Drinking Ginger and Lemongrass Tea For A Super-boost to Your Immune System

Ginger and lemongrass are two useful herbs you can use to brew tea with lots of health benefits. This herbal tea has a strong ability to calm your soul and make you relaxed, that’s why it is famously served in tropical spa before and after treatment.

It’s easy to make the ginger lemongrass tea at home:

You have to prepare:

Lemongrass, 6 stalks
Fresh ginger, 50g
Chamomile, 1 packet
Pandan leaves, tied in a knot
Water, 1 litre
Raw honey
Cut the ginger into slices without removing the skin.

Crush lemongrass with the back of a cleaver and then cut them into short stalk.

Add lemongrass, ginger and pandan leaves into a pot, then bring to boil and simmer for around an hour.

Add honey to taste and drink.

Medical Values of Lemongrass and Ginger Tea

Ginger has valuable medicinal uses, from preventing and cure cancers, to relieving migraine and arthritis pain. And studies has found that ginger is as effective as vitamin B6 when treating morning sickness. It’s often taken in the form of tea to relieve heartburn, and when added brown sugar, the ginger tea is used to treat menstrual cramps.

Lemongrass has strong anti-microbial and anti-fungal properties, making it an amazing herb that has been used for hundreds of years for its medicinal purposes. General uses of lemongrass are including:

• Cough, sore throats

• Anxiety and depression

• High cholesterol level

• Diabetes

• Digestion

• Dry skin and acne

• Constipation

• Kidney detoxification

• Insomnia

Chamomile used in teas is with several medicinal uses, especially in gentle sleep aids. The addition of chamomile making this tea a perfect drink before going to bed.

What This Tea Can Be Used To Treat Health Conditions

Reduces pain and inflammation – According to research in the Journal of Pain, both raw ginger and heated ginger work effectively in reducing pain and inflammation, and specifically has good effects on muscle pain. This is due to an active ingredient of ginger – gingerol, which has anti inflammatory properties.

Cures Bad Breath – What you have to know about the bad smell from your mouth is that it actually comes from the intestinal tract, so simply chewing gum does not solve the problem. While compounds in ginger de-odorize the intestinal tract when consumed in ginger and lemongrass tea. Drink a cup of ginger and lemongrass tea after meals, especially when you want to remove the smell of garlic or onions.

Promotes digestion – There is no doubt that a cup of hot ginger tea can sooth your digestion, and it’s beneficial in the prevention of stomach disorders.

Makes you relaxing – Lemongrass tea has a calming component which will relax you naturally, so it’s a good remedy for people who have insomnia. It’s also has ability to relieve the symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress.

Boosts weight loss – Ginger reduces appetite, it lowers food intake and feelings of hunger and increases feeling of fullness, which could play an important role in helping you losing weight.
Lemongrass has been proven to be effective in combating obesity because of citral it contains.

For detox – A simple hot ginger tea can give your body an energizing effect while cleaning and clearing out nasty toxins. Lemongrass is also an excellent detoxifying agent, it eliminates the harmful elements in the body, including uric acids and bad cholesterol.

Relieves cold and flu – Lemongrass and ginger tea is helpful for the reduction of nausea. Ginger has been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for cold and flu relief since long time, as its natural spiciness can help clear congestion.

This herbal tea not only tastes great but also has a lot of medicinal properties that are beneficial to your health. It is advised to make this tea fresh daily and drink it warm.

How To Prepare Kale

I am lucky enough to say that my boys love to eat kale. There was actually a kale incident the other night whereby I only made one bunch and some grabbing occurred at the table as the boys “fought” over it. Ok, sorry to brag, however this is what sometimes happens in my house. Because kale is a hot commodity and because I don’t get to the grocery store on a daily basis (who does?), I try to keep kale on hand at all times to avoid said conflict. Here is how I store my kale so that we can have our McKale on a daily basis –that is when we’re not eating broccoli –I know, I know, it’s not nice to be boastful –I apologize!

How To Prepare Kale

Ingredients
1 bunch kale

Instructions

1 Fill a large deep bowl with water
2 Take the rubber band or twist-tie off the bunch of kale
3 Submerge the leaves of kale in water, swishing them around gently to remove any dirt
4 Allow kale to soak for a few minutes and swish again
5 Pour water out of the bowl and rinse kale under fresh water
6 Spread some cloth towels out on a counter or your kitchen table
7 Place the kale on the towels and allow to dry for about an hour while you do something else
8 Come back to kitchen and chop kale into 1-2 inch wide strips on a cutting board with a sharp knife
9 Discard the very bottom of the stems; do not remove the ribs, they are delicious and crunchy and  besides we don't want to waste food
10 Place chopped kale in a cloth or paper towel
11 Fit into a Ziploc bag, squeeze the air out and zip closed
12 Write the date on a small piece of tape (dog ear your tape for extra easy removal)
13 Place kale in the fridge
14 Keeps for up to 5 days

We all know that fresh vegetables are the best in terms of taste and nutrition.  And we know that cutting into anything (think of an apple that begins to brown) decreases the life force and freshness of that living thing.  However, these are the times (baseball season) that call for creativity and shortcuts.
What I love about this little storage trick is that on a busy night I can come home, put a steamer basket and pot with an inch of water on the stove and have kale ready to serve in 5 minutes.  With 2 children on 3 different baseball teams this year, I’ll need as many shortcuts as I can get.

Serve your kale with gomasio or try this “fancy” dish.  Sometimes my boys like to add [ume plum vinegar] and [toasted sesame oil] to their steamed kale, though my favorite way to eat it is raw. For other great kale recipes (especially his Kale and Mushroom Stew), see Mark Bittman’s blog in the New York Times.

By the way, my 10 year old son was the “hand model” for this shoot and looked forward to it for days –I love how confidently he holds that sharp knife and chops.  The boys have had their own knives (smaller, duller versions to begin with) since they were about 4 years old. And they learned young how to make kale an easy, ready to go dish for those busy nights!

Feds Taking Kombucha Off Shelves?

No, we’re not kidding. Help us stop this unwarranted attack. Action Alert!

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, a division of the US Treasury Department, recently sent letters to several producers of kombucha, warning them that since their beverages supposedly exceeded the allowable alcohol limit, they must be labeled as alcoholic beverages and be subject to alcohol regulation or face hefty fines and legal action.

Kombucha is a fermented tea drink brewed with yeast and bacteria. The drink contains trace amounts of alcohol, but it typically falls below the federal limit of 0.5% alcohol by volume.

Why is this happening? Is there a safety concern? Not in the least. On the contrary, kombucha appears to be very good for you. It seems unlikely that the government would go after kombucha without prodding from some special interest. Has the soft drink industry detected a threat from a rapidly growing market and decided to use the power of the federal government to eliminate competition? There doesn’t seem to be another explanation.

The facts of the case reveal just how outrageous this investigation is—further suggesting that crony interests may be pulling the strings. The government is using the same alcohol test for kombucha that it uses for wine, beer, and spirits. But the organic acids and natural sedimentation in kombucha can be read as ethanol, which throws off the results of the test.

Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) sent a letter to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau explaining that their testing methodology is flawed. Polis asked them to stop their harassment of the kombucha brewers until a unique testing method can be devised that is appropriate to the specific chemistry of the beverage.

Polis notes in his letter that the alcohol level can sometimes rise slightly above the federal limit, but only if the kombucha is incorrectly stored at warmer temperatures, which also spoils the drink. Polis wrote, “Eight spoiled kombuchas are roughly equivalent to one beer, but that doesn’t mean we should regulate it like we do alcohol—it makes absolutely no sense.”

Polis in past years also introduced a bill to allow food and supplement producers to tell their customers about good peer-reviewed, university research on the health aspects of their products. And he has supported the sale of raw milk. If only we had more members of Congress like him!

Unpasteurized kombucha contains the “good” bacteria that promote gut health and boost immunity. But if kombucha is regulated like alcohol, many supermarkets and convenience stores won’t be able to sell it, and it is unlikely that health-conscious consumers would travel to liquor stores to stock up on the drink.

Liquor is also very heavily regulated—by states as well as the federal government. Out-of-state shipping may be barred, and prices may be fixed by regulation. The probiotic benefits of kombucha would also be denied to anyone under 21. The combination of these factors would likely lead today’s producers to decide that it’s no longer profitable to make kombucha, thus restricting—possibly eliminating—consumer access to it. Or, just as likely, Big Food (especially soda) companies would simply take over the market.