Natural Choices — Health Food, Organic Produce, Gluten Free, Vitamins, Supplements — Columbus, Bartholomew County, Indiana

Posts Tagged ‘tea’

The summer heat and sunshine feels good, doesn’t it? But to look and feel your very best in summer, you need to stay hydrated. Drinking water is good. After a while, though, I want something that will appeal to my tastebuds a bit more. I stay away from the chemically-infused soda pops – regular or diet, neither is good for the body.

You don’t have to stick to simple brewed teas. Go ahead, jazz it up! Tempt those tastebuds! Combining teas with other beverages like organic juices or sparkling water or lemonade can be refreshing and hydrating. Add some spice to  create a summertime drink with some snap.

Orange, lemon and lime slices add color and flavor to iced herbal teas.

Frontier Natural Products provides this recipe on one of their brochures I picked up at Natural Choices in Columbus, Indiana. They suggest garnishing the drink with orange slices, lemon slices and edible flowers and a cinnamon stick swizzler for fun. Sounds like a tea party, doesn’t it?

Rosy Mint Iced Tea

• 2 tablespoons peppermint leaves
• 1 tablespoon spearmint leaves
• 1 tablespoon rosehips
• 1 quart boiling water
• 1 teaspoon honey, or to taste

Pour boiling water over herbs. Steep 5 minutes or until desired consistency. Strain and sweeten,  if desired. Cool to room temperature, then serve over ice. Refrigerate leftover tea.

Teas adds important antioxidants to our diet. We can add specific herbs to help invigorate our minds and bodies or other herbs to calm the stress of our day or help us sleep and still create tasty, iced drinks.

Maybe I am feeling so good because of all the fluids I am drinking. But I think it is because I am drinking teas, fruit juices and herbs that are good for me! Begin your adventure at Natural Choices. They have shelves full of herbal teas. 

Be a little wild this summer. Add some new flavors to your drinks and see if you don’t feel a good difference, too.

 Enjoy!

–Ellie of the Natural Choices Blog Team

As a teacher, we learned that the scent of mint stimulates the brain, so we tried to “freshen” our classrooms with mint-scented essential oils. Teachers will try anything to help kids learn!

Mint smells good, tastes good and improves health.

But the benefits of mint go far beyond the scent aspect. For years the herb has been used medicinally for many conditions and ailments. At Organic Facts, they have quite a list of uses including: 

• Digestion
• Nausea and headache
• Respiratory disorders, cough
• Asthma
• Fever
• Skin care, pimples
• Female sterility 
• Cancer
• Oral care
• As an additive in food stuffs, cooking, personal products and home products

Everyone knows about the after-dinner mint to aid digestion and the mint flavored breath fresheners, but did you ever consider mint oil as an antiseptic? Or, as Organic Facts suggests, “mint juice is an excellent skin cleanser.” They also suggest it can be used to treat insect bites and stings as well. Who knew?

The use in teas is especially pleasing, and calming in both winter and summer. There are literally thousands of mint tea recipes on the Internet, but it’s pretty much put the washed  leaves in boiling water, let steep for 15 – 20 minutes. Cool, pour over ice and you’re done! It sounds like you decide how strong to make it according to your own preference and whether to add other teas to it.

Mint is a perennial that can be grown in the garden.

Gardens Ablaze told me something I didn’t know. Perhaps because I am always battling to lose weight, the thought that there are people who work equally as hard to gain weight never really occurred to me. But Gardens Ablaze says, 

Mint also can be used as an appetite stimulant. It reduces hunger for a short time, but when the effects wear off the hunger returns stronger than before. For those lucky enough to need to gain a few pounds, a tea might be tried 30 minutes before a meal for appetite stimulation.

From a gardeners viewpoint, mint is one of those plants that take hold in a garden and just go wild. Its spread is difficult to control and becomes a battle to the point gardeners often eradicate the plant and swear it will never come close again. 

So I think rather than battle it in my garden, I will take a trip to Natural Choices in Columbus, Indiana where I can find products from essential oils to teas to dietary supplements that will let me add mint to my diet and home without the headache in the garden!

Although, Organic Facts did say mint was good to use to get rid of headaches …

–Ellie of the Natural Choices Blog Team

My experiment of drinking hot tea instead of coffee and iced tea instead of soda pop is coming along well. I have to say I feel better. I really notice that I don’t have that acid-y feeling in my throat and stomach so I think this was a good change to make.

But what I wanted to tell  you about today was something I learned while reading more about green tea. It was big news last summer that I didn’t hear about.

MedicalNewsToday.com gave this report in June, 2009:    

According to results of a study published in Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, men with prostate cancer who consumed the active compounds in green tea demonstrated a significant reduction in serum markers predictive of prostate cancer progression.

Green tea could improve men's health.

I was reading a brochure from the Ask the Doctor series of literature at Natural Choices in Columbus, Indiana. It was for senior men (my husband is close to qualifying and I am always looking for ways to make him healthier … ) and Decker Weiss, NMD, was the doctor giving information. He said,

Green tea is the most widely consumed liquid in the world, after water. Men in China and Japan have been drinking it for centuries. They also have very low rates of prostate cancer. Research has discovered that a potent plan substance in green tea called epigallocatechin gallate, or EGCG, can stop the growth of prostate cancer cells dead in their tracks.

That certainly concurs with the results of the study, doesn’t it? I would say that if I can get my husband to drink green tea more often, since he already drinks tea instead of coffee, it would be good for his health.

My husband does a lot of things for me all the time. He’s a gem and I’d like to keep him around as long as possible, so switching his tea off to green tea may help me do that – and make him feel good knowing I am doing it especially for him!

I know I will be able to find a great selection of green teas at Natural Choices. Plus, I will be able to pick up one of the “Ask the Doctor” pieces of literature to bring home with the tea. As he always tells me, “It’s the little things in life that make him the happiest.” It may be a little thing to him, but keeping him healthy is a big thing to me.

– Ellie of the Natural Choices Blog Team

I am well into my month of no soda pop, drinking only tea and water. I have to admit, I do feel better.

But all this talk about tea has made me realize, even though I have been a tea-drinker for many years, I don’t really know what “tea” is. I mean, coffee comes from the coffee bean. There are so many varieties of tea, so where does it come from?

According to Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, tea is:

1 a: a shrub (Camellia sinensis of the family Theaceae, the tea family) cultivated esp. in China, Japan and the East Indies, 1 b: the leaves, leaf buds, and internodes of the tea plant prepared and cured for the market, classed according to method of manufacture (as green tea, black tea or oolong) and graded according to leaf size (as congou, orange pekoe, pekoe or souchong)

But then, you might ask, what about all the flavored and herbal teas? Well, Webster refers to them, too:

3: any of various plants somewhat resembling tea in properties; also: an infusion of their leaves used medicinally or as a beverage

Alvita is just one of the brands of teas you'll find at Natural Choices.

The idea I take hold of from that is the “medicinal” comment about teas since that has always been the bent when offered a cup of black tea, green tea or an herbal tea. The powerful anti-oxidants in green and white teas can do so many things like lowering the rate of heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s. Not to mention the calming effect and stress reduction that comes from holding a hot cup of tea in your hands and just smelling the aroma – no matter what the type, flavor or brand is, it’s like a little cozy hug.

An added important note about teas: many teas have caffeine. Many herbal teas are caffeine-free and others may be decaffeinated. But you have to read the labels closely. If you monitor or eliminate caffeine in your diet, pay attention to the teas you purchase. The shelves are lined with a tremendous selection of decaffeinated and tasty teas at Natural Choices in Columbus, Indiana. You might have trouble just picking one, or two, or even three!

Healthy for you, tasty, and calming. Sounds like time for a cup for me!

–Ellie of the Natural Choices Blog Team

I spent most of yesterday and all day today creating a new flower bed- in the clay the builder left me for a yard. It was hard work but I know in a few weeks and for years to come I will enjoy the flowers, ground covers and plants. When I have worked really hard and am very thirsty, I want water, or better yet, tea to drink. For some reason, ice cold brewed tea is what seems to revive me.

So after a hard two days in the yard, a glass of tea in hand, I started surfing to find out if I am the only one who thinks tea is the perfect cold drink in summer as well as hot drink in the fall and winter.

Natural Choices has a wide selection of teas for good health.

I found the Tea Association of the United States online. There is a section on tea and health that I found very interesting about tea and cardiovascular health – cholesterol in particular:

Researchers from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) studied the effect of tea on 15 mildly hypercholesterolemic adult participants following a “Step I” type diet moderately low in fat and cholesterol, as described by the American Heart Association and the National Cholesterol Education Program. After three weeks, researchers found that five servings of Black Tea per day reduced LDL (“bad”) cholesterol by 11.1 percent and total cholesterol (TC) by 6.5 percent compared to placebo beverages.

Woo-hoo! That is terrific news for me and everyone else who has to think about cholesterol levels. I think I will eliminate drinking soda pop for a month and replace it with tea. That means I will have to probably make it myself and carry it with me in a mug. But that’s okay because I can go to Natural Choices in Columbus, Indiana. The owner, Carolyn, has a tremendous variety of teas there. Many list organic ingredients.

Sometimes it just happens that the things you really like and enjoy can be the things that can be really good for your body, mood and overall health. Tea, apparently, is one of them!!

–Ellie of the Natural Choices Blog Team

Check out the selection of Alvita, TAZO, Yogi, Good Earth and other teas on the shelves at Natural Choices.