Anyone for a Spot of Tea!

Here are 5 reasons to make Tea the #1 beverage your grab during your "Mommy Minute!"


1) Helps with weight loss! Tea gives your metabolism and increase. Green tea has been shown to actually increase metabolic rate so that you can burn 70 to 80 additional calories by drinking just five cups of green tea per day. Over a year's time you could lose eight pounds just by drinking green tea.

2) Tea helps keep you hydrated! Caffeinated beverages, including tea, used to be on the list of beverages that didn't contribute to our daily fluid needs. But recent research has shown that the caffeine really doesn't matter -- tea and other caffeinated beverages definitely contribute to our fluid needs. The only time the caffeine becomes a problem as far as fluid is concerned is when you drink more than five or six cups of a caffeinated beverage at one time.

3) Tea contains antioxidants! Tea's antioxidants protect your body from the ravages of aging and the effects of pollution. (Tip: Tea protects against cancer. Thank the polyphenols, the antioxidants found in tea, once again for their cancer-fighting effects. While the overall research is inconclusive, there are enough studies that show the potential protective effects of drinking tea.)

4) Tea boosts your immune defenses! Drinking tea may help your body's immune system fight off infection. When 21 volunteers drank either five cups of tea or coffee each day for four weeks, researchers saw higher immune system activity in the blood of the tea drinkers.

5) Tea protects them bones! It's not just the milk added to tea that builds strong bones. One study that compared tea drinkers with non-drinkers, found that people who drank tea for 10 or more years had the strongest bones, even after adjusting for age, body weight, exercise, smoking and other risk factors.