As POPSUGAR editors, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. If you buy a product we have recommended, we may receive affiliate commission, which in turn supports our work.
To say I was a kid who loved coffee would be an understatement. I was obsessed with it. During the summers I ordered Frappuccinos with loads of whipped cream on top. In the wintertime, it was Dunkaccinos from Dunkin Donuts, the hot chocolate-coffee hybrid that tasted like it was straight out of a dream. When other tweens were drinking soda and chocolate milk during lunchtime, I somehow managed to get my hands on the chilled "to-go" beverages from Starbucks — you know the ones that came in the glass bottle? Yes, I was hooked.
However, all of this changed during college. It was just around the time that I graduated from Mocha Frappuccino to Caramel Macchiato with soy milk that I started feeling coffee's negative effects. The caffeine made me jittery, anxious, and unfocussed — symptoms that only intensified if I drank it on an empty stomach. I knew I needed to make a change and quick.
One day while walking around Whole Foods in a cranky, caffeinated haze, I came across a glass case full of ginger shots. I decided on a whim that this is what I would replace my coffee with, and I've never looked back. Here are all the ways it improved my health and my life.