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Daily Mirror
5 days ago
- Lifestyle
- Daily Mirror
Tesco and M&S shoppers ditch wine for 'best flavour' 9 calorie drink loved by Sophie Habboo
TRIP's Wild Strawberry become the biggest food and drink release in Europe on TikTok Shop - now, shoppers can save 55% on the tipple It's not at all uncommon for many Brits to pour a glass of wine or grab a beer after a long day at work. However, a new supermarket beverage has seen shoppers ditch the booze in favour of an alcohol-free alternative - and we've found a way to get it better than half-price. TRIP is a brand that's been gaining traction for their sparkling beverages, with influencers and celebrities such as Sophie Habboo, Millie Mackintosh and Grace Beverley all heaping praise on the alcohol-free tipple. And the newest flavour, Wild Strawberry, is already generating buzz on social media. Coming in a pastel-pink can, it's been hailed 'gorgeous' and 'refreshing', particularly for summer. Many have said it's helped them to cut down on their weekly alcohol intake, too, making it ideal for designated drivers, sober-curious shoppers or anyone looking for a low-calorie alternative to alcohol this summer. Made with sparkling water, fermented grape juice concentrate and fruit juices, each can of the Wild Strawberry beverage contains nine calories - significantly less than a can of Coca-Cola, which contains 139. It's also infused with magnesium and botanicals like lion's mane, lemon balm, and chamomile, designed to help drinkers wind down and relax. While available at major supermarkets such as Sainsbury's, Tesco, Waitrose, M&S, Selfridges, TRIP is currently offering customers 55% off their multipacks on their own website. Usually £48 for a pack of 24, shoppers who use the code SUMMER55 can bag them for £23.76 when they subscribe and save, which is less than £1 per can. TRIP Wild Strawberry Product Description Elsewhere, Dash sparkling water has launched a new cherry flavour and customers can get 12 cans for £15.99 or £12.99 on subscription. The two calorie drink is made using wonky cherries with no sugar or sweeteners for a healthy soft drink that's refreshing and 'delicious'. Alternatively, there's the cheekily named G Spot, produced by a company founded by Sex Education actress and 'Want' author Gillian Anderson. They're said to be a 'clean, bold alternative to sugary energy drinks'. The caffeine-free, low sugar sparkling blend is made with botanicals designed to help reduce tiredness and fatigue. As well as having a hefty discount, TRIP has teamed up with the mental wellbeing app, Calm. Shoppers can unlock a free three-month Calm membership, delivering access to sleep stories, meditations, and breathing exercises. It's pretty safe to say that the new flavour has proven popular, becoming the biggest food and drink release in Europe on TikTok Shop and becoming the number one selling drink on the platform. It's also been racking up a number of reviews on the TRIP website, with one comment reading: 'Lovely flavour and helps me relax in the evenings instead of a couple of glasses of wine.' 'Love this flavour, tastes of strawberry but isn't sickly like a lot of strawberry flavoured things,' said another, while a third added: 'Such a summery taste, so refreshing and chilled me out on a beautiful sunny day.' One person commented on how it's 'Not a very strong strawberry taste' saying that it was 'quite weak'. But others disagree, with one saying it was the 'best flavour yet'. Another wrote: 'My favourite TRIP so far - tastes delicious, with a really natural flavour. Helps me unwind before bed - no need for a glass of wine now.' A Trustpilot reviewer complained about the cost, commenting: 'The drinks taste great but are expensive if not on sale or special offer. Delivery was very slow.' Another shopper said: 'Having tried the other flavours of Mindful Blend drinks, this one is by far my favourite. So thirst quenching and amazing for summer instead of alcohol. I've cut down my alcohol intake massively thanks to Mindful Blend and I'm so happy I now have a new flavour I can add to my fridge.' Celebrities, too, have been enjoying the drink. In fact, Sophie Habboo loved the brand so much with a can often in her hand during her Wednesdays podcast, that last year she invested into TRIP. She told her followers: 'I've been a huge fan of TRIP for a while now - @wednesdayspodcast listeners you will have seen me with a TRIP in my hand long before they reached out about working together. Their drinks are a game-changer, bringing calm and balance into busy days.' Millie Mackintosh is also a fan, having shared a video of the new Wild Strawberry earlier this month. She described them as: 'Refreshing, slightly tart, and exactly what I want on a hot day when I'm not drinking but still want something that feels a bit special.'
Perth Now
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Gillian Anderson will never quit acting
Gillian Anderson will never quit acting to focus on her other projects. 'The X-Files' star has ventured into other areas in recent years - releasing a number of books and launching her own drinks company called G Spot - but Gillian is adamant she won't be stepping away from the screen because she never "gives up" on anything even if it seems too "hard". When asked if she plans to step away from acting, she told The Sunday Times newspaper: "No … there have been other things where I've thought, 'Oh my God, this is too hard. If I'd known this was this hard, I probably wouldn't have ventured into it'." She went on to admit setting up her drinks company was a major challenge, but she refuses to give up on it. She added: "If I'd known that having a drinks company was as full-on a job as it is, I probably would have said no, thank you. "But it is what it is and I don't give up." Gillian released a book called 'Want' in 2024 which was a collection of women's sexual fantasies and she's currently working on a follow-up. She recently urged women to send in their submissions for book number two. Gillian was quoted by the Guardian newspaper as saying: "Whether you're the Queen of Kink or have never been kissed, whether you've read 'Want' cover to cover, or are just hearing about it now, I want to hear your favourite fantasies – and this time, I want to hear it all." Those wishing to contribute to the book have until May 23 to submit their essay. 'Want: Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous' collated 174 contributions after Gillian asked people to "tell me what you think about sex". She split £500 ($665) for every letter that made it into the book between two charities - Women for Women International, which provides support and education for women in 17 countries who have suffered the impact of conflict, and War Child, which aims to give children affected by war a "safe future". Donations will also be made to charity for contributions to the second book. Gillian was inspired to launch the project by Nancy Friday's 1973 tome 'My Secret Garden: Women's Sexual Fantasies', which also collected women's fantasies through letters, as well as tapes and one-on-one interviews.
Telegraph
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Powdered mushrooms are being touted as an elixir of life. Now M&S has jumped on the bandwagon
They are said to improve focus, enhance relaxation and even do wonders for your skin. Perhaps it is little wonder, then, that the likes of Marks & Spencer and pop star Ellie Goulding are muscling in on the latest supplement craze – ' functional mushrooms '. Demand for the mushrooms – which sellers and wellness influencers claim provide a range of health benefits beyond mere nutrition – is booming, with the market already worth billions of pounds. Species including lion's mane, cordyceps, turkey tail and chaga are among those touted as offering transformational results, supposedly helping to alleviate stress, fatigue and anxiety. Seemingly keen not to miss out on the buzz, M&S has become the 'first' to sell an own-label range of this kind – named 'YAY! Mushrooms' – with fungi varieties appearing in nine products including powders, canned vanilla lattes and 'cold pressed dosing shots'. It will count a number of A-listers among its competitors, including Goulding. The singer, who performed at the Prince and Princess of Wales's wedding, has launched 'Everystate', a range of ground fungi blends (which are to be mixed with water and drank) that will be stocked at the likes of Daylesford. She joins the likes of Gillian Anderson, whose 'G Spot' drinks line features cordyceps and chaga; Gisele Bundchen, an ambassador for Gaia Herbs (which sells lion's mane supplements), Bear Grylls – backer of mushroom beverage brand 'DIRTEA' – Jo Wood, whose eponymous organic range includes turkey tail tablets, and Patrick Schwarzenegger, who offers up fungi-laden 'MOSH' protein bars. The ingredients' A-list cachet is such that searches for 'functional' mushrooms – a term used to denote health benefits that transcend nutrition – are up a third on last year, says Blanca Spencer Moreno, Ocado's healthy lifestyles buyer. Numbers of those seeking lion's mane mushrooms have swelled by 252 per cent over the same period. 'In response to this increase in customer interest, we have increased our range by over 50 per cent in the last six months,' Spencer Moreno says. While the craze is new, the use of mushrooms as a wellness product is anything but. Used in ancient medicine for thousands of years (around 450 BCE, Hippocrates identified that the amadou mushroom could reduce inflammation; Chinese medical texts dating back to 206BC highlight reishi as an anti-ageing tonic), wellness brands tout their ability to restore focus and relieve stress. All can be eaten, though supplements can provide more concentrated amounts of the desired compounds than if you were to slice them into a stroganoff. Though the buzz is fervent – the global adaptogenic mushroom market hit £23.7 billion in 2023, according to Grand View Research, and is expected to rise by a further 11.2 per cent each year to 2030 – human data remains limited. A Northumbria University study of 41 adults in 2023, for instance, showed that lion's mane (or Hericium erinaceus) 'may improve speed of performance and reduce subjective stress in healthy, young adults' – but concluded that 'it is crucial that further investigation is conducted employing larger sample sizes'. Some compounds, such as PSK (or polysaccharide-K, present in turkey tail) are used as an adjunct cancer treatment to chemotherapy in Japan, though have yet to become a mainstream fixture elsewhere. Lion's mane, reishi, chaga, turkey tail and cordyceps have never featured in any medicines licensed in the UK. 'The evidence behind lion's mane and reishi mushrooms is pretty shaky,' says Dr Emily Leeming, a nutritionist and author of Genius Gut: the Life-Changing Science of Eating for Your Second Brain. 'A very small handful of studies hint that lion's mane might help with mood or focus, but they're poorly designed, only done in a small number of people, and very likely affected by the placebo effect.' The same is true of reishi, she adds. 'Most of the hype is around supporting the immune system, and potential cancer benefits come from lab and animal studies, not strong human research. These mushrooms may have mild effects, but the claims are way ahead of the science – we need much better research first.' Last year, Which?, the consumer advocacy group, ranked functional mushrooms on a list of 'health products you don't need' – but that hasn't affected their market hype. You can buy 51 lion's mane products at Holland & Barrett, from coffee to ginger shots and capsules; 38 cite reishi. Jewellery designer Ruth Mary Chipperfield had never heard of lion's mane until last year, when 'it was recommended to me by a nutritionist. I was a bit dubious but thought I would give it a go.' Taking one to two 1000mg tablets on work days left the 35-year-old feeling a 'fair amount calmer and able to focus better', and reduced her anxiety and restlessness. She has since switched from tablets to powder, which she mixes with water, and adds that the overall results have been 'life-changing', because 'all these little adjustments really add up… By investing in my health, it's an investment in my business. I would say it has given me an extra hour's worth of productivity a day.' Many of the products sold only contain minimal amounts of the fungi plastered across their packaging (a 2017 study showed that of 19 'reishi' products being sold in the US, only a quarter of the ingredients actually matched what was in the label). But to many, that doesn't matter, says Tom Baxter, the founder of the Bristol Fungarium, which farms, researches and sells mushrooms. 'The placebo is a real thing. And if people buy it believing Ellie Goulding, or [believing] that it's going to help them, 30 per cent of the time, people probably will get some benefit from it.' (Studies have suggested that the placebo effect can improve outcomes for certain medical conditions around one third of the time.) This is 'one of the reasons why the supplement industry is a bit of a winner', he adds of a market that is set to near-double within the decade. Useful for their coffers too is that mushroom supplements are far easier for our bodies to break down than if we were to grind and consume them ourselves, he says, as 'the vast majority of those compounds are just going to pass straight through you'. While Baxter, who founded his Somerset business in 2019, firmly believes in the potential health benefits of mushrooms, he acknowledges that there is still much to learn. 'We're trying to find out what the evidence is, what compounds are responsible for the outcomes that people are seeing and counting how many of those [compounds] we have in our products in order to get some vague idea on whether or not we're snake oil salesmen,' he says. Bristol Fungarium grows more than two and a half tonnes of mushrooms a month, with half of their revenue coming from lion's mane products. 'We're personally seeing maybe 50 per cent year-on-year growth, over the last few years, without any advertising spend,' says Baxter. This year, they are on track for over £2 million in sales. He acknowledges there is a 'false equivalence' that is 'slightly hazardous' between pharmaceutical-grade mushroom compounds and pastel-hued wellness products. Still, the trend shows no sign of slowing. Like turmeric and matcha lattes before them, mushrooms are already appearing in skincare lines, across hipster café menus and ready-to-drink cans, with more marketing opportunities inevitably on the horizon. 'We anticipate that customer demand for functional mushrooms will continue to grow and this is driving increased innovation within the space, with the emergence of many interesting new products and producers across different categories,' says Spencer Moreno. 'We're actively expanding our range at Ocado to include more products and formats, to meet this evolving customer need.' Expect a permanent slot in the chilled aisle at Pret and a Dubai chocolate -style mushroom bar on shelves near you soon.
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
German foreign minister recalls personal experience of sexual assault
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has revealed a personal experience of sexual assault, saying she could recall the incident "vividly" decades after it took place. In a podcast released on Wednesday, Baerbock said the #MeToo movement had prompted her to reflect on her own encounters with sexual harassment. The foreign minister told the "G Spot mit Stefanie Giesinger" podcast that she remembered an incident that happened while she was on a bus during her school years. Baerbock said an older man touched her on the leg. She was so shocked that she was unable to get off the bus for another five stops. The episode was so shocking that she did not tell her mother about it. "I can still see it so vividly in my mind, although I had actually completely forgotten about it." The 44-year-old said she felt ashamed after the incident, and insisted that "shame must swap sides." Baerbock, whose Greens are fourth in the polls ahead of the German election on Sunday, said that she has experienced many similar incidents in her life, and that it was important to talk about them. In the podcast, the minister also spoke about feminist foreign policy and her path into politics.
