Look after your health - drink Tea!

Wherever you look in the mainstream press, writers are always talking about how to get healthy and lose weight or how to stay healthy when you've controlled your weight issues, it seems to be a relentless issue facing many people. We can say that the modern lifestyle is not conducive to easily maintaining a healthy body, and this is certainly true when we look at today's sedentary office jobs that have taken over the traditional manual labouring jobs and so many of the popular hobbies enjoyed by all different age groups today, do not require any level of physical activity. It always seems even on top of activities, or lack of activities, that anything we enjoy eating or drinking is bad for us and our intake of it needs to be reduced or in some cases stopped altogether. Whether it's alcohol, sweet foods and desserts, or the amount of red meat we consume, it seems to hold some level of 'badness' or has an adverse reaction on the human body. Quite often, it's the old favourites that unearth new medical evidence to link them to new found harmful side effects, such as all the old school favourites of suet puddings like jam roly poly or spotted dick, or who could ever forget Manchester Tart with its custard topping over a jam and coconut pastry base? In fact, just about anything that marries with a hot custard sauce seems to have moved firmly into the 'do not touch' category of unhealthy foods. And all those squidgy puddings were always preceded by popular dishes such as a hearty meat and potato pie, or a good old roast dinner with lots of vegetables roasted and crisped in goose fat or lard. However, it always seemed to be that these traditional foodie favourites were always accompanied or followed by a good old refreshing cup of tea. Coffee wasn't really popular with the masses until the very end of the 20th Century and it was tea that was held as the nation's favourite hot drink. During the last century it was most commonly drunk with the accompaniment of either milk or a slice of lemon. Usually the stronger traditional teas would be drunk with milk and lighter Earl Grey tea would be taken with lemon. How refreshing is it that our favourite brew has been found by scientists to be a healthy drink option. It is now generally agreed by health experts that tea has exceptionally high levels of antioxidants and can be used as a hydrator as part of a healthy liquid intake. So even if we do have to say goodbye to some of our old food favourites, tea should definitely still be as widely consumed today as it was in the good old years.