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Which is better for you?  Tea or coffee?  When I refer to tea, I’m not refering to herbal tea because it’s not really tea.  It’s more herbs than anything else.  I like both of them almost equally.  Tea is easier on my stomach and coffee gives me a bigger boost.  I’ll weigh the pros and cons of each from my own personal experiences and we’ll see which is the best in my humble opinion:

Coffee:  I find coffee to be really good for perking my energy up, but it does wreak havoc on my stomach at times.  I guess it’s because I drink it black with nothing to dilute it.  It is overly acidic, but  for the most part, it is a far superior energy booster to tea.  If I drink a couple mugs of coffee, I’m ready to go.  Tea, not as much.  Coffee does not taste half as good as the flavored teas I have in my home.  I’ve never cared for flavored coffee either.  I can hardly ever taste the flavor and it doesn’t make the coffee taste that much better.  Coffee, when consumed in excess, leaves me extremely jittery.

Black tea:  Black tea is very tasty and very caffeinated, but not to the tune that coffee is.  It doesn’t mess with my stomach half as bad and it does give me some boost and a feeling of calmness as well.  It doesn’t leave me jittery.  I feel the antioxidants more and feel like it is a healthy drink vs. a necessary evil.  Now, I know coffee isn’t BAD for you, but it’s not as good as tea for you.

Green tea:  Has little punch, but has a good calming effect and when I drink it, my mind works better.  I can drink it before going to bed and still sleep, which I cannot say for the other two.  It doesn’t have much taste unless it’s flavored, which is the only kind I drink anyway, so it’s on the weak side.  White tea also fits in here, but it has less caffeine and less taste.  Sure, it’s the purest tea on Earth, but I just don’t like it that much.  Green tea is good, but not as good as black tea in most regards.

Herbal tea:  Herbal tea is great at bedtime and there are so many interesting concoctions.  I like the taste of most herbal teas and since there are so many to choose from and there is no caffeine, it can be said that herbal teas are the least addictive of the hot beverages.  When I drink too much caffeine, I can bring myself down to base with some herbal teas.  The two brands I would suggest the most are Bigelow and Celestial Seasonings.  Also, Chakara teas are very tasty and very different.

Tea and coffee are both loaded with antioxidants and both have positive health benefits.  To me, coffee is the least healthy of all these choices, but it is by no means unhealthy.  I would have to say I drink mostly coffee in the early day and tea later at night.  I know tea has fluoride, which is a negative, so I always drink some herbal too.

I was kind of bored and put this post together just to give my opinions on tea.  And coffee.  I’ll try to think of some more meaningful posts in the future.  Have a nice night.

I’ve been samping chocolates for quite a long time, and I’ve always found that the darker the chocolate, the better.  Right now, I enjoy 85% Lindt and 86% Ghirardelli chocolates, the precentage referring to the amount of cacao in each bar.  I find that this is my upper limit for chocolates and my lower limit for tolerance when it comes to taste is around 70%.  Anything lower is no longer palatable for me.  And the dark chocolate feels so nutritious to me that it fills me up with a mere 2 squares daily.  I figure the closer I can get to the real cacao nib, the better quality and nutrient-dense chocolate I’m going to have.  I know many people like the creaminess of milk chocolate, but I find it to be too bland and not bitter enough.  When chocolate is stripped down as far as I go, you can taste the actual cacao nibs and the flavor is explosive…and addictive, but in moderation should cause no harm.

It’s great as an after meal snack.  One to two squares will satiate the need for anything else.  The cacao nib is really a nut, so it works to the same philosophy that less is more.  When you eat a handful of almonds or cashews, doesn’t it fill you up and satiate you more than a handful of pretzels?  Sure, the fat content is high in all these foods, but they are mostly good fats, and chocolate with minimal sweetness is almost like eating a batch of honey roasted peanuts, only with less sugar.  The chocolate I eat has slightly more than 1 gram of sugar per square.  It does, however, have 4.5 grams of fat per square, but that’s why it’s not wise to eat a whole bar in one sitting.  Besides, the flavor is so intense that you couldn’t possibly eat a whole bar in one day, never mind in one sitting.

Chocolate has antioxidants and healthy oils, especially in its natural state.  It is a tasty treat that I thought I would remind everyone about for the holidays.  But stick with the high-quality chocolate, no lower than 60% cacao.  Otherwise, you’re paying for milk and soy lecithin and a little bit of chocolate.

My personal favorite is the Lindt 85% cacao.  Then it goes Ghrardelli 72%, then Grhardelli 86%.  After that, I can’t remember, but I encourage you to try this semi-healthy food in moderation and no guilt because you’re doing your body a favor when you eat a few squares a day.

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I drink regular coffee straight black with nothing in it, but whenever my brother comes home from college on a break, he always adds flavored coffee to it, like vanilla and hazelnut, stuff I don’t really care for anymore after I switched to straight black.  And forget cream and sugar.  Why can’t people just enjoy things the way they’re supposed to be?  Sure, some black coffee is bitter, but the light roasts are really coming through for me this time and it has a sweet taste without even adding anything.  And enough about that gourmet coffee crap.  I don’t need espressos, lattes, or machiattos.  Minimalist coffee.  Just the stuff that comes from the beans and the water.

I don’t need people dressing up my coffee to make it more attractive.  I like it the way it is.  And I’m tired of getting looks at the coffee places when I say black coffee.  “Are you sure you don’t want any shots of syrup?”  Yes, I’m sure, now leave me alone.  I like my coffee dark, like my chocolate, and sometimes my women.

P.S.  This is nothing more than a humorous piece because no one in the world of Google had “don’t whore up my coffee” in quotes.  Besides, pimping my ride and whoring up my coffee are two no-nos in my life.  I don’t need to dress my coffee up like some tramp.  She’s fine just the way she is.

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For the past two or three weeks, I’ve been eating more raw foods.  Mostly fruits.  I am starting to shy away from the processed foods and candies.  Sure, they still taste good, but nothing compares to eating an apple right now.  It is almost like a cup of coffee, but without a crash at the end.  And the taste is explosive, much unlike any boxed food I can find.  Living foods has a wonderful quality to it that cooked foods do not have.  It gives me an extra boost that is hard to explain, but it leaves me clearer in all aspects of my body and mind.  I do not think us humans were meant to eat cooked food.  Sure, we can tolerate it because it’s been forced down our throats for so many years and we had to adjust as a survival mechanism.  But since we have evolved over millions of years not eating cooked food, what makes us think that we can all of the sudden eat food that has been cooked?

I know that we can survive on both diets, but with all of these diseases people are experiencing these days, from cancer to diabetes, I wonder what the root cause of all this is.  At least part of it has to be diet-related.  In America, we are a culture that loves food.  We even have a holiday devoted to just stuffing ourselves to the brim and then having dessert.  A country that cooks millions of giant birds every November to fill our gluttonous needs.  I believe the reason we overeat is that the foods we are eating are low in nutrients because of the cooking and the way the food is grown/raised.  Now that we’ve interfered with nature so much that our foods are grown with chemical fetilizer and our meat is raised with hormones and antibiotics, it is no wonder our country’s population is going downhill healthwise.  And it may be more expensive to shop organic, but the quality is well-worth the extra cash.  Also, not cooking the fruits and veggies you happen to purchase will also give you the best nutrient bang for your buck.

Whenever we eat cooked food, our white blood cells go on attack mode.  That should tell us something.  If our body is telling us the Egg McMuffin is a foreign invader, not suitable for consumption by anyone, then why do we keep eating it, putting a strain on our digestive system and our immune system?  If our bodies are constantly working to fight off the food we are eating, is it any wonder to you that disease just happens to slip in under the guard?  And this is the big problem.  If there is an opening for any sort of virus or bad bacteria to get through, it will get through and cause problems.  The body will need all its resources to fight these intruders, but if you are still eating the cooked diet, it will need to expend some energy digesting the massive amount of french fries and fried dough that is resting in your stomach.  I believe that is one reason that when we are sick we do not feel like eating.  Our body sends us a signal that we should not be eating right now because our body is trying to repair itself.  And if you are going to eat anything at all, why not make it a fruit or a green smoothie?  It digests much quicker than cooked food, in 20 minutes to be precise.

I am no expert on raw foods, but I do know one thing.  To me, it makes sense.  It just makes sense to me.  Intuitively, logically, and spiritually.  I just think about all the times I’ve burned myself on the stove.  That is what we are doing to our food.  If you stuck your hand in a pot of boiling water for ten minutes, wouldn’t you think there would be some damage?  That is the same thing that is happening to our foods when we put them in the pot.  We are damaging our foods.  I, for one, do not feel that this practice will contribute to optimal health.  It will most likely contribute to premature death.  All the toxin accumulation from the harmful free radicals that from when food is put at a certain temperature will take us all down slowly if we do not monitor our raw vs. cooked foods.  This may or may not be for everyone, but the more I think about it, the more I believe that raw foods is food in its natural state, the way the Earth is offering it to us.  It is there for our survival and to change its nature in any way is to alter what is intended for you.   Why not try it?  I bet it is the ultimate weight loss diet.  I’ve read plenty of testimonials that say so.

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