How Long Have People Been Drinking Tea?, Food & Health : Today Indya

How Long Have People Been Drinking Tea?

Food & Health

wonderopolis

Have You Ever Wondered...

-- When was the first cup of tea made?

-- Does everyone drink tea the same way?

-- How has tea impacted history?

Have you ever been to a tea party? They’re not just for kids! People across the world enjoy afternoon tea. It’s a great way to rest and get ready for the end of the day. People have been drinking tea for thousands of years. Have you ever WONDERed how it started?

The story of tea is mixed with legend. In 2737 BCE, Chinese Emperor Shen Nong was boiling water in his garden. A falling leaf from a nearby tree landed in the pot. When he drank the water, the emperor liked the flavor infused from the leaf. After further study, the emperor found that the drink had many positive effects. He made it a regular part of his diet.

Was tea really made by accident? We can’t be sure. However, experts do believe that the tea plant started in regions of China, Tibet, and India. Traders traveled from these places carrying tea leaves elsewhere.

Widespread tea-drinking started around 618 CE. Soon, tea became China’s national drink. During the “romantic age” of tea (960-1280), references to tea appeared in poetry and art. Chinese culture influenced nearby regions, and before long, tea was popular across East Asia.

Much later, traders brought tea to Europe. Explorer Marco Polo was one of the early Europeans to write about the drink. However, tea wasn’t commonly traded in Europe until the 17th Century. The Dutch East India Company sold tea leaves in Europe for the first time in 1610, and Russian merchants brought tea along the Silk Road around the same time.

In 1657, Thomas Garraway opened the first tea shop in England. Soon, the drink spread to other English cafes. Catherine of Braganza, who married King Charles II, drank tea, further popularizing it among the British people. However, it was too expensive for most people to buy. In its early years, tea was most often consumed by royalty and wealthy families.

Tea quickly became a tool of political power for England. As the nation’s empire spread, it sold tea through the British East India Company. It put heavy taxes on the drink in both India and the United States. This would even lead to protests, including the Boston Tea Party.

Tea has long played a role in social life. Across England, the afternoon tea party has become a tradition. People gather with their friends and family to talk and enjoy refreshments. Tea time has even made it into books and movies, including Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Mulan.

As tea became more affordable and common, people gave the drink their own spin. Many found they like some types of tea more than others. Different people prefer white, yellow, black, or green teas. Others make the choice to drink decaffeinated tea. In America, iced tea and sweet tea became popular. While hot tea remains popular in most parts of the world, iced tea makes up 80% of tea sales in the United States today.

Next to water, tea is the world’s most popular drink today. It’s even more common than coffee! Over time, we’ve made tea drinking more convenient. People today don’t even need to worry about brewing it on their own! We can find bottled tea in just about any store.

Do you like to sip tea? Do you prefer hot or cold? Sweet or unsweet? Black, green, or herbal? There are so many possibilities. The next time you’re feeling social, consider gathering your friends for a tea party. You never know what fun you might have!

Article Original Source : https://www.wonderopolis.org/wonder/how-long-have-people-been-drinking-tea

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There's even more evidence drinking juice raises your risk of death — and it's easy to see why

Food & Health

insider

Drinking fruit juice may seem like a tasty way to stay healthy, but science suggests that fruit juice could actually be out to harm us if consumed over a lifetime.

Researchers in the US have some of the newest evidence on this front: revealing in JAMA that 100% fruit juice is nearly as dangerous for our health as other sugary beverages like soda and other sippables with added sugar.

After analyzing years of health records of more than 13,400 US adults - both black and white - the researchers behind this new study found that "each additional 12-ounce serving" of juice that adults drink per day is associated with a 24% higher risk of death. That doesn't necessarily mean that juice causes death, there could be other factors in the mix, like how active juice drinkers are, or how healthy their diets are overall. Still, keeping in mind that the study comes on the heels of years of other evidence, this study is just the latest reminder of all the ways that juice is doing terrible things for your body.

The reason juice is bad for people has to do in part with the way our bodies process the sugar in fruit juice, which is almost identical to how we take in the sugar in a can of soda.

"The biological response is essentially the same," as a team of Harvard researchers also wrote in JAMA recently.

Juice isn't as good for us as whole fruit

When we drink sugar from beverages such as juice or soda, fructose rushes into the liver, unabated by other key nutrients in whole fruit, such as fiber, that slow down digestion and help us feel full and satiated.

"There's some pretty good evidence that when we drink liquid calories, like in the sugary beverages, we don't eat less food as a result," nutrition professor Jean Welsh at Emory University previously told Business Insider when her research also revealed a link between sugary drinks and death. "It's basically sugar and water, and no protein or fat to counteract that metabolism."

Other nutrition experts consistently agree that juice consumption can, over time, lead to inflammation, insulin resistance, diabetes, and more belly fat.

"You just end up consuming more calories per day, and it leads to weight gain over time," Vasanti Malik, a research scientist from the Department of Nutrition in the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health told Business Insider earlier this year when she published a study showing that drinking sugar leads to more deaths, especially from cancers and heart problems.

Drinking sugar isn't just deadly, there's also compelling evidence it makes us gain more weight, leads to more tooth decay, type-2 diabetes, and fatty liver and heart diseases. It's true that fruit juice can deliver beneficial doses of antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals that may improve inflammation and help our cognitive performance.

"However, the question is whether polyphenols and other phytochemicals in fruit juices can counteract the effects of sugars on weight and type 2 diabetes," as the Harvard researchers said.

What we know for sure is that the exact same beneficial nutrients found in juice can be acquired by eating whole fruits, which could then be paired with a cup of coffee or tea, which are two drinks that may be better for our hearts than juice. Scientists who've studied the long-term health differences in juice drinkers versus fruit eaters have found that regular fruit juice-drinking is associated with more diabetes cases, with each additional daily serving of fruit juice upping a person's odds of contracting diabetes by 7%. Eating fruit, however, has no such detrimental effect.

Whole fruits also have more filling fiber, more antioxidants, and around 35% less sugar than 100% fruit juice. (Just a single banana provides you with around 20% of your daily recommended fiber dose.)

Whatever liquids you tend to prefer to stay hydrated, try to keep fruit juice intake to about 8 ounces per day, or less. If you really hate drinking water, try jazzing up your glass with some citrus wedges like lemons and limes, or maybe even freezing some fresh fruit and using that in place of ice cubes for a cool and refreshing summer treat.

Article Original Source : https://www.insider.com/drinking-juice-raises-your-risk-of-death-and-its-ea...