We've all heard about the health benefits of drinking tea, but what exactly are those benefits? Do all teas offer them?

First of all, tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world (after water). Black, green, white, pu-erh and oolong teas all come from the same plant - camellia sinensis. It's an evergreen-like bush or tree that grows primarily in warmer climates. What produces the different tea varieties is how the tea leaves are processed after they're harvested.

Tea leaves pack a load of chemical substances called polyphenols, which are antioxident powerhouses. Many of the polyphenols found in tea are even more powerful than those found in some fruits and vegetables. Research tells us that polyphenols may protect against cardiovascular disease and cancer. As you brew your tea, the polyphenols slowly release from the tea leaves as they steep in your teapot.

Herbal teas and red rooibos teas are technically not derived from the camellia sinensis plant. In fact, most of these "teas" are really not teas at all. They're infusions of herbs, spices, flowers, buds, etc that many people love for their relaxing and calming effects, but they do not contain the polyphenols that tea from the camellia sinensis plant does.

Just a quick note on caffeine - an average cup of tea contains about 40mg of caffeine versus 85mg for a cup of coffee. Black tea contains more caffeine than green or white tea.

Anna, the Seventh Duchess of Bedford, started the tradition of afternoon tea around the year 1840. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention. In those days, the evening meal would be served around 7:00pm - 8:30 pm, so it was understandable that most people would get hungry in the late afternoon. So Anna requested that a pot of tea and some bread and butter be brought to her room around 4:00 pm. Since then, it has become a much more elaborate ritual that includes tea sandwiches, scones and light pastries. Click here for more information on afternoon tea, high tea.

Why don't you try brewing a cup of this healthful beverage today?

For Better Nutrition - Fresh Fruit or Vitamins? You Decide.

Why do we always try to make easy things difficult? The "news" that eating fresh fruits and vegetables can be beneficial for us has been out for decades. Let’s face it, this is simple, straightforward and easy to understand. But instead of following this advice, we still seek out the latest health fad like vitamin water, powdered supplements, energy drinks and super foods in a jar. How could anything that's been dehydrated, processed in a factory, stored in a bottle for months or years ever be more healthy and nutritious than a fresh ripe pear or a crisp apple?

Here's what science has been telling us for years. Consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables lowers our risks for heart disease, cancer, and stroke (just for starters). And in the 21st Century – can anyone guess what the leading causes of death are? That's right - heart disease, cancer, and stroke. Get it? It's simple. Eat more fresh fruits and vegetables.

Health enthusiasts focus on getting enough vitamins and wonder if they are deficient in this mineral or that. I have no problem with that, because we are all sincerely trying to improve our nutrition. My opinion, though, is that there are probably many more micro-nutrients in a simple thing like an orange or kiwi or watermelon or bunch of spinach that scientists just haven’t identified yet. In fact there are probably many, many more nutrients in a **whole** fruit or vegetable that work together in some synergistic way. The point is that by taking a vitamin supplement, you are receiving a narrow slice of the nutrient profile that is otherwise available from eating the whole fruit or vegetable, not to mention the fiber. As an example, scientists from Cornell University announced that the common apple contains unique combinations of thousands of phytochemicals that somehow seem to be working together as antioxidants to retard tumor growth in cell cultures and animals.

I am not arguing against taking a multi-vitamin - I just think we can do a better.

Nature extracts many highly-nutritive components from the soil, absorbs them through the root system of a fruit tree or vegetable plant and creates a readymade, nutritious food for all of us to consume. It's what nature intended us to be eating. To try to replace all of these micronutrients by taking a pill containing 500mg of synthetic Vitamin C just doesn't seem nearly as good, does it? How could it possibly compare? Let the scientists experiment and discover all of the wonderful nutrients that are contained in fresh fruits and vegetables over the next hundred years. I'm not waiting for that breakthrough report - it's already out. Simplify. Eat more fruits and vegetables!

The One Surprising Fact You Never Knew About Vitamins

There’s one big secret that most people do not know about vitamins. Even the health gurus don’t often talk about this, and it’s important if you really want to be sure you’re providing your body with a steady supply of nutrients.

Did you know that vitamins fall into two basic groups? There are those that your body can store and those that your body cannot store. The two groups depend on what type of liquid the vitamin dissolves in. Vitamins that dissolve in water are called “water soluble” vitamins, and those that dissolve in fat are called “fat soluble” vitamins. In the water soluble group, the vitamins are only temporary visitors - they’re used by the body, but then any excess is excreted upon your next visit to the bathroom. If the vitamin is fat soluble, then – you guessed it – that vitamin can be stored in the body’s fatty tissue and the liver – sometimes for days, sometimes for months.

So which is which? The answer is that all of the B vitamins and Vitamin C are water soluble, meaning they **cannot** be stored in the body. Vitamins A, D, E and K are fat soluble and, therefore, can be stored by the body.

Now it’s true that all of the vitamins are important, but in this fast-paced world, it’s difficult to eat a perfect diet every day. So I like to concentrate on the two big antioxidant vitamins, C and E. I want to be sure I’m getting at least those two covered. (Remember “C “ can’t be stored and “E” can.)

Did you know that the 10 trillion cells in our bodies are generally made up of a watery interior and a fatty cell wall? This is a perfect model for how these two big antioxidant vitamins go to work. The water soluble Vitamin C does its antioxidant cleanup work on the watery interior of the cell. Then, the fat soluble Vitamin E does the same for the fatty cell wall. What a team! Between these two antioxidant vitamins, you’ve got the whole cell covered. With an adequate supply of both, you are going to be doing yourself a big favor, day in and day out.

So here’s a tip. For breakfast, start the day off with a piece of fruit (orange, grapefruit, cantaloupe) to get the Vitamin C going and then have another piece of fruit mid afternoon (kiwis are super high in Vitamin C). When hungry for a snack, have some almonds or sunflower seeds around (preferably raw) to stoke those Vitamin E stores.

The Surprising Truth About Building Muscle

Pretty much everyone believes that lifting weights is what makes your muscles grow. In fact that belief is so common, that it’s almost absurd to suggest anything else. Well, as I’m about to explain, lifting weights to build bigger muscles is a completely backward way of thinking.

First, some background. The scientific word for increasing the size of muscle is called “hypertrophy.” That’s a fancy way of saying that your muscles will grow larger, if you increase the size of the muscle’s cells and fibers. And how do you do that? You do it by applying the “principle of overload.” That means that your muscles are stimulated to grow larger if they do work that is over and above what they are used to doing. The body “adapts” to this increased workload by making the muscle cells/fibers grow larger. The more they’re overloaded, the larger they grow. (Always consult a physician before beginning or changing any fitness program.)

The old phrase, use it or lose it, has a lot of truth to it. If you challenge your muscles, they will adapt and grow. If you don’t challenge your muscles, e.g. become a couch potato, your body will adapt to that too and guess what? You lose muscle tone and mass. As we age, we tend to lose muscle mass anyway, so by not doing strength training, you’re just letting Mother Nature take her toll all that much faster.

Now onto the real issue. Is lifting barbells and dumbbells (weights) really what makes your muscles grow? Technically speaking, the answer is no. What really makes your muscles grow is a strong **contraction** of the muscle tissue. When you contract a muscle strongly enough, it creates small tears and, during the recovery or rest period, the muscle rebuilds itself just a little bit larger. So it’s not really lifting weights that causes your muscles to grow larger, it’s the contraction of the muscle (first and foremost) that is caused by the lifting of the weights. The weights are the secondary player. You tear down the muscle fibers during strong contractions of the muscle, and then they recover larger in response to that previous overload.

How do you make your muscles contract strongly, so that you’ll create those little tears (that create the soreness afterwards)? For many people, it’s lifting weights. It’s the resistance against gravity or against a stack of weights that allows you to get a great contraction in the muscle you are targeting. Maybe that’s splitting hairs, but it is the proper (biological) way to think about how the body increases (or decreases) muscle mass. You should not be thinking about “lifting the weight,” so much as you should be thinking about contracting the muscle.

The Raw Food Diet for Newbies

I had heard some interesting things about the raw food diet in the local media and was interested in finding out more. As I began surfing the internet for more information, I found myself slowly but surely buying into the idea. It seemed to make a lot of sense. Eating whole-fresh, live foods - how could anyone argue with that? However, I had also come across some instances of people “not doing well” on the raw food diet, but surely that wouldn’t happen to me – those things happen to other people.

Well, after a couple of months of getting my feet wet and gradually incorporating more raw foods into my diet, I finally decided to go 100% raw. And guess what, I began experiencing a few problems. First and foremost, I lost a lot of weight – too much weight. I also lost a lot of energy – feeling lethargic a lot of the time. Without going into a long explanation, here are a few of the mistakes I made that, hopefully, you can avoid.

#1) Calories – calories – calories !!! In general, raw foods are not very calorie-dense, meaning you have to eat much more of them to achieve a normal daily intake of say, 2000 calories a day. Fresh fruit and produce contain a lot of water, which is easy on the body and digestive process, but doesn’t help very much in getting the calories you need. If you’re used to eating a standard diet, and then switch to raw, you have to consciously increase the volume of raw foods you take in, just to maintain anything like a normal bodyweight. For example, if you’re used to eating an apple and a carrot as a snack, that’s about 110 calories – a long way from 2,000 calories. See what I mean?

#2) Too much fat !! Raw fooders typically consume way too much fat in their diet (and most of them don’t even know it). They think that because they’re consuming the “good” kind of fat (i.e. unsaturated fat), no problem. Sorry – problem. You just can’t gorge on avocados and nuts, etc. Too much fat in the diet, even if it’s the good kind of fat, can cause all kinds of major problems.

#3) Now that I’m eating better, my health will improve automatically! Eating more nutritionally is only one aspect of achieving and maintaining good overall health. You can’t forget all of the other things that are associated with staying healthy – like physical activity-exercise, proper rest, stress reduction. Don’t obsess on just the diet – good nutrition is just one of the pillars of good health.

When I first began studying raw foods and was searching for information, I came across one particular author who sounded different from the others. In fact, he expressed some opinions that were kind of bold and clearly at odds with conventional “raw” wisdom. I began reading his postings and e-zines, and they made a lot of sense to me. I liked his independent thinking, approach and integrity. He has written one of the key books on the topic of Raw Foods, called The Raw Secrets.

Click here for more information on the book.