Showing posts with label antioxidants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label antioxidants. Show all posts

Sunday, December 14, 2008

The Health Benefits of Drinking Green Tea and Coffee

The Chinese have used green tea to treat disease for many centuries. Today, Western culture is beginning to appreciate the benefits of green tea.
Recent research has revealed some of the health benefits of using green tea including the possible prevention of rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular disease, cataracts and even cancer.
Studies have shown that drinking green tea helps you burn more calories. Green tea aids weight loss programs.
Green tea can help fight food poisoning, as well. It also helps kill bacteria that cause plaque and subsequent tooth decay. This gives your immune system a boost.

One of the best benefits of green tea is its ability to fight bacteria.
In addition, green tea can help lower blood sugar and cholesterol. It even helps slow the aging process!
Why is green tea so beneficial? It has to do with the way it is processed.
Steaming the leaves keeps the antioxidants intact. Fermenting oxidizes the antioxidants in the leaves and renders the antioxidant much less effective. Black tea and oolong tea are fermented, but green tea is steamed.
One thing is certain: more is better, so drink as many cups as you like! Recommendations vary from 3 to 10 cups a day. How much green tea do you need to reap all of the great benefits?
Even though green tea has lots of great benefits, many of us are not about to give up our morning cup of coffee. Guess what? No problem!
You will be glad to hear that new studies have shown there are some healthy benefits of coffee drinking.
Coffee seems to offset some of the damage caused by bad habits such as smoking or heavy drinking. Some smokers who also drink coffee have been shown to have less heart disease than other smokers. Some heavy drinkers who also drink coffee regularly have less incidence of liver damage than expected.
Besides the caffeine in coffee, there are other ingredients that are beneficial to our health.
Coffee contains antioxidants including quinines, chlorogenic acid and tocopherols as well as essential minerals such as magnesium. All of these aid glucose metabolism and may, as a result, reduce the risk of diabetes.
Animal studies published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry suggest coffee antioxidants boost the activity of enzymes which may protect against colon cancer.
Trigonelline is another beneficial ingredient in coffee which may help prevent tooth decay. Other benefits of coffee include reducing the risk of Parkinson's disease, helping relieve asthma symptoms and tension headaches, and inhibiting the formation of gallstones.
Now you can enjoy your morning brew with no sense of guilt!

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Cooking with Green Tea

Green tea has a very distinct flavor that many enjoy and cannot be easily emulated by anything but green tea itself. The other reason would be flavor. In fact most Asian countries have used green tea for cooking purposes for these very reasons.

It lowers cholesterol, is high in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Well green tea is filled with a wide array of health benefits. Recently it has become popular to cook with such a thing.
This is why loose leaf tea is generally recommended. The stronger the tea is the more flavor and color will remain in the end product. When you do this keep in mind that you want the green tea to be strong.

This is probably the best way for someone who is experimenting with a recipe or this style of cooking. A very simple way is to substitute the water in a recipe with brewed green tea (at room temperature or as specified by the recipe). So now the big question, "How do I cook with green tea?" Well as I said earlier it's really very easy to do.
You may be surprised to find several already available. Simply go online and search for "green tea" and your favorite recipe. I see new ones popping up every day. You may also just want to look for green tea recipes.
A lot of green tea recipes will ask for green tea powder or matcha. This is ground up green tea leaves. Matcha specifically is ground up Gyokuro leaves and is used for tea ceremony purposes. You will find matcha generally more expensive than green tea powder, which can be made from almost any green tea. However you may find matcha worth the extra price for those specially recipes.
If you have never done it, I recommend buying green tea powder or matcha and trying it on some of your favorite recipes. You will find it amazing how much color and flavor one teaspoon of this stuff can provide.
John Newman is an author for Teanobi.com.
http://www.teanobi.com
Matcha

Monday, November 3, 2008

Arthritis - New Hope from Green Tea

As anyone who has -- or knows someone who has -- Rheumatoid Arthritis, it can prevent the sufferer from leading a normal life. It is a condition of unknown cause that can vary in intensity from a short, self-limiting illness to a long term, progressively worsening illness. Initially, treatments are light, aiming to remedy joint stiffness and inflammation. In the chronic cases, the inflammation can become worse, requiring a whole range of treatments including steroids, joint replacement and fusion ok bones. The joints of the body can become deformed and strength dwindles, leaving the sufferer unable to open even a bottle of milk or turn on a tap. You have good days and you have bad days.
So keeping a diary of foods may help to pinpoint what triggers the bad days. Even if someone is only mildly allergic to dairy, this can cause antioxidant levels to fall, antibodies are produced in response and these, for whatever reason, attack the joints. Rheumatoid arthritis occurs predominantly in developed countries where a large part of the diet is animal and the aforementioned dairy produce. Certain foods are thought to exacerbate Rheumatoid Arthritis, for example, dairy produce.

"You are what you eat" is a cliché, but very true.
So, if food seems to be the trigger, reducing dairy foods and increasing antioxidants in your diet may help. But how to get more antioxidants? The tastiest ways are probably to eat plenty of fresh vegetables and drink a few cups of green tea each day. Why is green tea better than 'normal' tea? The tea that most westerners are used to is black tea. Whilst that is a better for you than coffee, it is not as beneficial as green tea. The reason? Black tea has been fermented; green tea has not, thus leaving the key chemicals intact.
The study indicated that the mice who had been given the Each of the mice was then injected with collagen, making them vulnerable to a condition very similar to human Rheumatoid Arthritis. The doses were about equivalent to a human drinking 3-4 cups of green tea per day. Mice studied by the Cleveland researchers were fed either plain water or water enriched with green tea polyphenols.

A research team from Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio has focused on the effect of these polyphenols in Rheumatoid arthritis. Polyphenols (antioxidants found in green tea) possess much more potent antioxidant activity than well-known antioxidants such as vitamin C and vitamin E. Studies in mice suggest that green tea antioxidants may have a powerful effect in reducing the incidence and severity of Rheumatoid Arthritis. Studies in mice suggest that green tea can actually benefit Arthritis sufferers? Studies in mice suggest that green tea can actually benefit Arthritis sufferers?

Studies in mice suggest that green tea can actually benefit Arthritis sufferers? Studies in mice suggest that green tea can actually benefit Arthritis sufferers? Studies in mice suggest that green tea can actually benefit Arthritis sufferers? But what evidence is there that green tea can actually benefit Arthritis sufferers?
"An increase of just one cup a day could prove invaluable in the fight against gum disease," said the British Dental Health Foundation Tea contains tannin fluoride which appears to help prevent plaque. In a Japanese study, tea without sugar has been found to be good for teeth and gums. In 1991 there were just 153 studies on tea, while in 1998 there were 625 published papers. A previous Dutch investigation of more than 800 men between 65 and 84 showed that drinking even more tea - between three and four cups a day - decreased risk of death from coronary heart disease by 58%.

Flavanoids are thought to neutralise the effect of free radicals, highly reactive molecules that travel round the body causing damaging chemical reactions to cells, including those in the heart tissues. This health benefit is thought to come from flavanoids, a type of antioxidant found in all types of tea. There are other benefits too - in another study in the US it has been shown that drinking at least one cup of green tea per day can reduce the risk of heart attack by 44%.

Friday, August 29, 2008

Green Tea And Some Of Its Benefits

Three to five cups of green tea a day can do you a lot of good.
Tea, especially green tea has long been known for its medicinal benefits. It helps digestion, boost metabolism and even wards off cancer and heart disease.
According to whether it is fermented or not, tea can be divided into 3 types:
green tea - not fermented;
oolong tea - partially fermented;
black tea - fermented.
While people may prefer black tea or oolong tea, green tea has more healthy benefits. As it's dried straight after picking, it keeps most of its valuable polyphenols while its cousins - black tea and oolong tea lose most of theirs in the process of fermentation. Green tea has a lot more polyphenols than black tea or oolong tea. What's the deal of those polyphenols things, you may wonder? They are known as powerful antioxidants, which remove free radicals from the body. Free radicals in the body's cells are very bad. They very unstable and tend to react negatively with other important molecules like DNA, causing malfunctions and injury on the cellular level. They produce destruction that may therefore pave the way for diseases like heart disease and cancer. Green tea contains rich polyphenols that play an active role in removing the free radicals from the body.
Studies show green tea drinkers have 50% lower risk of developing stomach or esophageal compared to non green tea drinkers. As a result, that can help lower blood pressure and reduce stress on the heart. Antioxidants in tea are also known to prevent death from second heart attack by helping blood vessels relax, thus blood can flow through more easily.
One final benefit of green tea drinking can help lose some weight. It's believed some of its polyphenols and caffeine work together to boost the body's metabolism, thus boost our energy burning system.
Generally, three to five cups a day is fairly enough for us to get its medical benefits. How much tea shall we drink?
Shall we have a cup of tea now?
Then drop by Interested in more information about healthy diet food?
http://helthydietfood.info/

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Green Tea Weight Loss Supplement

Most weight loss experts agree that weight loss supplements can significantly help you in your battle for curves and muscles. Of the 3 commonly used weight loss supplements in the market these days, green tea weight loss supplement seems the most promising. The other two are protein and ephedra.
It has been discovered that some properties found in green tea makes it a great organic alternative to weight loss supplements.
The study found that green tea has a lot of antioxidants that can cause an increase in energy expenditure of the body. The use of green tea extract in weigh loss supplements was spurred by the recently concluded study by American and Swiss scientists.
Green tea's EGCG also triggers the release of the hormone noradrenaline, an appetite-suppressant. When these 2 substances in green tea react to each other, metabolism rates increase along with the body's 24-hour energy expenditure. Green tea weight loss supplement contain both caffeine and the chemical epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG).
Green tea weight loss supplement lose about two-and-a-half pounds a month.
It is usually taken 3 times a day before meals. Green tea weight loss supplement that contains 90 milligrams of EGCG and 50 milligrams of caffeine.
Although green tea weight loss supplement has no harmful side-effects, you should consult your doctor before taking it.

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