). I think if I had a few more of this flavour then I would like it a lot more! It’s just me being my fussy self!

While I’m writing this I’m drinking the blueberry and raspberry drink and it is a whole other experience! I’m not overly keen on blueberries, I’d normally choose a different berry before choosing blueberries, but I think I’ve been swayed! This drink is also thick and creamy but it is quite a bit sweeter and the blend of blueberry and raspberry really works together. I LOVE it! I will definitely stock up my fridge at university with these in case I get an early morning start and need to grab something on the go!

5 reasons to grab an upbeat:

1. Around a third of your daily protein needs in one bottle
2. Helps keep you in great shape
3. Healthy alternative to snacking
4. Tastiest protein drink out there (but we’re a bit biased)
5. Packed full of goodness on the go

I can hear you all screaming through the computer screen right now – “where do I go to buy upbeat?”

Well here is the answer! As I said before you find it in the dairy aisle of:

Tesco Extras and Superstores

Holland & Barrett

Waitrose

And online at:

Ocado

Tesco.com

I am certain that this is going to be a great product and they will be selling in more and more shops in the future, but you should all have a local shop from the list above to go and buy it from!

It is such a cute little bottle too! Handy to just grab from the fridge and chuck into your bag to have as a snack to pick you up or for breakfast to get you going for the day! I would really recommend trying a bottle or two!