Are You Free to Take Some Tea?
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May I inquire discreetly: When are you free to take some tea with me?
~The Beatles
I’ve always loved a good cup of tea. That’s why, when my friend, Amber, at Strocel.com suggested that we all “show her our stash” of tea, I positively jumped at the chance!
I am an avid tea drinker. Okay, truthfully, I don’t really discriminate; at least not in genre, I drink coffee, tea, cocoa… it’s all good. Additionally, as my hands are always cold; a hot cuppa fits the bill quite well. I do, however, have my favorites; and some which I just can’t stand (so they linger, like, forever, in my cabinet). I’d say I’m a 8-cup-a-day drinker; though, it’s not always caffeinated (lest you have a picture in your head of me zooming around like a moth on a porchlight with a cup of something gripped firmly in my jittering hands). Not always. Ahem.
For quite some years, my penchant(s) for tea drinking – and collecting – have collided in a most haphazard way in my kitchen cabinets (always just right out of reach; honestly, I don’t know WHY I’ve never, ever, moved my tea to a more convenient location!), 'til 'round about 10 years ago, when drinking and collecting merged in a more seamless way, and Adam and I opened an online tea shop – selling one of our favorite hot beverages: chai (though, truth be told, much of my tea at home & at work is bought from the tea shop at our grocery store, and I don’t drink as much chai as I once did; preferring the simplicity of a nice, plain, green as I've gotten older. Ahem, again.). [ps: Amber has assured me that owning a tea shop does not disqualify me from participating in the Big Tea Show-Off. But, in all fairness, I felt I did need to disclose that little fact.].
And now... on to stats. And PICTURES!
In my office stash, you can find:
10 boxes of tea
1 can of tea
Many random tea bags & tea k-cups
In my stash at home, you can find:
19 boxes of tea
2 cans of tea
A nonsensical number of random individual tea bags
This pic can perhaps best be described with: O_o
In our warehouse stash… maybe just a pic will suffice:
So... I love tea. And I love people who love tea. I could drink it all day & night; and often do. My kids love tea, too. And, I’m convinced tea keeps you young. And keeps you happy. Or, at least, it keeps you warm. And that counts for something.
Here’s to a Happy New Year, and happy tea drinking!
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As Halloween is fast-approaching, you may be thinking about what kinds of treats you’ll have available for the trick-or-treaters in your neighborhood. Now, maybe you don’t give out treats (the Mom-side of me thanks you for your pretzels, fruit leathers, pencils, stickers, or pennies for Unicef!). But if you do offer candy, you may want to consider keeping Nestlé treats out of your trick-or-treat bowl this year.
(Image source: http://www.phdinparenting.com/2010/10/25/international-nestle-free-week-2010-join-us/)
Why No Nestle? A very short synopsis: there has been an active boycott on Nestle since July 7th 1977, stemming from their promotion of breastmilk substitutes (infant/baby formula) over breastfeeding, particularly in under-developed countries. Nestlé continues to violate the WHO (World Health Organization) code by persisting in their marketing of infant formula in places where doing so (instead of promoting breastfeeding) can lead to illness, malnutrition, and death of babies (for reasons such as formula mixed with contaminated water is dangerous, formula is too expensive for many women to purchase, and often gets watered down, resulting in malnutrition). Nestlé also controls much of the bottled water industry (and thus the sources of water) in the United States. (If you’re ready to be frightened by the state of water in our country, I highly recommend the movie Tapped) Nestlé also promotes unhealthy eating through their production and marketing of high-sodium “Gerber Graduates” processed foods to toddlers.
For more information on the Nestlé boycott, here are some good places to start:
http://info.babymilkaction.org/nestlefree
http://www.phdinparenting.com/tag/nestle-boycott/
http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/
So, you'd like to try to keep your Halloween Nestlé- free, but not sure which products Nestlé produces? Well… take a deep breath; they’re everywhere (I'd rather not directly link to their site, but if you Google Nestlé, you can find everything they have their name on - and it's a ton)! For the purpose of International Nestlé-Free Week (which runs from October 31st thru November 6th) I’ve created a list, limited strictly to candy.
List of Nestlé Candies, Chocolates, and Confections:
100 Grand
Aero Bar
Abuelita
Baby Ruth
Bit O Honey
Bottle Caps
Butterfinger
Cailler
Carlos V
Chewy Spree
Chewy Sweetarts
Chunky
Crunch Bar
Everlasting Gobstoppers
Fruit Runts
Goobers
Kazoozles
Kit Kat (outside of the U.S.)
Laffy Taffy
Lik-M-Aid Fun Dip
Mix Ups
Nerds
Nestle Milk Chocolate
Nips
Oh Henry! (inside the U.S.)
Oompas
Orion
Pixy Stix
Raisinets
Runts
Shockers
Smarties (outside of the U.S.)
Sno-Caps
Spree
Sweetarts
Wonka Exceptionals
So… Which candies CAN you buy this year?
My vote is for Fair-Trade Organic Chocolate or Organic Lollipops! Of course, that’s not always practical nor affortable! So, here’s a list of...
Conventional Candies NOT Produced by Nestlé:
3 Musketeers
Almond Joy
Bounty
Bubble Yum
Cadbury Crème Egg
Cadbury Dairy Milk
Dagoba
Dove Bar
Galaxy
Good & Fruity
Good & Plenty
Heath Bar
Hershey’s Kisses
Hershey’s Special Dark
Ice Breakers Gum
Jolly Rancher
Kit Kat (inside the U.S.)
Krackel
Mars Bar
Marathon
Mauna Loa
Milk Duds
Milky Way
Mini Eggs
M&M’s
Mounds
Mr. Goodbar
Oh Henry (outside of the U.S.)
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
Reese’s Pieces
Rolo
Skittles
Smarties (inside the U.S.)
Snickers
Starburst
Summit
Symphony Bar
Take 5
Twix
Twizzlers
Whatchamacallit
Wrigley’s Gum
York Peppermint Patty
Zagnut
Zero
Thanks for considering participating in Nestlé-Free Week and... Happy Halloween!
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Hello readers; it's been a while. Today, I’m going to talk about something serious.
1 in 3 women will develop cardiovascular disease in their lifetime and 1 in 17 women in the US will have a heart attack or hospitalization for heart disease before the age of 60.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in women, regardless of race.
While waiting somwhere recently, I read a magazine featurette of a woman who had experienced symptoms of fatigue, shortness of breath, and dizziness. She mostly brushed them off, and continued on with her day. As they got progressively worse, her husband encouraged her to see a doctor, who then advised her to head to the hospital because the tests seemed slightly off. She waited at the hospital. (And waited.) While waiting, a man presented with a “typical” heart attack symptom of chest pain and was rushed ahead of her. After hours of waiting she was finally seen by a doctor, where, after more testing, determined that yes, indeed, she had a heart attack.
After doing a bit of research online, it appears that this woman’s story is not unusual. Women are less likely to report heart attack symptoms, and when they DO report them, they are less likely to be diagnosed with a heart attack. Even when presenting with the same symptoms as men, women’s symptoms are more often diagnosed as “anxiety” than as heart disease.
In a study at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, 230 doctors were given cases of men & women with identical symptoms; only half of the cases included “feeling anxious” or “having a stressful experience”. In the cases where stress/anxiety was included, doctors diagnosed heart disease in 56% of men compared with 18% (just eighteen percent!) of women. Men were referred to cardiologists twice as often as women and cardiac meds were prescribed to half the men, vs. 13% of the women. Gender bias at work, folks.
A big part of the problem may be that men’s & women’s heart attack symptoms can differ dramatically. Fewer than 30% of female heart attack suffers reported having chest pain prior to their heart attack, and 43% reported having no chest pain during any phase of their heart attack. NO CHEST PAIN. And yet, according to a study done by the National Institue of Health (“Women’s Early Warning Symptoms of Acute Myocardial Infarction” Circulation. 2003) MOST doctors still consider chest pain as the most significant symptom of a heart attack in both men AND women.
I’m not sure what to make of this. Is it possible that the popular culture belief that heart attack = chest pain (watch any TV show or movie where someone is suffering a heart attack – they immediately grab their chest & collapse, right?) is so ingrained that even doctors don’t know the facts? Yikes.
There was a recent survey of 500 doctors, in which only 8% of family doctors were aware that men’s & women’s heart attack symptoms differ. And (are you ready?) only 17% of CARDIOLOGISTS (you know, HEART doctors) were aware of the fact that more women die from heart disease than men. What?
Ladies, we have a problem here. Women are dying of heart attacks because they aren’t recognizing they’re having them, the people around them aren’t recognizing they’re having them, and even their doctors aren’t recognizing they’re having them.
It’s time for some education.
Women, men, doctors, everyone needs to be aware that the symptoms of heart attack in women can be DIFFERENT than the symptoms of heart attacks in men. We need to change the perception that chest-clutching is the main indicator of heart attack.
Here’s how the symptoms stack up:
Women’s Top Three Heart Attack Symptoms
Shortness of Breath
Weakness
Unusual Fatigue
Women also commonly experience these symptoms leading up to & during a heart attack:
Cold Sweat
Dizziness
Indigestion
Anxiety
Sleep Disturbance
Men’s Top Three Heart Attack Symptoms
Chest Pain
Discomfort or pain in the arm or back
Shortness of Breath
If you experience ANY of these symptoms, don’t ignore them. Tell a loved one, call a doctor. Don’t shrug it off, don’t just soldier on. It may not be anxiety or indigestion. 1 in 17 of you will have a heart attack before you turn 60. That’s less than 25 years away for me, and I don’t particularly like those odds.
So, now you know the differences. But what can we do to improve our odds at suffering cardiovascular disease? While heart disease is the number one killer of women, it’s also one of the most preventable. The basics:
Stop smoking. (21.2 million US women smoke. Seriously?)
Lower your blood pressure. (33% of US women have hypertension)
Exercise. (at least 20 minutes a day; even walking counts – just move)
Eat healthy foods. (Lots of fruits, veggies, nuts, and beans. Ditch the meat & dairy.)
Maintain a healthy weight. (62% of women are overweight, including 33% who are obese)
Control your diabetes. (7 – 10 million US women have diabetes)
Don’t drink too much. (limit yourself to one alcoholic drink/day)
Reduce stress. (Meditate. Write. Yoga. Do something you like, just for you.)
For more information on heart disease in women:
http://www.womenheart.org/
http://myheartsisters.org
http://www.womenshealth.gov/publications/our-publications/fact-sheet/heart-disease.cfm
English Muffin Pizza Recipe
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So what do you do when you have hungry kids, not much time, and a lot of stale english muffins? Make english muffin pizzas, of course!
These are super-easy & fun for small hands to help make. We had so much fun, in fact, that I forgot to take photos of the preparation phase! There’s plenty to do for all levels of skill – splitting the muffins, slicing veggies, spooning sauce, sprinkling cheese, shaking on spices. Makes a perfect, quick, vegetarian lunch or dinner!
Ingredients:
Stale English Muffins (or fresh… but seriously, if you have fresh, just toast & enjoy with butter & jam, as they are meant to be enjoyed!)
Your favorite tomato sauce
Shredded mozzarella (or vegan mozzarella) cheese
Sliced veggies for toppings (we only made cheese this time, but you can add peppers, tomatos, onions, mushrooms, artichokes, olives... get creative!)
Garlic powder, black pepper, & oregano
Preparation:
Cut english muffins in half & place on a pizza pan or other surface which allows air to circulate beneath the muffins – if you like crispier crust pizza. [Note: We don’t have a pizza pan, so I baked ours on a cookie “cooling rack” which was set on a cookie sheet. You can also crumple aluminum foil, then uncrumple & line a pan (the wrinkles allow air to flow underneath)] If you like your pizza with softer crust, you can bake directly on a cookie sheet. Spoon 1 – 2 Tbs of sauce onto each muffin – spreading it out almost to the edge. Add veggies or other toppings. Top each with mozzarella cheese – remember to keep the cheese towards the middle of the muffin as it will melt & spread! Shake on garlic, pepper, and oregano to taste. Bake at 450 F for ~10 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly & pizzas are browning lightly on the edges & top. Remove & allow to cool for a few minutes. Then… enjoy!
