Oil From the Tree of Life

The coconut palm tree is a remarkable and valuable plant. The coconut palm tree has probably a thousand uses. The nut of the coconut palm plant is used as a source of food to sustain life. It is an important ingredient in medicine. Other parts of the plant are used as materials to build shelter, make clothing, charcoal, and various tools. The purpose of the plant is numerous. The coconut palm tree has the scientific name: Cocos nucifera, but it has other well meaning names that seem to suit it just as well. In India it is referred to as “Kalpa vriksha” or the “tree which provides all the necessities of life”. In the Philippines it is called the “tree of life”.

The coconut palm grows abundantly in the tropics and it gives the islands the feeling of paradise and romance, especially along its coastlines. It typically grows to 60 to 70 feet tall and has a life span of up to 70 years. The fruit of the coconut tree is considered botanically a seed, but in the tropics it is mostly considered a nut. It bears year round in bunches of 5 to 12 nuts every month.

The coconut palm takes 14 months to fully mature. A young coconut is completely filled with liquid (referred to as coconut water) and has little meat. The meat is soft and jelly-like in texture and can be eaten with a spoon. A fully mature coconut has less liquid and more meat. Its meat is thick and hard and less sweet than the meat of the young coconut.

The content of meat and liquid varies as the nut matures. Fresh mature coconut meat is also used to make make coconut milk, but fresh coconut meat can spoil quickly and so it is often dried to last for many weeks and longer if sealed in an airtight container and kept cool. However, it is the meat of the coconut that is used to make coconut oil that has captured the most controversy within the last two decades and encourage a number of nutritional fallacies.

The controversy

Coconut oil has been around for thousand of years. Evidence of its early use is seen in Ayurveda literature. In India, the oil was used in food, lotion, pomades, baths, and medicines. It was also used in Asia, The Pacific islands, Africa, and Central America. It was introduced to the Europeans as far back in the 15th century.

By the 1800’s, coconut oil was a main form of trade for many of these islands and countries that had an abundance of the coconut palms. It was not only an edible oil; it was used to make soap, candles, lamps, pomades, and many cosmetics. In order to produce a quart of oil, 10 coconuts were needed. An increased demand in coconut would obviously mean higher prices. The leading country producers of coconut oil were Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and India. It was also produced in Latin America and South America. These are the producers that were mostly affected by the biggest propaganda ever hatched in the field of nutrition.

source: ezinearticles.com

Drinking Flavored Teas

Tea has been the world’s most popular beverage for centuries. And it didn’t take long for tea artisans to determine that the only way to make tea better was to add other delicious flavors to it. And, today, tea is available in every flavor imaginable. The most popular teas for flavoring are black teas and green teas, though flavored white and oolong teas are gaining popularity.

The idea of flavoring tea happened quite naturally, as it turns out. It’s Years ago in China, fruit trees like apricot, peach and plum trees were planted near the tea trees to provide shade for the tea leaves. Over time, the tea took on a bit of the flavor of the nearby fruit completely naturally. This led to flavoring the tea leaves as part of the tea production process in order to deepen the fruit flavors and to allow new flavors to be created.

Flavored teas are believed to have originated in China, the birthplace of all tea drinking. The original flavored tea was either jasmine flavored green tea, which is still extremely popular today, or Feizi Zhao tea, which was a very special blend created for a very special reason. Jasmine tea is one of the most treasured teas in China and is made from only the freshest unopened jasmine blooms paired with fine spring first flush green tea.

Feizi Zhao was prepared by adding the juice of the litchee fruit to tea. Litchee fruit was purported to be an aphrodisiac, and was created for Emperor Zuan Xong of the Tang Dynasty for his great love, Feizi Zhao. The fascination with the lovely scent and flavor that the fruit and flowers provided to these teas created the idea to try many other flavors. Earl Grey, the most popular of all English teas is just black tea flavored with bergamot oil.

Different varieties of tea will taste differently with flavorings added. The method of processing the tea greatly affects its taste.

Black tea is fermented during processing. After plucking, the leaves are fermented to give them a fuller body and bolder flavor. When flavoring black tea, a higher concentration of the flavoring is required because the tea itself possesses a stronger flavor. Deep flavors like cinnamon and plums are delicious with black tea.

source: ezinearticles.com

What is Corn Allergy

Corn is a type of cereal grain that is made up of proteins. Research shows that very few people are actually allergic to corn. But those who are usually will suffer from sever allergic reactions. One of these most common and most deadly reactions is anaphylaxis. This is when your body goes into shock and will stop breathing.

People who have an allergy to corn are most often allergic to other cereal grains as well. Yet, even if they are there are times that they will not experience any symptoms at all like they do when they come into contact with corn. A person can have an allergic reaction when eating raw or cooked corn.

Research shows that they may even have reactions when exposed to corn pollen, cornstarch, or grass pollen. Because of this reaction it is important that they do what they can to avoid corn and corn related foods. This is the only way to prevent reactions from affecting them in the future.

The most common symptoms that someone with corn allergy will suffer from include; stomach pain, asthma, difficulty swallowing, anaphylaxis, decrease in blood pressure, stomach cramps, discomfort, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, rashes, migraines, swelling in the face or tongue.

In order to make sure that people will avoid corn in their diet means that they need to pay close attention to what foods are made with it. We have provided a list of foods that can contain corn. (Please keep in mind that this is a small list and there may be other foods that you need to research and watch out for.)

Corn tortillas
Corn syrup
Corn oil
Corn meal
Cornstarch
Vegetable oil
Popcorn
Grits
Corn sugars
Margarine
Corn chips (Tortilla chips, Fritos)
Corn fritters
Breakfast cereals (such as corn flakes)

Food is not the only thing that you will need to watch out for. There are different paper containers that may contain corn as well as the inner surface of plastic food wrappers that could be coated with cornstarch. These include cups plates, boxes, and milk cartons.

source: ezinearticles.com