Tea for Breakfast - Optimum Rebound Cereal

Forget Froot Loops! Banana chips, almonds, and Matcha green tea--all USDA Organic, I might add--make Optimum Rebound by Nature's Path anything but run-of-the-mill granola. (Sorry about that!) Puns aside, the banana makes for a quaint sweetness, not too strong, while crunch and chew is provided by the tried-and-true nuts and raisins. And then there's the puffed Kamut, which apart from having a way awesomer name than every other grain in existence, tastes better than the rest too. Add it all up, and then top it off with organic green tea. Why don't they make more cereals like this?

PS. Best enjoyed with Silk Soymilk, trust me. I would know!

Flowers in the Grass - Ranong Green Teas

Flavored green tea is a boon for those who don't relish its strong toastiness, but still want to get the health benefits of the stuff. Still, I believe green tea is an acquired taste, and shouldn't always be buried under Honey-Lemon, Blueberry, or Ginger. How about just a whiff of Jasmine or Chrysanthemum? Thai brand Ranong Tea has made just that--delicately scented green teas in four flavors, so you'll definitely find a sip to suit you.

ps. Another completely unrelated, but hilarious, Wiki tidbit from my research. While checking out my novel's setting (Osaka, Japan) I came upon the Hanshin Tigers, a very Red Sox-like baseball team (and I root for Boston, so no hate mail!) complete with its own curse, called 'The Curse of the Colonel'. The funny part is, the Colonel it refers to is the KFC dude, no less.

As with many other underachieving baseball teams, a curse is believed to lurk over the Tigers. After their 1985 Japan Series win, fans celebrated by having people who looked like Tigers players jump into the Dotonbori Canal. According to legend, because none of the fans resembled first baseman Randy Bass, fans grabbed a life-sized statue of Kentucky Fried Chicken mascot Colonel Sanders and threw it into the river (like Bass, the Colonel had a beard and was not Japanese). The statue was never recovered. Thus, the Tigers are said to be doomed never to win the season again until the Colonel is rescued from the river.

In 2003, when the Tigers returned to the Japan Series after 18 years with one of the worst records in the Central League, many KFC outlets in Kōbe and Ōsaka moved their Colonel Sanders statues inside until the series was over to protect them from Tigers fans.

You wouldn't think baseball would have such an occult side to it, huh? With due respect to the Tigers, all I can say is there's probably a very unhappy whale somewhere, suffering from indigestion and dreaming of a cup of Tazo Green Ginger.

What kind of Tea are You? - Quizilla's Concoction

What kind of tea are you?

Hot herbal tea: A spa for the soul.
Take this quiz!

These net-quizzes are the worst--blogthings.com takes a bite out of my work ethic, to be sure--but don't you want to know what sort of tea you'd be?

Got Milk, But Not Really - Silk Soy Products

I'm no vegan, sure. I even eat fish sometimes, though not since all those mercury warnings in the Times. But I was raised on soymilk, so to me real milk tastes like the fake stuff. Yeah, I know.
However...

Soymilk is a perfect beverage for those who have a
dairy allergy or are lactose intolerant. Silk Soymilks are
dairy and lactose free, in addition to being vegan safe,
kosher-DE, and gluten-free.

Soy protein has been shown to moderately reduce
elevated blood cholesterol levels and may lower blood
pressure as well. Research on the heart-healthy
benefits of soy is so convincing that the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) allows soy food companies
to carry a health claim on their labels advising
consumers of the cardiovascular benefits of eating soy
protein as part of a healthy diet.

Studies show that populations who consume soy foods
on a regular basis have lower rates of certain cancers
including breast, prostate, colon, and endometrial
cancers. In fact, in Japan and China where soy foods
are a staple of the diet, breast cancer rates are just
one-fifth of those in the Western world.

So why not give Silk Soymilk a try? As a fortified soymilk, it has the same amount of calcium as run-of-the-mill cow's milk; 300 miligrams per 8-ounce glass. Plus, this stuff comes in Plain, Vanilla, Chocolate, even Mocha and--wait for it--CHAI. AND ALL OF THEM ARE GOOD FOR YOU! Plus, Starbucks picked this brand as its choice soymilk. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is JUSTICE.

Sources:
http://www.silksoymilk.com/Documents/J.%20Bissex%20Brochure%20FINAL.pdf

Yogi Tea - For The Hippies Out There

What's that? It's been almost a month since my last post? I owe you guys something special, but for now check out Yogi Tea's new releases--like 77% organic Mexican Sweet Chili, which contains among other things cocoa and cayenne--as well as longtime faves such as 95% organic Echinacea Immune Support with astragulus and several species of the cold-busting herb, especially if, like me, you still feel a little wussy after that flu.
I can't say I love yoga--I hate it, in fact--but thankfully you don't have to be a hippie, or a yogi in fact, to enjoy this tea.

Sorry, been Sick - The Glory of Ginger

Sorry about the lateness of this post--it hasn`t been a great holiday season for me. First off, I must have been a really naughty girl in 2007, `cause Santa didn`t even give me a lump of coal--yup I had a 104-degree fever on Christmas Eve. Then came the sore throats and ear aches...
The one good thing about being sick was it gave me an opportunity to drink tea religiously, meaning even more than I do already. In my family it`s all ginger, honey and lime if you get the sniffles; it really warms you up. Turns out ginger`s good for a lot of stuff.

Ginger is most commonly known for its effectiveness as a digestive aid. By increasing the production of digestive fluids and saliva, Ginger helps relieve indigestion, gas pains, diarrhea and stomach cramping. The primary known constituents of Ginger Root include gingerols, zingibain, bisabolenel, oleoresins, starch, essential oil (zingiberene, zingiberole, camphene, cineol, borneol), mucilage, and protein. Ginger root is also used to treat nausea related to both motion sickness and morning sickness. Ginger has been found to be even more effective than Dramamine® in curbing motion sickness, without causing drowsiness. Ginger's anti-inflammatory properties help relieve pain and reduce inflammation associated with arthritis, rheumatism and muscle spasms. Ginger's therapeutic properties effectively stimulate circulation of the blood, removing toxins from the body, cleansing the bowels and kidneys, and nourishing the skin. Other uses for Ginger Root include the treatment of asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory problems by loosening and expelling phlegm from the lungs. Ginger Root may also be used to help break fevers by warming the body and increasing perspiration.

Not just that pink stuff at the sushi bar, in other words. Who knew? Anyway, an overdue Happy New Year for the rest of you, hope yours didn`t involve popping an Advil and watching satellite TV all night, then getting woken up by a cell phone message from your mom at midnight (which doesn`t sound so bad if I put it that way).

sources:
http://www.theepicentre.com/Spices/ginger.html

Soda does NOT burn calories, stupid

The Coca-Cola Company teamed up with Nestle last year to release Enviga, the third canned green tea to be featured on this blog. What's the big deal? First, it has sparkles. Second, in their very own study, healthy 18-to-35-year-olds who drank three cans a day showed an increase in calorie burn (on average) by 106 calories a day. Enviga was 'the only ready-to-drink green tea' proven to do this.

Whoa, that sounds like an easy way to drink off the pounds! Until you realize that two classic Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are 260 calories alone. (Imagine that 400ml Mint Chip Mocha you had this morning--or, GASP, THANKSGIVING!) It's true that green tea boosts your metabolism, but honestly, claiming that the 5 calories in Enviga are "effectively cancelled out" by green tea's calorie-burning powers (in effect, you're drinking 'negative calories') reminds me of those old Subway commercials that implied you could get away with God knows what because you had Subway today. (Not to mention the people involved in the study had healthy lifestyles anyhow, and didn't seem to be in any urgent need to shed pounds in the first place.)

If you don't like calories, drink something that doesn't have them--plain, ordinary tea. This looks like just another good chance for all of us to NOT give Coke our money.

Sources:
http://www.enviga.com/#CalorieBurning
http://www.hersheys.com/reeses/products/detail.asp?name=pb-cups

ps. This actually wasn't the reason I decided to write this post, though I'd wanted to write about Enviga for a while. No, I was researching hockey for a few scenes in a story of mine, and came across this buried in Wikipedia's 'hat trick', the term used when a player scores three goals in a game. It apparently came from magicians who pulled three rabbits out of a hat, one after the other, but that's not the funny part. Here is an actual quote from the article:

If a member of the home team in ice hockey scores a hat-trick, fans acknowledge it by throwing their own hats from the stands onto the ice, often causing a delay in play. This custom was started in Guelph, Ontario with the Guelph Biltmore Mad Hatters, sponsored by Biltmore Hats. Mr. Biltmore would throw his tophat onto the ice for the player that scored 3 goals. Fans soon followed his lead and offered their hats to the player as well. In 1996, the Florida Panthers fans celebrated goals (not just hat-tricks) by throwing plastic rats onto the ice, which were then cleaned up by men dressed in Orkin exterminator outfits. The history of this goes back to an incident in December 1995, when Scott Mellanby scored what teammate John Vanbiesbrouck dubbed a "rat trick" after ridding the Panthers' locker room at Miami Arena of an unwanted rat with his stick on the same night he scored a pair of goals. When Mellanby scored a hat trick in a later game some fans threw plastic rats on the ice, mimicking the octopus thrown by Detroit Red Wings fans, and the practice soon became universal for Panthers home goals. The NHL later responded by banning the throwing of objects onto the ice by fans at the cost of a penalty for the home team, but specifically allowed the traditional throwing of hats to continue. There appears to be some leeway with regards to what can be thrown onto the ice following a hat trick, as witnessed after the Nashville Predators' Paul Kariya scored a hat trick on April 18, 2006 when two catfish were thrown on the ice and no penalty was given.

They let someone into a sporting event with a pair of catfish, and when I was a kid I couldn't take fresh fruit into the movie theater with me? It probably has half the calories of popcorn, or something.