Saturday, January 5, 2008

Hot Chocolate Is A Tasty Way To Boost Your Immune System


Hot Chocolate Is A Tasty Way To Boost Your Immune System
Author: Darren Craddock

Now you can satisfy your chocolate cravings without a shred of guilt!
Are you one of the millions of people who crave chocolate? That is OK because cocoa is actually very good for you. Hot Cocoa made with pure cocoa powder contains more antioxidants than green tea or wine. Now there are all organic hot cocoa products that are naturally healthy with the addition of herbal infusions that boost immune response and physical performance.

Several health focused companies have added the immune boosting properties of Cordyceps and Ganoderma to their hot cocoa products. These Chinese herbs have long been known to boost physical performance and immune system response. People are clamoring for this healthy hot chocolate alternative.

Now drinking hot chocolate can help you fight off colds and flu. Now you can enjoy a chocolate hot cocoa that is healthy as it possibly can be. When cocoa is infused with these medicinal herbs you are getting a rich chocolate drink that releases these extra health benefits when you heat the chocolate. Best of all, all you taste is rich creamy delicious gourmet hot cocoa.

Cordyceps has been used for treating many disorders including: chronic respiratory disorders like asthma, chronic bronchitis, chronic fatigue, chronic renal failure, decreased libido, diabetes, emphysema, heart disease, hepatitis B and respiratory symptoms. Some folks remember how the Chinese olympic athletes of 1999 used cordyceps to help them win many metals. Cordyceps has been proven to enhance athletic performance because it helps increase blood flow and oxygen supplies throughout the body. This includes blood flow to your brain as well.

The herb ganoderma will assit in helping your body cleanse itself from a variety of toxins as it naturally strengthens your immune system. It helps with liver detoxification, and also improves liver function by stimulating the regeneration of liver cells. Ganoderma has been proven to regulate the immune and endocrine systems, prevent tumors, improve circulation and eliminate harmful free radicals. These miraculous herbs are now infused with pure cocoa for a hot cocoa beverage that tastes rich and creamy while it enhances your immune system.

It is official! Chocolate is now a health food!

Good cocoa bean chocolate is a highly complex food that is really very good for you. Chocolate has gotten a bad reputation because people over eat poor quality chocolate products that are filled with sugar and cheap saturated fats. The myth that cocoa, leads to obesity, tooth decay and skin problems simply is not true.

Recently, new studies have proven that cocoa is higher in antioxidants than green tea or wine and can be helpful in lowering cholesterol levels, boosting blood flow as well as reducing hypertension. Unsweetened pure cocoa powder is also rich in minerals. When it is sweetened naturally with something like rapedura, a natural sugar cane sweetener, it becomes a powerful nutritional resource.

Do your vitamins taste like chocolate?

A recent study by Norman Hollenberg, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School indicated cearly that natural cocoa has very high levels of epicatechin. The health benefits of epicatechin, a compound found in cocoa, are so powerful that it may rival penicillin and anesthesia in terms of importance to public health. Dr. Hollenberg stated that epicatechin is so important that it should be considered a vitamin.

Many commercial chocolates go through a process called dutching. This involves soaking the nib or the cocoa mass in potassium or sodium carbonate. Commercial chocolate companies also remove the flavanols like epicatechin from their cocoa because of their bitter taste. Next they add loads of processed sugars, preservatives and other fillers often reducing the actual cocoa content to less than 15 per cent per cocoa drink mix.

Are you drinking hot sugar water?

This means when you purchase those handy hot chocolate packets you are really drinking mostly hot sugar with artificial chocolate flavor. No wonder chocolate has gotten such a bad reputation for being unhealthy. It is not the cocoa that is unhealthy; it is the added chemicals, milk solids and sugar that have made chocolate a bad food. In reality, naturally sweetened, pure organic cocoa is a great addition to your daily diet. Look for a hot cocoa that uses a high percentage of cocoa powder and also adds cordyceps and ganoderma for boosting your immune system.
Source: Articlesbase.com

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Gourmet Coffee Trivia

Interesting gourmet coffee facts:


• The Boston Tea Party was planned in a coffee house – the Green Dragon Coffee House

• 27% of U.S. coffee drinkers and 43% of German drinkers add a sweetener to their coffee.

• The world's largest coffee producer is Brazil with over 3,970 million coffee trees. Colombia comes in second with around two thirds of Brazil's production.

• Hard bean means the coffee was grown at an altitude above 5000 feet.

• Arabica and Robusta trees can produce crops for 20 to 30 years under proper conditions and care.

• Most coffee is transported by ships. Currently there are approximately 2,200 ships involved in transporting the beans each year.

• In Turkey a husband who refused to provide his wife with the drink could be divorced by her!

• Germany is the world's second largest consumer of coffee in terms of volume at 16 pounds per person. Second to the United States at 19 pounds per person.

• Over 53 countries grow coffee worldwide, but all of them lie along the equator between the tropic of Cancer and Capricorn.

• An acre of coffee trees can produce up to 10,000 pounds of coffee cherries. That amounts to approximately 2,000 pounds of beans after hulling or milling.

• The percolator was invented in 1827 by a French man. It would boil the coffee producing a bitter tasting brew. Today most people use the drip or filtered method to brew their coffee.

• With the exception of Hawaii and Puerto Rico, no coffee is grown in the United States or its territories.

• Up until the 1870's most coffee was roasted at home in a frying pan over a charcoal fire. It wasn't until recent times that batch roasting became popular.

• Each year some 7 million tons of green beans are produced world wide. Most of which is hand picked.

• The popular trend towards flavored coffees originated in the United States during the 1970's.

• Mission Grounds Gourmet Coffee is the most satisfying cup of coffee - it donates all its profits to children. October 1st is the official Coffee Day in Japan.

• The first coffee tree in the Western Hemisphere was brought from France to the Island of Martinique in the 1720's


Source: Articlesbase.com