Green Tea Lowers Risk of Getting Breast Cancer

If you like green tea and mushrooms, you're certainly in luck. A recent study of 2,000 Chinese women, found that the more mushrooms the women ate, the lower risk they were for getting breast cancer. Drinking green tea made this risk even lower.

In China, the rate of breast cancer is 4 or 5 times lower than in many other developed countries though rates in some regions have increased throughout recent years. However, this study may explain some of the reasoning behind why these rates are comparatively so low.

In the U.S., the National Cancer Institute estimated that over 182,460 women and 1,990 men were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008. The risk of this type of cancer continues to become more wide spread and widely recognized every year.

As more studies continue to be released on the health benefits of green tea, I find it more important than ever to incorporate it further into my daily life. How have you worked to fit your tea drinking habits into leading your own healthy lifestyle?

Defining Your Tea Pot Culture

Tea pot culture is something that is taken very seriously in many communities. In a Chinese gongfu tea ceremony, tea is prepared with great attention to detail regarding the amount of water used and where and at what temperature the tea is served.

The Yixing tea pots used for these ceremonies are incredibly ornate, well-crafted and range in price from a few dollars to several thousands of dollars per pot. The price depends on a pot's age, the type of clay used to make it, who the artist was that painted it, its style and a variety of other variables.

With time, a well used pot develops a coating on the inside that retains the flavor and color of the tea, enhancing the tea drinker's experience. Soap is never be used to clean the inside of these pots, in order to preserve the integrity of the tea drinking experience.

Have you taken the time to define your own personal tea pot culture?

[Image courtesy of Flickr]