Interesting facts about lemonade

Lemonade is a sweetened lemon-flavored beverage.

There are varieties of lemonade found throughout the world.

In North America and South Asia, cloudy lemonade dominates.

It is traditionally a homemade drink using lemon juice, water, and a sweetener such as cane sugar, simple syrup or honey.

In the United Kingdom and Australia, clear lemonade, a carbonated drink, is more common.

Pink lemonade is a variant of lemonade made with the same ingredients as traditional lemonade but with an added ingredient such as red food dye, strawberry, cranberry or other fruit juice to give it its pink color.

The origin of the word “lemon” may be Middle Eastern. The word draws from the Old French limon, then Italian limone, from the Arabic laymūn or līmūn, and from the Persian līmūn, a generic term for citrus fruit, which is a cognate of Sanskrit – nimbū meaning “lime”.

The suffix “-ade” may also be applied to other similar drinks made with different fruits, such as limeade, orangeade, or cherryade.

The origin of the lemon is unknown, though lemons are thought to have first grown in Assam (a region in northeast India), northern Burma or China.

Lemons entered Europe near southern Italy no later than the 2nd century AD, during time of Ancient Rome.

They were introduced to Persia and then to Iraq and Egypt around 700 AD.

The lemon was introduced into Spain and North Africa sometime between the years 1000 and 1200 AD. It was further distributed through Europe by the Crusaders, who found it growing in Palestine.

A drink made with lemons, dates, and honey was consumed in 13th and 14th century Egypt, including a lemon juice drink with sugar, known as qatarmizat.

Lemonade made its way to Europe via the Ottoman Empire.

Lemonade debuted in Paris on August 20, 1630. Made of sparkling water, lemon juice and honey, vendors sold it from tanks strapped to their backs.

By the mid-17th century, Rome and Paris were vying with one another to become the lemonade capitals of the world.

While popular across Europe, lemonade became so fashionable in Paris that in 1676 the vendors incorporated and formed a union called the Compagnie de Limonadiers. The lemonade craze even helped Paris fend off the plague.

Britain’s contribution to the lemonade craze came by way of chemist Joseph Priestley who invented an apparatus for making carbonated water. By the 1780s, Johann Schweppe, a German-Swiss jeweler, had developed a new method of carbonation using a compression pump that made mass production more efficient. By the 1830s, ready availability of Schweppes fizzy lemonade had stymied the growth of Europe’s lemonade stands.

From 1877-1881, the White House banned alcohol from all state dinners and other functions. Although President Rutherford B. Hayes made the decision himself as a way to court the Prohibition Party, critics of the ban dubbed his wife Lucy, a renowned teetotaler, “Lemonade Lucy” and the moniker stuck.

Interestingly, the circus played a relevant role in the fascinating history of lemonade. The first record that linked the circus to the pink lemonade comes from the 1879 West Virginia’s Wheeling Register. Circus tradition has different stories on how its lemonade turned pink, but two of them were found most feasible by historians. A 1912 story says that a contract worker “invents” the pink lemonade when he unintentionally drops red cinnamon candies into a large vessel of regular lemonade. Because the show must go on, he serves the pink lemonade and the people consumes them eagerly.

Since lemonade is made from freshly squeezed lemons, it is very healthy and good for you.

The health benefits of lemons are due to its many nutritious elements like vitamin C, vitamin B6, vitamin A, vitamin E, folate, niacin thiamin, riboflavin, pantothenic acid, copper, calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, zinc, phosphorus and protein. Lemon also contains flavonoids, which are composites that contain antioxidant and cancer fighting properties. It helps prevent diabetes, constipation, high blood pressure, fever, indigestion, as well as improve the skin, hair, and teeth.

Studies conducted at the American Urological Association highlight the fact that lemonade or lemon juice can eliminate the occurrence of kidney stones by forming urinary citrate, which prevents the formation of crystals.

Lemons have powerful antibacterial properties – experiments have found the juice of lemons destroy the bacteria of malaria, cholera, diphtheria, typhoid and other deadly diseases.

According to The Reams Biological Ionization Theory (RBTI), the lemon is the ONLY food in the world that is anionic (an ion with a negative charge). All other foods are cationic (the ion has a positive charge.) This makes it extremely useful to health as it is the interaction between anions and cations that ultimately provides all cell energy.

The longest line of lemonade stands consisted of 349 stands and was achieved by BPS and Beverly Elementary School (USA) in Beverly Hills, Michigan, USA, on 20 August 2011.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade is a proverbial phrase used to encourage optimism and a positive can-do attitude in the face of adversity or misfortune. Lemons suggest sourness or difficulty in life – making lemonade is turning them into something positive or desirable.