Most of us are daily consumers of tea or coffee, or some kind of similar beverages. Since we consume such beverages on a daily basis, we might as well consume something that will bring us the greatest health benefits, to kill two birds with one stone. Green tea is my obvious and favourite choice amongst all hot beverages for the day. And I’m glad to learn of the many benefits to drinking green tea, much healthier benefits than drinking your usual cups of coffee and black tea.

Here are 3 great benefits of drinking green tea on a daily basis, as found in many resources online to be shared here for your benefit.

Green tea helps with weight loss

If you do a quick search on the internet regarding the topic of how green tea can help in reducing weight, you are sure to come up with many search results to confirm this fact. One of the more credible sites that I refer to for this fact is WebMD. According to the article, it says that green tea may help to ward of weight gain, as tested on mice. However, a human may be required to drink a large quantity of green tea for it to work. If you are drinking lots of green tea on a daily basis anyway, coupled with regular exercises, you may just find yourself having a trimmer waistline! Green tea has long been known to be a good natural fat burner.

Green tea helps with arthritis

Once again referring to an article in WebMD, there’s a certain compound found in green tea that helps reduce inflammation and joint damage in rheumatoid arthritis. Those with arthritis may want to read more on this before going on to consume green tea. The article does warn that it is unsure how much green tea needs to be consumed in order for this to be 100% effective. But again, if you are already drinking green tea regularly, it may be working to your advantage already.

Green tea lowers the risk of heart disease

Scientists found that people who drink green tea benefit from better blood vessel function just 30 minutes after consuming the tea. It improves the function of endothelial cells, which is vital since an endothelial cell dysfunction causes clogged arteries. Green tea is also found to contain powerful antioxidants called flavonoids which may protect the heart. You can read more about the claim to this from here.

Are you convinced of the benefits of drinking green tea yet? As with all things, it is best not to consume too much of one type of food stuff. It’s best to always consume things in moderation. Too much of anything can sometimes lead to problems too. So be considerate in your consumption and don’t over-do things.

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The many benefits of drinking green tea

This article about the nutritional value of eggs was apparently written some 2 years back and many people may have read and now know the true nutritional value of eggs. However, for those who are still uncertain and think that eggs may be harmful to you, read on and find out.

I would like to highlight an interesting insight from this article that says that it is not the eggs that are harmful, it is how we consume them that makes it harmful to our health. So eat smart and stay healthy.

Note: I would love to be able to quote the source of this article, but it came to me with no trace back to the source of the author.

May 4, 2007 – Once considered cholesterol-laden no-no’s, eggs are making a comeback. That’s great news for egg lovers who have avoided them, “thinking it would put them in an early grave,” says Lisa Cimperman, a registered dietitian at University Hospitals of Cleveland. ” Eggs are an almost perfect food.”

Eggs lost their breakfast staple status when nutritionists linked dietary cholesterol (the cholesterol found in foods such as meat, seafood, eggs, dairy and poultry) with a person’s overall serum cholesterol levels (the cholesterol level in your bloodstream). But new research shows that dietary cholesterol does not play as big a role in boosting cholesterol levels as previously thought.

In a meta-analysis of 224 dietary studies carried out over the last 25 years, researchers from the University of Arizona found that saturated fat is the culprit behind high cholesterol levels, with dietary cholesterol having little to no effect on blood cholesterol for most people. And researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health found no relationship between egg consumption and cardiovascular disease in a population of more than 117,000 nurses and health professionals who were followed for a period of eight to 14 years. In fact, there was no difference in heart-disease risk between those folks who ate less than one egg a week and those who ate more than one egg a day.

For a cheap, readily available and potent source of nutrition, you can’t beat the egg. Although one medium egg is only about 70 calories, it is considered nutrient dense, meaning that it is loaded with good-for-you vitamins and minerals. The egg white is an amazing source of protein (about 5.5 grams). The protein found in eggs rates a “biological value” of 93.7, higher than that found in milk or beef. (The “biological value” is a measurement that determines how efficiently a protein is used by the body.)

Eggs are also a great source of chemical called choline, which allows your nerves to communicate with your muscles. And they are high in lutein, which may help prevent age-related muscular degeneration and cataracts. Eggs are relatively low in fat. One large egg contains about 5 grams. Most of that fat, which is contained in the yolk, is of the good-for-you unsaturated variety. And since it is a whole food, it contains no man made trans-fats.

While there are no specific recommendations as to how many eggs you can eat in a day, there are some guidelines. For example, one egg contains about 213mg of cholesterol. The American Heart Association recommends that you shouldn’t eat more than 300mg of dietary cholesterol per day as part of an overall healthy diet. That means an egg a day is just fine if you are not sensitive to dietary cholesterol, and if you load up on fruits, vegetables, low-fat diary and lean meats as part of your overall daily diet.

The biggest problem with eggs is what you might eat with them. So skip the fried egg (unless you use low-fat margarine or a nonstick pan), hash browns and bacon. Your best bet is to keep it simple. A smart breakfast, for example, is one hard-boiled egg with a side of oatmeal, which will give you a dose of fiber.

And to settle the age-old dispute, brown eggs are not higher in nutrition. According to the American Egg Board, white shelled eggs are produced by hens with white feathers and ear lobes. Brown eggs come from hens with red feathers and red ear lobes.

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Do you know the true nutritional value of eggs?

Here’s something interesting I read about how the tilapia fish could do more damage to a person’s health than good, courtesy of a forwarded email. It’s a rather long article but worth the time to read through to the end.

The gist of the tilapia story is that it contains high levels of omega-6 fatty acids, and this when combined with the fact that it is low in omega-3 fatty acids pose as a threat to many health conditions such as heart disease, arthritis, asthma, etc. Read on below for full details.

If you eat fish, chances are you’ve recently eaten tilapia, one of the most highly consumed types of fish in the United States (even in the Philippines!). You might want to change the menu. Researchers from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center have concluded that farm-raised tilapia,the kind typically sold in supermarkets, contains very low levels of the beneficial omega-3 fatty acids and very high levels of the potentially dangerous omega-6 fatty acids.

How dangerous is it? Eating tilapia could be far worse for your heart health than eating a hamburger, doughnuts or even pork bacon! The double whammy of LOW LEVELS OF OMEGA-3 FATTY ACIDS and HIGH LEVELS OF OMEGA-6 FATTY ACIDS could be potentially dangerous for some people with heart disease, arthritis, asthma and other allergic and auto-immune diseases that are particularly vulnerable to an ‘exaggerated inflammatory response.’ Inflammation is known to cause damage to blood vessels, the heart, lung and joint tissues, skin and the digestive tract.

‘In the United States, tilapia has shown the biggest gains in popularity among seafood, and this trend is expected to continue as consumption is projected to increase from 1.5 million tons in 2003 to 2.5 million tons by 2010,’ write the Wake Forest researchers in an article published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. The team discovered that farm-raised tilapia, as well as farmed catfish, ‘have several fatty acid characteristics that would generally be considered by the scientific community as detrimental.’

TILAPIA HAS HIGHER LEVELS OF POTENTIALLY DETRIMENTAL LONG-CHAIN OMEGA-6 FATTY ACIDS THAN 80-PERCENT-LEAN HAMBURGER, DOUGHNUTS AND EVEN PORK BACON. ‘For individuals who are eating fish as a method to control inflammatory diseases such as heart disease, it is clear from these numbers that tilapia is not a good choice,’ the researchers write. ‘All other nutritional content aside, the inflammatory potential of hamburger and pork bacon is lower than the average serving of farmed tilapia.’

The heart healthy benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, found in abundance in salmon and trout, have been well documented, so much so that the American Heart Association recommends everyone eat at least two servings of fish a week. Just don’t make one of those servings tilapia since it could actually do your body more harm than good.

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Could Tilapia fish be more hazardous than healthy?