La petite biscotte

I’m actually never quite satisfied with the amount of vegetables and fruit that I manage to eat in a day. Normally one is supposed to eat five portions of fruit/vegetables a day of which at least three should be fresh. Beside there are other things like yogurt or nuts that are said to be good for the health too. The list of things a person should consume regularly gets quite long over time and actually one is never sure of the exact health benefits a certain type of food offers.

Overall I doubt that we can already determine exactly how good a certain aliment is for the human, but quite a lot of things are already known to us. And if there is one thing I love then it’s finding out how I can keep myself healthy and maybe even prevent illnesses by eating the right things and apparently a few little adjustments in the diet can already have a major effect.

There is a great site that offers a list of common foods and tells you exactly what nutrients they contain and what effects the particular aliment can have on you. I was quite surprised by a few things on the list and surprisingly I found myself browsing that list for about an hour because it was quite interesting So here is the address:

http://www.whfoods.com/foodstoc.php

The thing that impressed me the most (though I didn’t read through the whole list yet) is definitely green tea. I already knew that it could block cancer but what I didn’t know is that if consumed regularly it can protect from all illnesses including stroke, CVD and kidney diseases. But this is by far not everything, as you’ll be able to see on the list for yourself.
Other things that were quite amazing: tomatoes, peas, apples, yogurt, bell peppers. Although I already eat a lot of tomatoes and bell peppers, I’ll certainly try to include some more of the other aliments into my diet

I’m not quite certain about the green tea. I’m torn between trying to drink it pure, without sugar, just the way people drink it in Asia or actually sweeten it a little. I know that most Japanese will probably find the idea of sweetening tea ridiculous but as much as I’d love to appreciate tea in its basic form it’s just not possible. I’ve tried several times to brew a cup a sencha green tea (standard Japanese green tea) and drink it without sugar. Although it was always quite refreshing, the grassy and slightly bitter taste prevented me from brewing another cup the following day I guess that this is the result from a habit of being too used to sweetened beverages which has always been my problem. With sweetened beverages I don’t necessarily mean lemonade and coke and things like that but rather fruit juices and sweetened teas (like peppermint tea, a tea we drink quite a lot in Germany). I have a really hard time drinking anything that doesn’t have at least a slightly sweet taste… at some point I couldn’t even drink pure water without cringing.

Nevertheless this has improved over the years and I manage to drink water just fine now. However saying that I enjoy drinking unsweetened tea would unfortunately be lying. So if I want to drink green tea on a regular basis, I’ll probably have to make use of the sugar can Anyway, in my next post I’ll post about how to get sensha and how to brew it properly.