by Linda Sims : www.plantstrongliving.co.uk
In my opinion there is no better drink than a nice cup of tea. My favorite, without a doubt, is green jasmine tea. I love its heady floral scent and gentle flavor. My cupboard is full of different teas, green and white, plain and flavored, there are some with fancy names, teas in bags and loose leaf teas. Some have been tied by hand into intricate flowers that magically open up when introduced to hot water.
We all know the antioxidant rich tea has lots of health benefits. In UK tea is the number one source of flavonoids in the diet. I thought I would do a little experiment and search through some tea stories to see what health claims newspapers come up with. I must say I was overwhelmed.
These are some of the claims I found:
Drinking tea just may
- reduce chance of brain tumor and stroke
- help fight infection
- slow down weight gain and prevent obesity
- cut risk of throat and oral cancer
- help prevent breast cancer
- lower LDL cholesterol levels
- prevent flu better than vaccination
- alter gene expression and improve cholesterol metabolism
- lower diabetes risk
- extend lifespan
- prevent fatal autoimmune diseases
- fight aging and free radicals
- cut risk of heart disease
- help to halt leukemia and other blood cancers
- block lung cancer
- prevent eye disease and glaucoma
- halt prostate cancer tumor growth
- treat/or prevent dementia, brain disorders and Alzheimer’s Disease
- fight lung cancer and pneumonia
- prevent and treat osteoporosis
A very impressive list indeed. According to these claims, drinking tea could help solve the world health crisis and we all should have green tea coming out of our water pipes. As amazing as all these claims are, tea is just one small part of a healthy lifestyle, drinking tea will not have a significant affect if the rest of person’s diet is poor. However based on this my daily cups of green tea will taste much sweeter (without sugar of course).
Most people associate tea with a piece of cake or biscuit so I though a perfect sweet treat will go down well with my today’s blog. A classic slice of apple strudel I grew up with is transformed into a much healthier bite size version. All the familiar apple strudel ingredients minus the sugar and pastry. The dates may not belong to a classic strudel but they are a fantastic glue to keep the bites together. One or two are enough to satisfy anyone’s sweet tooth.
APPLE STRUDEL MINI BITES
ingredients
100g (2cups) soft dried apple rings (not apple crisps)
100g (1cup) walnuts
70g (1/2cup) raisins
4-5 Medjol dates
1tsp cinnamon
method
In a food processor chop the walnuts. The nuts need to retain some texture not turn into nut flour.
Add the apples, cinnamon, raisins and 4 dates. Process until the mixture starts coming together. If needed add another date.
Tip the mixture into the bowl and roll into 18 walnut size balls.
Keep in the fridge, this will firm them up a bit.
2 Comments
Chia (324 comments)
February 28, 2012 at 8:40 pmLooks great!
robinhood (18 comments)
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