What is Tempeh? Nutrition, Health Benefits, How to eat
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Before Going Green:
Green tea shows some amazing weight reducing properties but also weakens stomach acid secretions. Now, that’s a paradox. So, those just next to Samuel Johnson as passionate, hardened and shameless tea drinkers must think twice if all that lowering stomach acid business they can deal properly with. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is smart business, not practical.
The Green Tea News:
Green tea has been lab-tested too many times. One such study (at the Universities of Geneva and Fribourg, Switzerland) confirms green tea a significant thermogenic (heat-producing, hence fat-burning) agent.
The study was held on ten, lean to mildly-obese (healthy otherwise) young men between 24 and 26 years with body fat percentage varying from 8 to 30. They were put on a high fat, western diet with 35 to 40% fat along with supplements:
- Powdered green tea extract: Enough to make four cups per day
- Caffeine: As much as there in the green tea extract, by weight.
- Placebo.
The green tea extract increased the body’s total energy expenditure by 4%., which is the thermogenic component of total energy expenditure: going up 35% to 43%. This means larger fat oxidation.
Caffeine doesn’t do well when left alone, not with 150 mg per day. So it doesn’t induce thermogenesis so well; it lacks green tea’s synergistic interaction.
How to Choose Your Green Tea?
Fermented green tea undergoes oxidation and the enzymes causing the fermentation neutralize many of the polyphenols, diminishing greatly its medicinal value. Buy anything that didn’t undergo the fermentation process. It’s not wine, after all.
What Backs Green Tea?
An exotic chemical, if you must bring some romantic imagery. It also exhibits anticancer properties. EGCG or epigallocatechin gallate is a catechin by category, a member of the larger class of poly-phenols belonging to an even larger class of compounds called flavonoids. Flavonoids are plant pigments, the stuff that colors the fruits, vegetables and herbs. Catechins also fight heart diseases, vision disorders, viral infections, allergies and a few stomach troubles.
EGCG; however, is the most active catechin in green tea, pharmacologically. The remaining 28% are other polyphenols. EGCG reports from University of Kansas shows it to be 100 times more effective than vitamin C and 25 times than vitamin E in protecting DNA damage from free radicals.
How Green Tea Cuts Fat:
Through thermogenesis. It is a physiological process initiated by a series of chemical reactions within the body. It produces carbon dioxide and water molecules liberating thermal energy (heat).
When do you know you need it?
a.Exceeding normal weight by 20%.
b.There’s more than 25% of body fat (men) or 30% (women).
c.Body mass index (BMI) reading 30 or more. Calculate by dividing body weight (in kilograms) by the square of your height (in meters). English units require dividing body weight (in pounds) by the square of your height (in inches) and multiplying the result by 703.
d.If waist/hip ratio (WHR), men are at danger if it reaches or exceeds 1.0; for women, 0.8 or more. To get it, divide the measure of waist with the measure of hips (at the widest point).
Trouble With Green Tea:
Green tea reduces stomach acids unlike black tea and that shakes the very base of immunity. True, green tea also boosts immunity, but it opens the gate for pathogens to get in. Low strength stomach acids destroy microbes that enter through food; this is one of the reasons why people get achlorhydria, an abnormal deficiency or absence of free hydrochloric acid in the gastric juice. This gives pathogens like giardia and candida a great chance to go for the intestines and mess up the body’s system to absorb nutrition from food. Achlorhydria is also the reason why more and more people are becoming lactose and gluten intolerant every passing day.
The Green Zone:
Yes, that’s about safe consumption. Black tea and green tea must be balanced to preserve and enhance the stomach’s gastric juices. Additionally, a lump of yogurt (preferably with common salt) before the green tea will also act as a buffer.
