How to Make Caffeine Free Green Tea

How to Make Caffeine Free Green Tea in Your Own Kitchen

By Kristie Leong M.D. Published Sep 10, 2007


You've probably heard and read about the health benefits of green tea.
Green tea has been shown in studies to help prevent a wide range of chronic diseases from heart disease to certain types of cancer. It's even been found to reduce the risk of certain viral infections.

Unfortunately, not everyone can tolerate the side effects related to the caffeine content in green tea. Caffeine acts as a nervous system stimulant which can result in such unpleasant symptoms as exessive nervousness, a rapid pulse rate, increased blood pressure, and difficulty falling asleep. In persons who suffer from heart disease or hypertension, caffeine in high doses can be dangerous.

If you can't tolerate caffeine, but you'd still ike the health benefits of green tea, what are your alternatives?

You can buy decaffeinated green tea, but your tea may have been decaffeinated by a chemical process which removes many of the beneficial catechins that are thought to be the active substances that protect against disease.

Plus, it can be hard to find a good selection of flavored green teas that are caffeine free. Why not prepare your own almost caffeine free tea at home? It's a lot easier than you might think.

This caffeine removal process works because more than 80% of the caffeine in green tea is released during the first 30 seconds of steeping.

Here's how to make caffeine free green tea in your own kitchen:

1. Prepare your boiling water as you normally do.
2. Arrange your tea bags or loose green tea leaves in your pan.
3. Pour the boiling water over your tea bags or lea leaves and allow it to steep for 30 seconds.
4. Discard the hot water which should contain more than 80% of the caffeine found in the tea leaves.
5. Prepare a fresh pot of hot water and steep your tea as usual.

While this method won't produce completely caffeine free green tea, it will remove 80-90% of the caffeine.

Since green tea naturally has anywhere from 20-40 mg. of green tea, removing 80-90% of the caffeine leaves you with somewhere around 2-8 mg of caffeine which is a level most people can tolerate.

Unrefined Sea Salt & How to Avoid the Wrong Kind

RealSalt (Pictured Above) is an Example of Unrefined Salt

Read this article from Natural News

Beware of refined "sea salt"

http://www.curezone.com/foods/saltcure.asp

On the labels of many packaged food, in supermarkets as well as health food stores the name "sea salt" appears often. Reading this, we feel safe and reassured, thinking that when it comes to the salt part of the ingredients, all is fine...

But All Is Not Fine!

This supermarket or health food store "sea salt" has been totally refined.
At its origin, it may have come from the sea, but:
1. It has been harvested mechanically from dirt or concrete basins with bulldozers and piped through metal conduits;
2. put through many degrading artificial processes;
3. heated under extreme heat levels in order to crack its molecular structure;
4. robbed of all of its essential minerals that are essential to our physiology;These elements are extracted and sold separately to industry. Precious and highly prized by the salt refiners, these bring more profits than the salt itself.
5. further adulterated by chemical additives to make it free- flowing, bleached, and iodized.

To call what remains "sea salt" would be quite misleading.

In addition, harmful chemicals have been added to the processed, altered unnatural substance to mask and cover up all of the impurities it has.

These added chemicals include free flowing agents, inorganic iodine, plus dextrose and bleaching agents.
Standard salt additives: Potassium-Iodide (added to the salt to avoid Iodine deficiency disease of thyroid gland), Sugar (added to stabilize Iodine and as anti-caking chemical), Aluminum silicate.
http://www.curezone.com/foods/saltcure.asp

Vital Functions of Salt in the Body

1. Salt is most effective in stabilizing irregular heartbeats.

Contrary to the misconception that it causes high blood pressure, it is actually essential for the regulation of blood pressure - in conjunction with water. Naturally the proportions are critical.

2. Salt is vital to the extraction of excess acidity from the cells in the body, particularly the brain cells.

3. Salt is vital for balancing the sugar levels in the blood; a needed element in diabetics.

4. Salt is vital for the generation of hydroelectric energy in cells in the body.

It is used for local power generation at the sites of energy need by the cells.

5. Salt is vital to the nerve cells' communication and information processing all the time that the brain cells work, from the moment of conception to death.

6. Salt is vital for absorption of food particles through the intestinal tract.

7. Salt is vital for the clearance of the lungs of mucus plugs and sticky phlegm, particularly in asthma and cystic fibrosis.

8. Salt is vital for clearing up catarrh and congestion of the sinuses.

9. Salt is a strong natural antihistamine.

10. Salt is essential for the prevention of muscle cramps.

11. Salt is vital to prevent excess saliva production to the point that it flows out of the mouth during sleep. Needing to constantly mop up excess saliva indicates salt shortage.

12. Salt is absolutely vital to making the structure of bones firm.

Osteoporosis, in a major way, is a result of salt and water shortage in the body.

13. Salt is vital for sleep regulation. It is a natural hypnotic.

14. Salt is a vitally needed element in the treatment of diabetics.

15. Salt on the tongue will stop persistent dry coughs.

16. Salt is vital for the prevention of gout and gouty arthritis.

17. Salt is vital for maintaining sexuality and libido.

18. Salt is vital for preventing varicose veins and spider veins on the legs and thighs.

19. Salt is vital to the communication and information processing nerve cells the entire time that the brain cells work - from the moment of conception to death.

20. Salt is vital for reducing a double chin.

When the body is short of salt, it means the body really is short of water.

The salivary glands sense the salt shortage and are obliged to produce more saliva to lubricate the act of chewing and swallowing and also to supply the stomach with water that it needs for breaking down foods.

Circulation to the salivary glands increases and the blood vessels become "leaky" in order to supply the glands with water to manufacture saliva.

The "leakiness" spills beyond the area of the glands themselves, causing increased bulk under the skin of the chin, the cheeks and into the neck.

21. Sea salt contains about 80 mineral elements that the body needs.

Some of these elements are needed in trace amounts.

Unrefined sea salt is a better choice of salt than other types of salt on the market.

Ordinary table salt that is bought in the super markets has been stripped of its companion elements and contains additive elements such as aluminum silicate to keep it powdery and porous. Aluminum is a very toxic element in our nervous system. It is implicated as one of the primary causes of Alzheimer's disease.

22. Twenty-seven percent of the body's salt is in the bones.

Osteoporosis results when the body needs more salt and takes it from the body.

Bones are twenty-two percent water. Is it not obvious what happens to the bones when we're deficient in salt or water or both.

* The information on salt intake is taken from Dr. Batmanghelidj's book, "Water: Rx for a Healthier Pain-Free Life".

SOURCES
Natural salt is not white and it is not dry.

It is a little gray with minerals and feels damp or clumps in humidity.

It must be labeled UNREFINED, NO ADDITIVES ADDED.

Sources of unrefined salt on the web:

Redmond Minerals, Inc.

Phone: 435-529-7402

Toll Free: 1-800-367-7258

Mail:mail@redmondminerals.com

http://www.realsalt.com/

The Grain and Salt Society

1-800-TOP-SALT (867-7258)

topsalt@aol.com

http://www.celtic-seasalt.com/

http://taviusa.com/salt.html
http://www.cluby2k.com/salt/

At http://www.greysalt.com/

you will find the finest natural and organic products: organic and natural gray sea salts, organic first cold-pressed oils, natural and organic recipes, and lots of useful natural and organic health information.

http://eco-natural.com/greysalt/products.html

3+ Drinks a Week Linked to Breast Cancer

Missed warnings about booze and breast cancer
Numerous studies detailed the risks —

how could so many ignore them?


By Robert Bazell
Chief science and health correspondent
NBC News
Oct 2, 2007

Many women were surprised by a recent study linking consumption of alcoholic beverages to an increased risk of breast cancer.

I was shocked, not by the results of the study, but by how many people — even colleagues in the news business — had never heard of the association before.

Scientific studies showing an increased risk of breast cancer for female drinkers have appeared hundreds of times over the past 20 years. I personally have often reported this conclusion. A quick search of newspaper and magazines articles, as well as news broadcasts, finds at least 11,000 stories mentioning this subject over the same 20-year period.
How could people be so ignorant of the warnings? The numerous reports were overlooked because, when it comes to health news, we tend to hear what want and manage to miss the rest.
Some of the earliest research connecting alcohol and breast cancer came from the Nurses' Health Study, one of the major sources of our knowledge about women's health. Beginning in 1980, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health asked almost 90,000 female nurses to fill out questionnaires about what they ate, drank and other lifestyle factors.

The researchers have regularly checked the women's health since then.
By 1987, an article in the New England Journal of Medicine based on the Nurses' Health Study concluded that women who consumed three to nine drinks a week had about a 30 percent increased risk of getting breast cancer.

The more that women drank, the greater the risk.

Other studies soon came to the same conclusion. In 1998, the Harvard scientists published a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association pooling the results of six studies from around the world that included more than 320,000 woman.

The paper concluded that one drink a day led to a 10 percent increase in breast cancer risk and two to five drinks a day caused a 40 percent increase.

Despite those risks, 60 percent of readers responding to an MSNBC.com poll said they wouldn't quit or cut back their drinking.

And nothing makes some people happier than hearing a health justification for drinking. In recent years, several studies have found that moderate alcohol consumption — particularly of red wine — in both women and men reduces the risk of heart disease. In no time at all, countless red wine corks were popped in the pursuit of healthier hearts.
What seemed to upset many about last week's study was the risk from all types of alcohol, including red wine. After years of being praised for its antioxidant and antibacterial benefits, red wine was suddenly being lumped with hard liquor in the risky category. In reality, the ingredients in red wine that protect against heart disease and other illnesses are tiny compared to the overall effects of the alcohol.

2007 MSNBC Interactive