General Wellness

FYI
Although she does try to sell a few things on her site, it is interesting looking at her comparison of what goes into nut butters and nut butter spreads.
READ LABELS!
Stay safe and be well.
AC 😎✌️🌱❤🐖🏃🏻🧘🏻‍♂️🌎😷

https://foodbabe.com/peanut-butter-almond-butter-to-never-buy-again-my-top-brands-ultimate-nut-butter-buying-guide/

COFFEE BENEFITS

FINALLY, a non-Covid-19 question! 😌

I was sent a video interview about the benefits of caffeine with Sanjiv Chopra, MD. He is the brother of better known “physician to the stars” Deepak Chopra, MD, who has a few specialties but is more of a Mindfulness Guru.

Sanjiv Chopra is a world-renowned hepatologist (liver specialist) in Boston.

Coffee has many benefits but it is particularly helpful for almost every kind of liver disorder. Here are some salient bullet points.

1. The coffee bean is a great source of many phytonutrients (plant-compounds which are also beneficial to humans) especially when it comes to supporting and regenerating the liver. All diseases, even liver cancer, have been improved with coffee.
2. Although decaffeination does remove some of the phytonutrients, it is still quite beneficial. Be mindful of the decaffeination process as traditional methods use volatile chemicals. Look for the CO2 extraction or Swiss Water methods which uses no chemicals.
3. Teas provide other benefits, especially green tea, but not as much for liver support as coffee.
4. Caffeine is a stimulant and can be a helpful pick-me-up but some people are very sensitive to it. It may not impair your ability to fall asleep but it does impact on the quality of sleep.
5. Caffeine has a half life of 6-8 hours. That means that if you had a cup of coffee at 9am, ¼ of that caffeine is still circulating in your body at 9pm and this is enough to affect sleep in some people and as well on reflux by impairing the lower esophageal sphincter tone.
6. Although caffeine might not affect your ability to fall asleep, it absolutely impacts on sleep quality in EVERYONE.
7. Although caffeine can be a bladder irritant and make toupee,it takes a fair amount to actually dehydrate you. I would limit it to 4-5 caffeinated beverages a day, but cut out the sodas since they are poison anyway (a Coke or Diet Coke has 30ish mg per can, along with all kinds of other chemicals). Eventually, if you pee enough, you can become dehydrated.
8. Some people are sensitive to caffeine with respect to the other side effects like palpitations, jitteriness and can worsen anxiety.
9. Choose organic coffee. Coffee plants are one of the most heavily chemically sprayed crops on the planet (after cotton, soy, and wheat). Be a coffee snob.
10. We all lost about a liter of fluid while sleeping (from just breathing and perspiring) so try to have a glass of water in the morning before diving into the coffee.
11. What you put in your coffee IS important. Dairy and sweeteners, especially artificial ones, essentially negate all the benefits of the coffee. Choose plant based “milks” like soy or nut-milks, just be careful of the added sugars and emulsifiers. All the stuff you add to your Starbucks coffee essentially makes it an energy drink with lots of caffeine, sugar and other chemicals.

I drink 3-4 cups of coffee a day. I try to make the last couple decaf. Never after noon and I try to keep it even earlier. Even decaf, which can have 10-15 mg of caffeine, affects my sleep. I am a coffee snob and have a fancy home coffee maker (a Jura) and buy exclusively organic coffee for home. I make my own plant-milks using one of my favorite kitchen purchases, an Almond Cow (www.almondcow.co) which is a great device to make milks and super easy to clean (unlike the traditional way of using a bag to squeeze out the pulp).

Stay safe and be well. 

AC 😎✌️🌱❤🐖🏃🏻🧘🏻‍♂️🌎😷 ☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️