Transcript
WEBVTT
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Today's episode is brought to you by the letter T.
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You're listening to the smarter Healthy Living podcast where we firmly believe that getting healthy should never feel like torture. We're your host, Jared and Anita Roussel were college sweethearts, and health professionals who help you redefine what getting healthy looks like using a whole food plant based lifestyle. It's time to hear from the experts and learn the best tips and tricks that helped others get beyond the overwhelm, to create a vibrant life they love. If you're sick and tired of being sick, and tired, you're in the right place. So pull up a virtual chair, grab your matcha latte. And let's get started.
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At this point, you may be wondering, what have I gotten myself into? What am I hearing, I thought I was listening to Smarter Healthy Living, but I'm reliving my childhood, I caught a little glimpse of Sesame Street. Actually, what we're talking about is actually tea, the drink, not the letter T,
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one of my favorites
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will reserve that for different episodes. So we've talked about taking away milk and replacing with plant milks, but also, you need other beverages, right water is very hydrating. It's the basis of what we should be drinking. But there are also other things we can drink that are delicious, helps keep some variety, but they also have some Amazing Health Benefits. And one of those is tea.
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And I'm so glad because I love some tea.
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We do get tea regularly.
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But we wanted to talk just a little bit about what it is and what some of the health benefits are. So tea, by definition, it comes from one plant. Right, it is camillia sinensis. And you may be thinking, what little Latin Did you throw me there?
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It's actually it's actually the name for the tea plant. Now that's found over in China, Japan and India. It's indigenous to those areas. So it was discovered there and then brought over here and the English took it to England and became a huge success. But it's from that plant is where we get three different types of tea.
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Now most people are familiar with black tea,
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valid white tea. Well,
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you love white tea. Yes, there's green tea, and they're white tea. And all three come from the same plant. But you might be thinking, Well, wait a minute, how is that possible?
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Ah, well, white tea is actually comes from the very young leaf, it's almost the bud of the leaf.
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And it has this kind of fine white, fuzzy appearance to the leaf.
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Um, it's like lamb's ear, if we have somebody out there who likes to grow plants. You know, we one time we agree lamb's ear. It's really nice. It has this almost a furry, soft gesture to it. That's really nice. So that's kind of like white tea. Yes. Except it doesn't come from the Lamb's ear plant.
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I don't know. But yes, if you're familiar with the lambs ear, then that's kind of what we're talking about. As the leaf leaf matures, then it becomes the green leaf. And it becomes green tea.
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Delicious. matcha. And the same
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black tea is whenever the leaf is older, but it's also fermented. Right? I don't know the specifics. I've never actually watched the process.
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But I know it's the fermented leaf. So it then gives it that Shriner flavor
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on YouTube.
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I'm sure somewhere on Google University somewhere on YouTube, but it has a different flavor right. Now interesting thing is that the caffeine found in white tea is less than that of in the green tea. And in green tea is less than that of in black tea. Something about the fermentation process seems to release more of the caffeine in it. So
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really, you would want to drink these types of tea really all three of them less in the evening when you're trying to go to sleep. Also, you don't want to drink a lot of liquid period at the end of the day.
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Otherwise, you're gonna be at Brennan, not good for your sleep, which is really important for your health. So we don't want you to do that late at night. But it's a great beverage to get throughout the day. I love green tea, particularly matcha. I like to make matcha lattes in my blender. You can use a little nut milk or just throw a few nuts of any kind in there like cheese, pecans, walnuts, and if you're not using nuts, you can thicken and make things creamy by using flax seeds and chia seeds. There's a little secret there.
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Now our listener may not be familiar with what mochi is Oh,
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the great benefits the health benefits watch. What is much of though we're drinking the whole tea
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leaves exactly right.
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So you're not just extracting a little part through some hot water that you put on a tea leaf. Now you're getting a whole ground up crush up tea leaf. And we know when we get whole plant foods there are other beneficial things you're going to get like fiber and other phytonutrients or plant nutrients that you'll be missing. If you just extract some of the benefits with the hot water poured over the tea leaf, so with matcha, you're eating or drinking the whole leaf, which is amazing for you, they grind
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into really fine powder, very fine powder.
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And the thing about tea is, is there are some incredible health benefits. You know, they found that there one study actually found there was a 30% risk in breast cancer reduction, right reduction in breast cancer, actually, when you drink green tea, the other thing is, it's been found he's been found from the tea plant. Now, we're not talking about herbal teas here. We'll get to that in a minute. But it's been found to help lower blood sugar and blood pressure, it's been helped to it's been found to help with cognitive decline to help reverse some of that or even prevent it, protect against it.
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And also with stroke, it's been helped to prevent strokes, it's been shown to talk about blood pressure,
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I think you did yeah,
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to decrease blood pressure and cholesterol as well. And then some other things. Maybe with seasonal allergies, we've read about that, you know, it can help with
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the oxidants. And and one of the main antioxidants that have been found. It's abbreviated egcg, I would try to pronounce the main word, but I would get Tongue Tied here. But if you've ever heard of that, then that's where this comes from.
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But the thing is, you can't drink one cup every once in a while expect to get some of these health benefits is on a regular basis. You know, when they do the studies and they say these things, that's how you're living on a regular basis. So, find easy ways to make tea or normal habit in your life. First of all, you have to have it in your pantry right or somewhere next to a place where you're going to boil some water, I mean, make it really simple for yourself, maybe get a pretty little basket and set out a bunch of different teas in there. If you're drinking if you always drink tea from a tea bag.
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However, I will tell you that the tea leaves that are using the tea bag are kind of sometimes the reject leaves and the stems and things like that
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typically going to be your higher quality and that gets hidden when it's inside that paper bag.
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You can't see it in the paper bag or sometimes even a plastic bag, which then again, that's not always a great option to pour hot water on, I wouldn't think so. We prefer using loose leaf teas and they're readily available online, you can find them at places like vitacost, or any tea shop online, just look up different tea shops, you'll find some incredible different varieties in there. And they might even mix in some other things like like some blue flowers and herbs and things like that to give you extra help based which is really nice and gives you extra flavors. And it's so wonderful to just discover new things. But especially when they're things that make you feel good help you get more water, and they taste incredible. Find your favorites and get those in there. And also, just like anything else, and Jared and I always teach, have a variety, get a variety of those things. Now, with a loose leaf. One of the things I always hated about was having this floating pieces in there because I don't like to feel like I'm chewing my tea. Am I the only one I mean, I think you probably wouldn't be there, you probably don't enjoy chewing your tea either. So I've found this incredible device. Let me tell you, I don't know if you've read Marie Kondo, or if you've ever listened to anything about the art of tidying up, but finding things that bring you joy in your life, to making tea with this little gadget brings me joy. It's absolutely beautiful.
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It makes wonderful tea. It strains it to perfection. And it's just gorgeous watching so simple
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to
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Oh, it's a gorgeous piece of kitchen equipment and it's not super expensive. And you can have larger ones and smaller ones. It's a glass container with a strainer built right in
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and designed to withstand a hot water from a tea kettle. So all
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you do is pour your hot water and put your tea leaves put the cap on which is also going to be your strainer. It strains it out right into your favorite mug, creating a cup of joy.
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Now when she says she loves it, we actually had one break. I don't know six months ago I reached I think I saw a tear come down.
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I know you did. I know you did. I might have crashed in private tears over that. But really just because of thinking of the days that I wouldn't have it while I waited for a new one to come in. Thankfully, I was able to get a new one what a blessing. So I reached back to grab something I don't know what it was and the tip of my pinky finger hit it and it was like slomo Oh, it's not happening.
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You know, and I see it falling on to the granite countertop.
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And I know unless I catch that thing it's taste it was toast.
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My reflexes were it's actually pretty,
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pretty durable glass.
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It really is that it
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just hit it the right way where it just come.
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It was over. But I absolutely love that thing could not recommend it enough. We'll put a link in the description below or to the side wherever that is. scription is on your device, get one of those things, if you have a larger family get a larger one get a single serve, we have both,
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we have both it's 400 milliliters. And then the big one is 1000 milliamp, or leader.
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Something like letter size.
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Yeah,
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so it's amazing because if you want to share it with one or two people, you can use the larger one. But if you just want to single server for yourself, it's really nice to have
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that option to good.
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Yeah, I really love having both of them. Sometimes ones in in use it, I need to grab the other one. Because the kids love making that thing. And they make it most every day.
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It's a great way to get your phytonutrients in and with all these other added benefits. It's just amazing how it can make you feel and give you energy naturally. Now with was there something you wanted to say?
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Well, I
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was gonna go with we had talked about caffeine before, it does have caffeine but it's not as much as what you normally find in coffee. And they do find that smaller amounts can be helpful because of this. It gives a mild stimulatory effect that can help with focus. But the interesting thing about tea is it has elfine which is kinda like an amino acid derivative.
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So it's kind of like an amino acid, which are the building blocks of protein protein. But in this case, it actually has a direct effect in our brain that actually has a calming effect, almost like an anti anxiety effect. So what it does is it helps to improve mental focus without that physical hype that you can get with other caffeine products like either coffee or the energy drink you see out there that can hype you up.
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So it gives a good mental focus without making you
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edgy, jittery and edgy.
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Yes. Nice.
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Okay, I love tea. There are many different reasons. And one of the other things that we wanted to talk about too is herbal teas. Now with herbal teas, that is basically any plant that you take that you pour hot water on, and you drink the water.
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Right, it's not Amelia sinensis, right.
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It's not the tea plant from which comes the white tea green tea or black tea. So one of Jarrod favorites that he discovered we have friends in South Africa that we love dearly, and they came to visit us and brought us Roy boss tea.
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I had never
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heard of it before. And they explained that it's considered red tea. And it was amazing. It actually has a flavor kind of like the tea plant, but it was more mellow and I can't really describe it any better than that, but it was just absolutely fabulous. And it's naturally caffeine free. So if you really enjoy tea one enjoy it later in the evening.
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Then this is a great alternative. Plus, it gives you a little variety to act but love it.
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It's wonderful. I really liked that one. Go ahead.
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It's spelled ROIB s but it's pronounced Roy boss.
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And then one of my favorites. spearmint. Peppermint is great too, but I love spearmint tea. It's just refreshing. It's cool. I love drinking that in the evenings.
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One of my absolute favorites.
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Can you think of any others? I know another one I
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like I just thought another one that I love is hibiscus. Yep, that's what I bisque is tea.
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Absolutely love it. It's made from the dried flowers correct?
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Yes. So you know there are different varieties of hibiscus plants so not all of them would make hibiscus tea but it comes from that plant.
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hibiscus is amazing for you look up the health benefits.
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It's absolutely incredible for your health. It's been found to lower blood pressure when you get it on a regular basis. So what you want to do is, don't just go to the store and look for the little boxes, get you one of these tea makers that we're going to link to in the description. Get the whole hibiscus bloom, basically it's the flower. You can buy bags of them online. Just look up hibiscus tea or whole hibiscus flowers, it says they're wonderful. And you just state them they're dried, and you state them in the water just like you're making tea. They're amazing. There is
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this red color.
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Honestly, it's like the best fruit pen she'll ever try.
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And this actually gets used in blends to create some of these berry flavors types or fruit punch are exactly.
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You'll look on the back and the ingredients and you'll see hibiscus in there. And that's why it gives that berry flavor. There is one way that tea can become unhealthy for you though. And that's with what say
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it isn't so well.
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Actually there are two ways I just saw him another way.
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First of all, how it comes in the tea bag with a bunch of mess inside it. That's not the tea leaf or the earlobe. I'm serious. You'll see things that will just make you crazy. Okay, they made me crazy. Maybe they won't make you crazy. But you look at the back and you think what in the world is a student in their natural flavors, okay, look up what all can be on there. Okay. There is actually a secretion from a beaver's behind that can go into natural flavors and it is used in food products.
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I'm not kidding you, like don't buy things that say natural flavors, there's so many things they're allowed to put under that. I'm not making this stuff up. I'm really not I wish I was making this up. Don't buy things that say natural flavors, you don't know what it is there's, it may be natural, but you're probably not gonna want to put it in your body or your mouth.
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I'm just saying, look, I
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mean, you can find this stuff online, it's
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in. It's true, it's reputable. The other thing is artificial flavors. You definitely don't want that a lot of these things are cancer causing you don't want those things. And don't buy tea, that acid, all it needs is the verb, the spice, or the whatever, you're drinking the tea, white tea, green tea,
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natural, plain black tea derived exactly
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whatever it is, read your ingredients, labels, you think tea is just going to be tea, you'd be wrong to her, right.
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But you'd be wrong. And I always thought that too. I mean, it's not your fault. We just don't even imagine the things that are put in what we buy and what we until we start looking at the labels and research get shocked
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and get shocked. So what was the second way?
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Well, the other way, we'll say the first way was it can be put in there. Okay, the other way that it can become bad for you, not just something that's added to the ingredients on the product, but it's what we put in it what we put in it. So don't pour cream, dairy cream, cow's milk into your tee, go back and listen to Episode 37.
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Please then decide then the choice you know, then you decide. But you can make a more informed decision. We want you to listen to that episode. It's one of the most important there are a lot of important episodes, you need to listen to all of them. But 37 is crucial. Listen to it. And you'll understand why you don't want to add dairy or cow's milk to your tea. There are a lot of other things you can do to like make a matcha latte like I said, You know, I put a couple of nuts in there. I have some dates as well. Medjool dates for sweetness. And so you don't have to add sugar you don't get
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amoenus
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Yeah, and you don't have to add the cream. You get the creaminess from the seeds, or walnuts or things like that, that make it creamy. You would not believe how amazing it can be. But tea alone if you have a really good tea, the flavors are incredible.
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Yeah, as you cut back on sweeteners, you start to notice those flavors really come through.
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Yeah, your taste your taste perception. I don't want to say your taste buds physically change. I don't know what the mechanism is. We've looked it up and looked it up and researched it. And it's just your perception of flavors and tastes changes over time. And it really happens. It doesn't take that long of eating whole food plant based and changing the things you're drinking and the things you're eating for you to pick up on those incredible flavors that have been there all along that you've just been missing out on. But you didn't know. But now you do. We have loved having you join us today for smarter healthy living. We look forward to hearing from you drop us an email at info at the crunchy couple.com we love reading and then we read every single one. You might even hear from us or we might drop an episode based on something you recommend or question you ask.
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We look forward to seeing you again next time. Make sure you have an incredible day and we will talk with you soon.
