Food For Thought: Tea Is A Satisfying Part Of A Healthy Diet
News Canada

(NC)Tea news continues to stir the pot in Canada. Records show we drink as many as 7 billion cups of tea each year and those who study it as a dietary factor are now telling us not to put on the brakes. Both black tea and green tea contain antioxidant plant compounds called flavonoids, which are thought to be important cancer fighting agents. This, combined with its potential benefits against heart disease plus zero calories and comparatively low levels of caffeine is a sound reason to treat oneself to one or more cups of tea every day.

And while those who drink the 7 billion cups don’t seem to need advice, still connoisseurs insist on preparation precision to make the “tea treat” even better. Here, courtesy of the Tea Association of Canada, is a 5-step process for the perfect cup of tea:

Make A Perfect Cup of Tea

1. Start with fresh-drawn cold water and bring it to a rolling boil.

2. Warm the teapot to help keep your tea hot longer.

3. Use one teabag for each two cups of tea desired. Be sure to choose a quality blend.

4. When the water has boiled, take the warmed teapot to the kettle and pour over the teabags. Stir, cover and let steep for 3 to 5 minutes.

5. Remove teabags and pour.

And don’t forget, you can get a perfect cup of tea when on the run too. In a restaurant, ask for your pot of boiling water with the “tea bag in”. Always allow your tea, no matter where you are, to steep for at least three to five minutes. Indeed, continuously dunking the tea bag may increase the flavonoid content as much as five times.

Remember, in addition to antioxidant properties, tea is an all-natural beverage with no additives, artificial flavourings or colours. It has no calories when enjoyed without milk, sugar or honey. Here are a few innovative ways to include tea in your daily meals:

At breakfast, discover how delicious a bran muffin can be with your favourite blend like Orange Pekoe, Earl Grey and English Breakfast and many more.

At lunch, use tea to flavour dressings on fruit, green, and pasta salads.

At dinner, use brewed tea as a marinade for chicken or fish and also to stir-fry vegetables. Try ice cream flavoured with a splash of tea.

At snack time, discover how green tea is an ideal refresher.

More information is available online at www.tea.ca.

– News Canada

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There are so many different diets to lose weight out there that trying to figure out the best one for you is absolutely mind-boggling. There’s the milk diet and the chocolate diet and the soup diet and other extreme diets that will help you lose weight, some very quickly, but, they just do not teach you how to eat better for the rest of your life.

One of the best diets to lose weight is not a diet at all. It is a lifestyle change. If you just make some simple changes with the types of food you eat, watch your portion sizes and get a little exercise everyday you will lose weight.

Here are some simple guidelines. If you drink a lot of pop, stop. Switch to water or green tea. If you switch to green tea get the flavored stuff, it just tastes better. Flavor your water with a little lemon or lime juice. Not only will this give the water some flavor, citrus is a natural diuretic and will help with any and all water weight you have.

If you eat out a lot, stop. Start cooking for yourself more. If you do not consider yourself a good cook then learn a few simple meals and practice. The more you do it the better you will get. Eat a lot of salads, too. They are easy to make, you can just go buy a bag of pre-washed salad greens and add what you want. Throw in 3 ounces of grilled chicken breast, canned tuna or salmon fillet and you have a great meal.

A secret…try a Greek, raspberry or balsamic vinaigrette. They are all very low in carbs just be sure to measure out the correct serving size. A little vinaigrette goes a long way. Or learn to make your own low-fat, low-carb salad dressing. It is totally up to you.

Eat five or six small meals a day. This may seem like a real big pain in the backside but if you plan things out and do it right it will make putting these meals together a snap. Just cook a bunch of chicken all at once and portion it out or buy the small cans of tuna. They are already three ounces, hey, look ma, no measuring!

Keep the already portioned chicken in the freezer and just thaw it out in the microwave when you need it. I would not recommend pre-cooking fish though, it takes no time to cook and is much better if you eat it right after it is cooked.

If you eat a lot of bad carbs, stop. Bad carbs come in the form of all the processed food you see on the shelves at the market. Breads, cereals, anything made from white, flour, white sugar, and even white rice are all considered to be bad carbs. all they do it raise your blood sugar and then add to the fat around your middle.

Like I said, making small changes in the way you eat and what you eat is one of the best diets to lose weight that I have found. Follow these tips and you will soon be losing weight, too.

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The best way to loose weight is to stop trying to wish it away and just get busy. Get off your duff and get moving. Learn to eat better. Learn about nutrition online and stop eating all the bad carbs and drinking pop.

Did you know that if you just stop drinking all the sugary pop and stick to drinking water you can lose approximately 38 pounds in a year? That’s right, 38 pounds. Fix your water up with some flavorings to keep it more palatable or drink some homemade green tea. They make some great blends with two of the best superfruits, Acai and pomegranate.

Basically, the best way to loose weight is to watch what you eat and get more exercise. If you do the exact opposite of what you have been doing, eating whatever you want and not exercising much, if at all, then you will start to lose weight. There is no way you can’t lose weight if you just reverse the order of things.

You may or may not have heard the saying, “A body at rest tends to stay at rest and a body in motion tends to stay in motion.” The more you move the more your body will want to move and the easier it will get as time goes on.

If it’s been a while since you have done any physical exercise, getting started will be a little difficult. You will hurt and may not be able to go very far. So just start out slowly. I don’t care if it just a five minute walk, if you do it everyday for a week then you will be able to go a little farther the next week.

Then, before you know it, you will be up to your thirty minutes or even longer. Then you could think about other forms of exercise like riding a bike, or jogging, or playing tennis, or even swimming.

The weight loss industry is huge (no pun intended) and instead of spending all your hard earned cash on the newest fad diet or one of those expensive plans you should just make the commitment to yourself and get out there and get moving.

Make up a new meal plan to go by as well. You can get lots of good ideas online. Just do some research and find a good meal plan to follow. Once you start eating better your body will start to change for the better and you will be happy with the results.

The more effort you put forward the better and quicker the results will be as well. Track your progress in a journal and take before during and after pictures of yourself to see visual proof of your progress. You will also start to see the difference in how your clothes fit. Once you use this best way to loose weight, and have success, you will be able to treat yourself to a whole new wardrobe.

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While they look and taste different, both black and green teas come from the same plant. The only difference among all true teas is how they are processed. For example, black tea is allowed to ferment, and it’s the fermentation process that gives it its color. Organic green tree is harvested and then dried before fermentation can occur.

One thing that surprises a lot of people is that many jurisdictions have no legal requirements for the use of the term ‘organic’. That means you could be buying something that isn’t organic at all, even though it is labeled as ‘organic green tea’. It’s possible that you are getting regular tea that was grown with the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Unfortunately, some manufacturers use the word ‘organic’ so they can charge more.

Your best bet is to only purchase organic green tea from trusted sources. Another thing that helps is to read anything the company has to support its claim of being organic. You want tea that hasn’t been treated with chemicals. The problem is that there can be trace amounts of these chemicals left on the tea leaves. You wouldn’t want to drink a cup of pesticides, so why take chances having any on your tea?

Organic green tea has the benefit of not being overly processed, and that traps in more of the leaves’ nutrients. Many people also find the aroma and taste to be more pleasing than black tea, which is sharper. That being said, all tea is good for you in some way, so it is often just a matter of preference. However, there are some things to consider before choosing which type you want to drink.

It just so happens that there are many health benefits to drinking green tea. Inhibiting the growth of cancer cells, burning fat, reducing cholesterol, regulating blood sugar levels, boosting metabolism, improved blot clotting and strengthening the immune system are just some of the health benefits that have been attributed to drinking green tea.

You may have to skip drinking tea if you are sensitive to caffeine, or have a health condition that prevents you from drinking it. Other than that, green tea is generally recognized as safe and is consumed by people all around the world. It has also been enjoyed for centuries, and is engrained in the cultures of many countries.

As long as you are drinking tea, it may as well be organic green tea. After all, you wouldn’t want to take any chances of making your health worse by consuming unknown chemicals. Drinking tea the way nature intended makes the most sense, and will give you all of the benefits Mother Nature intended.

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