New Fall and Winter Dietary Suggestion... Tea!

I can't get enough of the stuff... I drink it all year round, mostly iced tea in the spring and summer, but in the fall and winter especially... Hot Tea is where it's at!

Here's the deal on tea... it has tons of flavor, if you don't like straight regular black tea, it comes in TONS of flavors, and...ta da! It has NO CALORIES. No calories is almost as good as the only food that actually burns more calories to eat than it actually contains... Celery.

Black Tea comes in flavors too.. a LOT of them, so it helps satisfy hunger pangs and makes you feel fuller, it helps with your daily intake of your water too. Now I know that there are some people who really dislike tea..but I think they just haven't given it a fair shake. Also tea is pretty inexpensive generally 20 tea bags come in a small box, and around where I live cost about two dollars and change.

So, if you're not a tea fan (yet) here are some suggestions to help make it more palatable:

Add Honey, not sugar...honey... serving size is about 1 tablespoon, and that's only 60 calories. Adding a touch of honey to a flavored tea, like my current favorite French Vanilla flavor, it opens up the flavor and cuts whatever bitterness might be there, but one tablespoon doesn't make it so overpoweringly sweet. Honey contains at least 15 nutrients whereas sugar has none. Honey is an aid to digestion when taken in the raw state due to its enzyme content while sugar interferes with digestion. Honey enters the bloodstream slowly, 2 calories per minute. Sugar enters quickly at 10 calories per minute, causing blood sugars to fluctuate rapidly and wildly. Sugar causes calcium leakage from bones, contributing to osteoporosis while honey does not. --Some pretty dang good arguments for honey instead of sugar right?

Currently I'm drinking a minimum of 3-8 ounce mugs of tea, usually at least one is decaf..but caffeine doesn't really effect me unless it's in mass doses, so it doesn't really matter. Also I have trained my pallet to appreciate unsweetened tea..but maybe one of those mugs will have my beloved Honey.

Another way to spruce up your tea flavor is adding a squeeze of lemon... this doesn't add enough calories to matter really and for regular black tea, or a complimentary flavor is really refreshing.

I also make my own iced tea all year round... I like it. I mix flavors, or make it plain..or will drink iced green tea.

Green tea is a whole other story..that I will fully admit to being an acquired taste..but has been proven to aid in speeding up metabolism...and has a greater number of antioxidants than black tea.

Now, if you can do it... I suggest loose leaf tea...there are stores popping up all around the country (and I know the European countries have had it readily available forever) the flavor is even more powerful there than the boxed kind and besides... making a pot of loose leaf tea is fun, and feels classy.

So this is my suggestion to you... if you're looking for something new to drink, maybe with honey make it a mid morning pick up... try tea... you'll be shocked and amazed by what your local grocery store has for selection. Buyer beware, I wouldn't buy the cheapest tea available..the flavor tends to be very weak, I'd buy a nice mid priced well known brand. If you're not sure what you'll like... pick up a variety pack and see what you may like.