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Health & Fitness

Holistic Hints - Seeds and Leaves

Best tasting seeds and leaves around.

Without getting into the pain-in-the-neck, niggly little details, it makes sense. Just plain, common, rule-of-thumb sense.

Coffee is good.

Saying that, I remember the image of Spongebob Squarepants smiling, glowing, and wide-pupiled extolling the virtues of Krabby Patties to Squidward, claiming they are 'good for your soul'. Mostly because that is my attitude toward coffee and tea. I don't take sides...I grab life by the beans AND the leaves. Depends on what I'm in the mood for...and the weather. I do like UNsweetened iced tea in the summer (sorry southerners - I think sweet tea is gross)

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More and more, coffee is on the "good for you" list as much as tea.

It makes sense in a holistic health sort of way. Tea is "cooling" (meaning the effect it has on your system...it doesn't matter if you drink it hot or iced) and so it is good for balancing people with 'hot' overly "yang" natures. (Think cardiac-prone 'type A' personality from the 80s) Coffee is warming (ditto about the effect on the system, not the drinking temperature) and so coffee is good for the low energy, "Yin" natures (think 'syndrome X, pre-diabetic condition that was in the news a few years back). The drinks help balance things out. Tea cools hot natures and coffee warms the cool ones.

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Lo and behold...science is backing up the traditional Chinese medical and Natural Health folks...tea might help people with heart disease tendencies (http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20080702/green-tea-lowers-risk-of-heart-disease) and coffee might help prevent type 2 diabetes among other things http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500194_162-1753886.html. Of course, none of this is cut-and-dried, with all the usual caveats that make these news sound-bites and mainstream science reports a pain in the neck to sort through as far as nutrition and diet goes.

Personally I am a big, big fan of the keep it simple rule. If your simple rule is eat whole and not processed, then coffee and tea make sense. No artificial colors, flavors or sweeteners. Even if you throw a spoon or two of sugar and a little cream in your drink, it still isn't the concentrated sweetness of most commercial, bottled sodas and soft drinks. Read, read, read the labels. I had some awful tasting tea (from a mix) the other day that had both sugar and artificial sweetener in it!! Now I know where that old 80s "gag me" phrase came from.

Coffee and tea are a a different story. Whether you like hot water and shrub leaves, or hot water and roasted tree seeds, it all sounds pretty wholesome to me.

www.RondaSnow.com

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