Tea

The Green tea miracle

Is any other food or drink reported to have as many health benefits as green tea? The Chinese have known about the medicinal benefits of green tea since ancient times, using it to treat everything from headaches to depression. In her book Green Tea: The Natural Secret for a Healthier Life, Nadine Taylor states that green tea has been used as a medicine in China for at least 4,000 years. How much Green Tea should you drink? There are as many answers to this question as there are researchers investigating the natural properties of green tea. For example, Herbs for Health magazine cites a Japanese report stating that men who drank ten cups of green tea per day stayed cancer-free for three years longer than men who drank less than three cups a day (there are approximately 240 - 320 mg of polyphenols in three cups of green tea). Meanwhile, a study by Cleveland"s Western Reserve University concluded that drinking four or more cups of green tea per day could help prevent rheumatoid arthritis, or reduce symptoms in individuals already suffering from the disease. And Japanese scientists at the Saitama Cancer Research Institute discovered that there were fewer recurrances of breast cancer, and the disease spread less quickly, in women with a history of drinking five cups or more of green tea daily. The secret of green tea lies in the fact it is rich in catechin polyphenols, particularly epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). EGCG is a powerful anti-oxidant: besides inhibiting the growth of cancer cells, it kills cancer cells without harming healthy tissue. This Chinese tea has also been effective in lowering LDL cholesterol levels, and inhibiting the abnormal formation of blood clots. The latter takes on added importance when you consider that thrombosis (the formation of abnormal blood clots) is the leading cause of heart attacks and stroke.


Add your comment:
Name:
Site address: http://
Your message:
Enter today\\\\'s date, 2 digits
(spam protection):

News of the day
how make wine
To make wine there are a number of processes the wine grapes must be put thru. Let us have a look at the method with a little more detail:.
Popular Articles

Dark Chocolate - the New Health Food
In case you havenđ€™t heard - dark chocolates have grown in demand recently due to studies showing the incredible health benefits of chocolate consumption as well as the fact that it is a lower fat chocolate!  More and more people are now including dark chocolates in their diet. So in addition to the fact that eating chocolates can give you feelings of relaxation and a natural high, dark chocolates can actually promote good health. What is it that makes dark chocolate a healthy choice? The answer lies in the ingredients of dark chocolates which include more cacao, less sugar and no milk additives. These ingredients are the reason why the expression đ€Çplain chocolateđ€Ý is frequently used to refer to talk about dark chocolates. With all these health benefits attributed to dark chocolates, is there a catch that you need to be aware of?

A Decadent Treat
The first step to making your own chocolate from scratch is roasting the cocoa beans. Roasting cocoa beans is pretty much like roasting coffee beans, only with some more specific requirements. You have the option of either roasting the beans in your own oven or use a coffee bean roaster Roasting the beans first not only gets rid of the contaminants that could be on raw cocoa beans, but most importantly, it brings out the flavor that everyone is familiar with. Itň€™ll take anywhere from 5 to 35 minutes at 250 ň€“ 350 degrees F. Start roasting the beans at a high temperature, and then gradually bring it down. When the beans start to crack, youň€™ll know the process is complete. The second step is the crack the beans into small nibs, while removing the husks by hand. If you did a good job of roasting the beans, the husks should be very easy to remove. You can speed up the process by stirring the nibs with your hands while blowing the husks away with a hair dryer. If you find yourself working with a large batch of beans, a special purpose-grinding mill can be bought for around $100. The next step is to grind up the nibs and turn them into a cocoa liquid. To do this, hand-feed the nibs one handful at a time into a food processor or an electric cocoa grinder. A mix of cocoa liquid and husks will come of out the spout, so keep repeating the process until only the husks come out. The biggest challenge is finding a food processor that is powerful enough to do this, as most ordinary juicers, coffee grinders and food processors wonň€™t be able to handle liquefying the nibs. Now youň€™ll have to conch and refine your chocolate. This is a process that affects the taste, texture and smell of your chocolate. Normally, these processes have to be done separately, but both can be done at the same time with a good wet grinder. The way youň€™ll conch and refine largely depends on the type of equipment you use. After this, youň€™ll have to ň€śtemperň€ť the chocolate, so that itň€™ll gain a shine and be hard enough not to melt in your hand. You can do this by hand or with a special tempering machine for larger quantities. All you have to do is to spread the melted chocolate out on a hard, non-porous kitchen top and bring it back together until the chocolate cools down to a thick and gooey mess. Do this as many times as needed until the chocolate comes to a shine. All that is left to be done is to pour the chocolate into any mold and cool it down. Then itň€™s ň€śbon appetiteň€ť! Making chocolate from scratch is a learning process; so if this is your first time, donň€™t expect that very first batch to be perfect. In the long run, practice makes perfect and youň€™ll even end up adding your own twist chocolate making by adding ingredients of your own or using different techniques. For more information on chocolate, visit http://www.howtomakechocolate.net.