Life Change #10: I Don’t Drink Enough Green Tea

Just as we, as a nation, do not drink enough water, it appears that we do not drink enough green tea….or so says certain nutritionists or perhaps the cadre of green tea producers in our midst. In any event, it seems we need to solve this crisis, and I plan to do just that…one cup at a time. Aside from forgetting to do this, I think this will be a fairly simple habit to break. I often will warm up any left over coffee from the morning or sometimes even pour it over ice as a sort of afternoon pick me up. I will simply opt for green tea instead. I can drink it warm, or pour it over ice on warm days, just as I would coffee. I like the flavor, don’t really need to add sugar or milk or anything. I think just a cup a day is all I need, and really, if I miss a day, no big deal.


This may be the latest in a series of “fad foods” that we Americans get crazed on. We like foods that promise something we may not be getting elsewhere. In the case of green tea, simply put, the promise is longer life, in the form a batch of anti oxidants that fight disease, cell degeneration and aging it self. Sounds pretty good for a lightweight paper pouch full of ground up leaves. Sign me up.


Before green tea it was blueberries. Pomegranate juice is good. So is spinach, almonds, garlic and seaweed. Someone sent me a list one time of the top 10 most healthful foods you could eat, and it made a pretty good meal. We took spinach and sautéed it with garlic, olive oil and sliced almonds and placed a piece of grilled salmon on the spinach, served it with a glass or red wine and had blueberries in a bowl for dessert, served with green tea. The meal contained all 10 of the 10 best things to eat, and it was darn good.


In any event, there is always something that is attributed with curing diseases, old age and subsequent death. I have a theory that if you can cure all those things, folks will beat a path to your door; even more so if the cure is in the form of a good tasting food, or easy to take vitamin pill. Fish Oil was the cure of choice some years ago, and I recall my doctor indicated he thought it might be a good thing to take a fish oil supplement on a regular basis. Awhile later, it was disclosed that the concentrated fish oil, while having definite benefits, also acted to concentrate the mercury so often found in fish, thanks to our ill considered decision to dump our wasted and industrial by products into streams and rivers, and the ocean where it all winds up anyway. I still take fish oil, but wonder if the mercury is killing me.


Vitamin E was another panacea pill….a powerful antioxidant that seemed to deter aging, and when combined with Vitamin C, fought off cancer, wrinkles and did your homework if you asked nicely. Then they found out in some study that people who took Vitamin E supplements faced a greater mortality risk, though they could not establish any link to the actual vitamin…even saying it might be that unhealthy people took vitamin E at a greater rate than the general public with the hope of offsetting the damage their body had already sustained.


Longer life in a pill form or easy to drink liquid is a pretty attractive claim. I mean who wouldn’t want to take a chance? If such a claim is true, how can you go wrong? What is a person to do? What to believe or discard as nonsense? In the United States, most every claim made is an attempt to sell something. Either Dyna Gyms, Jack LaLane vegetable juicers, or fish oil capsules -- someone profits if I believe I just have to have something.


Green Tea is likely no different. However, I like the taste, and based on centuries of use in China and Japan, it appears that it does not wreak any sort of havoc, so it seems safe, even if it does not double my life span. We want to live forever, or if not forever, at least a long time. But I daresay we ought to put in there the proviso that those increasing later years are filled with good health and comfort, as well as strong mental acuity. Anything less is not a great bargain.
Green tea, though, also happens to taste good…and that is a bonus. A habit that comes easy. They make green tea ice cream, and candy, and it is a somehow comforting taste when brewed hot or poured over ice. I wonder if green tea ice cream has all the health benefits suggested by the name, or if the fat and sugar sort of offsets any premise of well being.


Rather than ponder those things, I will simply warm up the teapot after lunch each day so that I can take a spot of tea each day. Just think, if it helps me to live longer, how many cups of tea I will need to drink. What a great marketing tool….longer lives mean more tea consumed!.



Update on Previous Life Changes (Day Ten):

2 straight days with out cursing! Maybe anything is possible! Adding tea to the program impacted my water intake a bit, but I’ll get that under control. I’m feeling good, even if the waistline has remained consistent. I am far from perfection, I can see that clearly, but I can also see that 92 days of these type of changes will bring some tangible differences…can’t wait to get there!