Mocktails

I have a few friends coming for New Year and one is about six months pregnant so i was going to make up a mocktail or two for her - any suggestions?

I tried a delicious honey, ginger and mint mocktail once -really refreshing and I didn't miss the alcohol!

That sounds really nice. I had a cherry fizz mocktail that was refreshing, it had ginger ale and cherry juice concentrate in. Think that might be a lot of sugar, which isn't too healthy, but better than alcohol

That sounds really nice. We made a few mocktails over Christmas - they all had a fair bit of grenadine in though - so not so healthy.

Yes that's the trouble really. They can be very sugary in replacement for the flavours of alcohol.

Is sugar or alcohol worse for you?

I guess it depends on how much alcohol you are drinking and how you respond to it. I've heard sugar does more damage to organs in the short term than alcohol, but alcohol in large quantities can obviously be harmful because of how it affects your behaviour - for instance it puts you at higher risk of accidents and violence amongst other things. However, alcohol (such as red wine) can be good for your health in moderation, whereas there are no health benefits of consuming sugar.

Seems like a mixed bag then, i never realised that sugar was so harmful. 

Yeah sugar's really bad for your body - it is really damaging to the kidneys and can also lead to heart attacks and stroke, a suppressed immune system, increased risk of cancer, poor eyesight, yeast infections, premature ageing, arthritis and asthma (to name a few things). It can also affect the liver in a similar way as alcohol, leading to fatty liver disease.

The effects of sugar can be reduced to a point though, as long as you're burning the energy off with an active job or exercise. It also depends which sugars you're eating, some of them are natural and good for you, it's the refined stuff you're looking to avoid.

Yes I was talking about refined sugar. The effects of sugar on your weight can be reduced by burning off energy, but that won't change its effects on your organs.

According to today's news sugar is both as addictive and as harmful as both alcohol and smoking!

No way. I consume so much sugar but I justify this by not drinking or smoking! Doh!

I'm not that surprised, I think it'd be easier for me to cut out alcohol than it would be to cut out chocolate and cakes!

Definately the other way round for me. There are some great mocktails but they just aren't the same, just from the taste perspective. My favourite cocktails are never ones full of juice and really long they are the short boozy ones that you cannot find a replacment for in the world of mocktails. Same with beer - alcohol free beer is rubbish and of course I don't think anyone has ever attempted non-aloholic wine.

Alcohol-free lager always smells like cannabis to me. Yuck. Non-alcoholic wine is dodgy, schloer is probably the best 'substitute' wine and much better than alcohol-free proper stuff, it's just posh fizzy pop.

Great "mocktail" from epicurious - shanghai rose in my Amateur mixologist group. Can't profess to the healthiness but it's damn tasty! 

The 'Shanghai Rose' sounds very complicated to make, but very tasty!

I think it's really hard to find nice mocktails when you're out. I've had them in a couple of places but they never have much variety and are ridiculously overpriced - doesn't do much to help people cut down on alcohol!

It's terrible how expensive they are for just some juice. they often charge as much as the alcoholic drinks