I’ve always known that lemon juice was a good liver cleanser, and for a while I was in the habit of drinking lemon juice-spiked water first thing in the morning. But then it got a bit boring, and I fell out of the routine. Until now! I recently discovered a way of making lemon water delicious, fun and extra healthy. It does take a bit of effort (you have to be prepared to use and wash a blender), but isn’t that true of most worthwhile things?

This recipe comes courtesy of Dr. Brenda Walding of The Paleo Secret, and I love it. It involves using whole lemons—pith, zest and all—which I was a bit worried about until I read this page and this page. To summarize: the essential oil in lemon zest is great for your skin, and the bioflavonoids in the pith are good for “elasticity of blood vessels and capillaries, but also for fighting allergies, inflammations and even cancer.” To which I can only say, Go pith! (Couldn’t resist that. When I was growing up in the U.K., there were a million Monty Python-esque jokes about ‘taking the pith.’)

I’ve dubbed this Metabolistic Lemon ‘Milk’ because (as you’ll see from the picture at the top), it comes out looking like buttermilk, and because Dr. Walding touts it as a metabolism-booster. Actually, when I Googled ‘lemon’ and ‘metabolism,’ there was no consensus on whether lemon boosts metabolism, but water does, and lemon is cleansing and PH-balancing, so you can’t really lose here.

Ok, enough talk—here’s the recipe.

Metabolistic Lemon ‘Milk’

½ lemon (since you’re using the whole fruit, organic is desirable)

2 cups filtered water

1 tablespoon good quality extra virgin olive oil

Sweetener to taste (I use monkfruit sugar, but agave, maple syrup or honey all work)

Optional: a small chunk of fresh ginger

Wash the lemon and cut it into bite-size pieces. Put these in the blender along with the other ingredients, and blend on high power until everything is pulverized. Strain through a fine mesh sieve, admire your handiwork and drink! (If you’re the kind of person who likes ‘extra pulp’ orange juice, you can also drink it without straining it.)

The taste is surprisingly mild, not aggressively lemony. I can imagine varying up this recipe by adding in other ingredients, like fresh parsley or a few drops of vanilla. But for now I’m happy with this set of ingredients—and you know what they say. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.