Adult Health Education

While tea has long been used in traditional Chinese medicine, modern research has begun to show evidence that many Chinese teas can be very good for your health. It has been shown to boost your immune system, aid digestion and help with weight loss. While information on tea health benefits has previously been scattered and unreliable, this article will give you an overview of many Chinese tea health benefits, and tell you which teas can best help you live a more healthy and happy life.

Teas Which Aid Digestion

Do coffee and soda tend to upset your stomach? If so, tea can be a very efficacious alternative, giving you the caffeine you need to get your day started without the side effects. In fact, I can personally attest to this being true. I suffer from both acid reflux and a severe caffeine addiction, and have greatly reduced my own discomfort and heartburn by cutting coffee and soda out of my diet. I still get my caffeine fix though by drinking up to or over five cups of tea a day, and have yet to feel any discomfort from this.

While black tea, green tea, pu-erh and herbal teas all claim to aid in digestion, the most important thing to look for is not the specific type of tea, but rather its production method. The best teas for aiding digestion have been “post-fermented” as part of their production process. These teas typically begin as green teas or oolongs, but then go through a period of open-air aging which oxidates and ferments the tea, mellowing it out. Not only are these teas less harsh on the stomach, the enzymes and microflora which develop in the post-fermentation process can actually aid in digestion, making these teas ideal for drinking after a heavy meal.

The most common post-fermented tea is pu-erh. When buying a pu-erh for aiding digestion, make sure to buy a shou, or “ripened,” variety, as the sheng, or “raw,” variety has not gone through this process, and can actually be quite harsh on the stomach.

Teas Which Aid Weight Loss

While there are quite a few “weight loss” teas on the market, you may have been wondering whether or not they actually work. Sadly, many of them promise much more than they actually deliver. However, there have actually been a wide range of studies showing that many teas–especially green tea–has a positive effect on metabolic rate and cholesterol levels, which can be useful for aiding in weight loss.

If you want to buy a tea for weight loss, you really don’t have to spend big money on special blends. Most types of Chinese green tea-including Pi Lo Chun, Mao Jian and Gunpowder Green-contain the compounds which aid weight loss, and, when combined with proper diet and exercise may expedite weight loss.

Tea for your Immune System

Chinese teas have long been used to ward off disease and boost peoples’ immune systems. Recently, modern science has confirmed what people have suspected for thousands of years: many teas have subtle but positive effects on the human immune system. The main reason for this is that tea contains Theanine, an amino acid which has been shown to boost immune response by increasing the disease-fighting capacity of the body’s T Cells, a type of white blood cell. In fact, in a study comparing tea drinkers to coffee drinkers, the tea drinkers’ production of antibacterial proteins was found to be up to five times higher than that of the coffee drinkers’!

Almost all Chinese teas contain Theanine, but there are a few things to keep in mind. For starters, most herbal teas do not contain this compound, and their health benefits may vary. Both green tea and black tea contain Theanine, meaning that you can drink your favorite tea and do right by your body at the same time!

Clearly, switching from coffee to tea, or just expanding your tea-drinking horizons to encompass the dizzying variety of Chinese teas can be very beneficial to your health! In addition, Chinese tea has a number of other helpful compounds which researches are very optimistic about, which could assist in diabetes prevention, mood elevation and fighting bad breath.

Insurance is an interesting concept that most Americans understand. We all have auto and homeowner insurance but hope to never have to use it. If we use it, it means something bad has happened. The same mentality goes for medical insurance. Most people who are healthy do not believe that they need medical insurance because they don’t go to the doctor. Insurance is not for the things we know will happen, but for those things that we don’t know about.

Even if you feel healthy, everyone needs to see a doctor for an annual physical. If you have health insurance, you will automatically get a free annual checkup. The doctor will do blood work and check to make sure that your cholesterol and blood sugar are in good shape. These simple checkups can detect health problems long before you know they exist. If you find everything in time, you may be able to cure them before they become life threatening.

New medical benefits can come with a waiting period for pre existing conditions. If you do not have any conditions now, that does not mean you will not have any in the future. If you have had continuous coverage prior to getting the new plan you will not have to worry about the waiting period. For this reason getting the least expensive plan available such as a short term health insurance plan to bridge your gap in coverage could save you a lot of money on claims in the future. Having health insurance keeps you from having pre existing condition waiting periods.

Also if you have coverage you will get a discounted rate for services. Insurance companies negotiate rates with doctors and hospitals. If you do not have coverage you will be billed a much higher amount for the same services that you would get if you did have coverage. Even if your plan only covers expenses with a deductible and co insurance, you will be able to get the discounted rate for your charges. If you don’t have coverage you can expect to be charged much more.

People do not realize how expensive medical care is. A doctor visit might only be a few hundred dollars. But if someone needed something specific and rare such as anti-venom for a poisonous snake bite, you can find yourself with a 25,000 dollar bill. Regardless of the costs, if you run on a trail and get bitten by a poisonous snake, get the anti-venom. That is not something you could budget for, but with insurance, you will not have to nor will you have to worry about it.

A completely natural sweetener, it dates back more than hundreds of years, yet the health benefits of honey are still not widely known even today. Healthier and more pure than artificial sweeteners or sugar, honey provides more than a taste for the sweet tooth; honey benefits your health and your body inside and out.

History of Honey

Records can not definitively state how long honey has existed. Some believe honey dates back farther than 20 millions years, but honey bee fossils cause reason to believe that date could extend to over 150 millions years. Cave paintings in Spain suggest that beekeeping began approximately around 7000 B.C. and Egyptian records from 2400 B.C. provide evidence of their culture keeping bees in hives.

The Egyptians used honey in more ways than one. As well as its common use as a sweetener, Egyptians gave honey as a gift to their gods and used it as a component of their embalming fluid. The Romans also gave honey to their gods and were known to cover physical wounds in honey to cure and promote natural healing. The Romans and Greeks both utilized honey as a form of cooking but around the turn of the seventeenth century, honey became primarily used as a sweetener.

Honey Production

So, how do bees produce honey? The process begins at the flower as the bee gathers the flower’s nectar. The majority of nectar is water and a minority is complex sugars. Bees need to store and make the sugar usable, so the bees alter the nectar changing it into honey. To complete this task, a worker bee that has a full stomach of nectar flies to the hive to regurgitate the modified nectar for a hive bee. Then, the hive bee ingests the nectar to break down the sugars. Once the hive bee has completed that task, he regurgitates the nectar into a cell of the comb. The hive bees are responsible for beating their wings in order to evaporate any remaining water; once complete, the sugar converts to honey. In a lifetime, a worker bee produces 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey, but when bees in a colony work together, more than 200 pounds of honey are produced within one year.

Honeybees’ hard work provides us with a healthy and beneficial food. All in all, it consists of 80% natural sugars, 18% water, and 2% vitamins, minerals, and pollen. Keep in mind, honey does not expire because it does not harbor bacteria, so you can keep it on your shelf for as long as necessary!

Health Benefits of Honey

It is nature’s energy booster due to its carbohydrates; these carbohydrates provide energy, as well as strength. Athletes, in particular, benefit from honey due to its ability to create endurance and decrease fatigue. The glucose found in honey plays a role, also, as the body rapidly absorbs it to give immediate energy. On the other hand, the fructose in honey is absorbed at a slower rate to give sustained energy. As opposed to refined sugar, honey keeps the body’s sugar levels somewhat constant, instead of spiking the blood sugar which causes an energy crash.

It is anti-bacterial, anti-viral, and contains antioxidants to help boost the body’s immunity. Raw honey has approximately 5,000 enzymes and numerous vitamins, amino acids, and minerals. Honey helps fight respiratory problems and has increased the quality of life in cancer patients.

Unlike refined white sugar, it contains no empty calories. Use honey in place of white sugar to reduce blood sugar spikes and to fill those empty calories with vitamins and minerals. In addition, honey has been noted to suppress appetite. One teaspoon of honey contains approximately 21 calories and is sweeter than sugar, which means you are able to use less for the same sweetening effect potentially promoting weight loss.

When applied topically, the properties of honey have the ability to heal wounds including burns and ulcers. The two sugars found in honey, fructose and glucose, attract water so that when honey is applied to a wound, honey absorbs the water into the wound. This action dries out the wound to inhibit and deter bacterial growth.

Top Ten Ways to Cook and Eat Honey

1. Use in your hot tea as a healthy sweetener.
2. Mix into your plain yogurt instead of buying a less healthy, pre-sweetened yogurt.
3. Spread a slice of toast with peanut butter, honey, and cinnamon to jumpstart your morning routine.
4. Instead of sprinkling sugar over your cereal, drizzle it with honey.
5. Substitute it for sugar in cookie, bread, and muffin recipes.
6. Use it as a seasoning for meat. Apply honey to chicken or pork chops before cooking to give the meat a unique flavor.
7. Create a dressing with olive oil, vinegar, and honey to use on top of salads.
8. Drizzle it over vanilla ice cream for a decadent dessert.
9. Add honey and lemon with hot water as a refreshing, soothing drink.
10. Eat it straight from the comb! Take a bite out of the comb and chew it like chewing gum. The more you chew, the more honey will come out of the honey comb. When all of the honey is out of the comb, spit out or swallow the wax; the wax is safe to eat and is non-toxic.

Take Caution

Although it is a healthy addition to any diet, certain individuals should take precautions. For instance, children under the age of one should not ingest honey; it contains spores that can cause a life-threatening and paralyzing disease called infant botulism.

Persons with pollen allergies should take caution when eating it; although, serious reactions are rare. Most honey sold in stores is filtered and pasteurized, which lowers the amount of pollen in the honey. If one does have a pollen allergy, eating it straight from the comb should be avoided, as it is in its natural form.

How to Choose Honey

To reap the full benefits, choose raw honey. The raw version has not been filtered or pasteurized, which means that it has not been striped of its powerful vitamins and minerals. To choose the highest quality and gain the full health benefits of honey, look for one that states, “100% Raw” and enjoy your path to nutritional sweetness!