More tea, better health?
By Isela Reyes
You’ve seen it all over the place, in all those starbucks, or specialty drink stores, maybe even target. Wherever it may be, it seems like green tea has been popping up everywhere. And not just green tea; white tea, black tea, Tao tea and many more have been making its way to stores and starbucks alike. Is the sudden upswing in tea drinkers just people trying to mimic each other and jump on the wagon, or are they really drinking it strictly for the health benefits?
New research has been popping up about the benefits of drinking tea. Specifically green tea, also called Camellia Sinensis, has been used for vomiting, stomach disorders, diarrhea, as an antioxidant, to prevent dental cavities, to lower cholesterol levels, to reduce cancer, and as a stimulant. Green tea is a natural and cultural way of achieving health that differs from western medicine. Because it is all natural and has been proven to help people, the popularity of this drink has skyrocketed here in the U.S.
Recent studies show that tea can be a key part of a healthy diet for three reasons; it has no calories, it keeps you hydrated and because it is rich in phytonutrients which are plant based substances that are known to have health benefits. Studies also show that tea has more antioxidants than any other food and its benefits will help your health in the long run if ingested on a regular basis.
To reap the benefits of this antioxidant, phytonutrient rich tea, researchers recommend drinking four to five cups a day to really benefit from the tea. This will put you in the highest percent for protection against common illnesses like stroke and heart disease.
But reaserchers also advise that drinking so much tea is not without its bad side. Tea is strongly caffeinated, and that may pose a problem if you have conditions such as heart problems or high blood pressure, kidney disease, an overactive thyroid, an anxiety or nervous disorder, or a bleeding or blood clotting disorder. It is recommended if you have these conditions that you consult a health physician before making tea a regular part of your diet.
Also, some teas like green tea, has not been evaluated by the FDA for safety, effectiveness, or purity. This could mean that all potential risks and advantages or disadvantages of green tea may not be known.
Whether you are a believer of the benefits of drinking tea, it is not an altogether new idea. People have been drinking tea for thousands of years. It has only recently been popularized in stores everywhere because of the recent studies that show the health benefits. Whether you like tea or are just curious, try a cup today and find out for yourself whether it really is a pleasant drink, or just another way of taking your vitamins.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Pushing Daisies
Pushing Daisies
By Isela Reyes
What do you get when you combine a guy with freaky abilities, a girl who is alive but supposed to be dead, a private investigator who is not above using shady tactics to collect a reward and a bubbly waitress? You get a new hit TV show called Pushing Daisies.
Pushing Daisies is a show about a boy named Ned who realized he had the ability to revive dead people simply by touching them. But he soon realized that his ability was not without its pitfalls. If he touched that person a second time then they would die again, permanently. If he chose to leave them alive, it would result in the death of another person within close proximity. Fast forward a couple years and Ned has used his abilities to open up a pie shop. When a private investigator accidentally discovers Ned’s abilities, he convinces him to help him solve murder cases and in exchange he will split the reward money. But Ned’s life changes when one case leads him to his childhood crush…dead. Ned brings Chuck back to life and chooses to keep her alive. After solving her case, Chuck goes back with Ned to work in his pie shop and help solve the murder cases.
This show has got all the elements needed to make it a hit. It’s got a fresh new plot that is unlike anything out today, which help to give it its own sense of uniqueness. It’s great cast, amazing narration and creative writers mix together to give you a show that’s like a fresh breath of air compared to everything out their today.
If you are looking for a break from all the criminal, drama, and played out comedies, then Pushing Daisies is the show for you. I never watched Pushing Daisies until this assignment, although my sister tunes in to it religiously, but since watching it, I know where I am going to be every Wednesday night at eight.
By Isela Reyes
What do you get when you combine a guy with freaky abilities, a girl who is alive but supposed to be dead, a private investigator who is not above using shady tactics to collect a reward and a bubbly waitress? You get a new hit TV show called Pushing Daisies.
Pushing Daisies is a show about a boy named Ned who realized he had the ability to revive dead people simply by touching them. But he soon realized that his ability was not without its pitfalls. If he touched that person a second time then they would die again, permanently. If he chose to leave them alive, it would result in the death of another person within close proximity. Fast forward a couple years and Ned has used his abilities to open up a pie shop. When a private investigator accidentally discovers Ned’s abilities, he convinces him to help him solve murder cases and in exchange he will split the reward money. But Ned’s life changes when one case leads him to his childhood crush…dead. Ned brings Chuck back to life and chooses to keep her alive. After solving her case, Chuck goes back with Ned to work in his pie shop and help solve the murder cases.
This show has got all the elements needed to make it a hit. It’s got a fresh new plot that is unlike anything out today, which help to give it its own sense of uniqueness. It’s great cast, amazing narration and creative writers mix together to give you a show that’s like a fresh breath of air compared to everything out their today.
If you are looking for a break from all the criminal, drama, and played out comedies, then Pushing Daisies is the show for you. I never watched Pushing Daisies until this assignment, although my sister tunes in to it religiously, but since watching it, I know where I am going to be every Wednesday night at eight.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
A Vision of Students Today
By Isela Reyes
The video that was posted on you tube, A Vision of Students today, is a very powerful video for all that watch it. Created by a professor in Kansas State and student contributions, this video speaks volumes about our educational system in colleges across the country.
Every year students pay an exorbitant tuition fee for just being able to go to class. And it seems as though every year that fee continues to grow, at least it feels that way here at Sacramento State. One of the notes that a student raised in the video that really stood out to me was how her neighbor in class pays these large tuition fees every semester, and yet this person never shows up in class to benefit from those dollars they are paying simply to sit in class. And the worst part about it to me is that students pay these fees to go to a school that has so many students enrolled, that the ratio from students to teachers is unbelievable. The student who wrote that her average class size is a whopping one hundred and fifteen, made me stop and really think about what we are paying for.
Like her, my classes are also very large, large enough that in half of my classes my teachers don’t even know their students names. Although I know in other classes that average is much lower, like the student who said that only eighteen percent of her teachers know her by name. These days, students are just faces in a crowd to our professors, and I’m not saying it’s their fault. On the contrary, how can you blame them when they get classes so large that it would take up a good portion of the semester just trying to learn all of their names? Some professors really try to know their students by name despite this. Like two of my professors this semester, whose classes were so large but they still wanted to be able to know us. So they brought in their cameras and asked to take our pictures and write our names under them just so that they can quickly get to know who is who in their classes.
One other thing that is very important is the purchase of textbooks. One student in the video said that he bought a hundred dollar textbook that he has yet to open. That is the one thing that bothers me the most after the high price we pay for tuition. When I first began school here at Sacramento State, I would by all of my books every semester so that I would be prepared with all the information that I would need to pass the class. Or that’s what I thought. Why else would our professors make us buy these books if they weren’t going to help us in school, right? Fast forward to the present and I am bitter about the fact that year after year, semester after semester I have spent hundreds of dollars on books that I rarely, if ever, used. I have a new method when it comes to books, I simply do not buy them unless by some miracle I actually have a professor who asks us to use our books to obtain information that they include in our tests. And you know what? I haven’t bought a single textbook this semester because I have yet to need or use them.
Why is this? We all need to stop and think about what is going on in our college campuses across the country. Why are students paying for an overpriced education in which they are forced to sit in overcrowded classrooms where their teachers will probably never know their name with an overpriced textbook that they will never use?
The video that was posted on you tube, A Vision of Students today, is a very powerful video for all that watch it. Created by a professor in Kansas State and student contributions, this video speaks volumes about our educational system in colleges across the country.
Every year students pay an exorbitant tuition fee for just being able to go to class. And it seems as though every year that fee continues to grow, at least it feels that way here at Sacramento State. One of the notes that a student raised in the video that really stood out to me was how her neighbor in class pays these large tuition fees every semester, and yet this person never shows up in class to benefit from those dollars they are paying simply to sit in class. And the worst part about it to me is that students pay these fees to go to a school that has so many students enrolled, that the ratio from students to teachers is unbelievable. The student who wrote that her average class size is a whopping one hundred and fifteen, made me stop and really think about what we are paying for.
Like her, my classes are also very large, large enough that in half of my classes my teachers don’t even know their students names. Although I know in other classes that average is much lower, like the student who said that only eighteen percent of her teachers know her by name. These days, students are just faces in a crowd to our professors, and I’m not saying it’s their fault. On the contrary, how can you blame them when they get classes so large that it would take up a good portion of the semester just trying to learn all of their names? Some professors really try to know their students by name despite this. Like two of my professors this semester, whose classes were so large but they still wanted to be able to know us. So they brought in their cameras and asked to take our pictures and write our names under them just so that they can quickly get to know who is who in their classes.
One other thing that is very important is the purchase of textbooks. One student in the video said that he bought a hundred dollar textbook that he has yet to open. That is the one thing that bothers me the most after the high price we pay for tuition. When I first began school here at Sacramento State, I would by all of my books every semester so that I would be prepared with all the information that I would need to pass the class. Or that’s what I thought. Why else would our professors make us buy these books if they weren’t going to help us in school, right? Fast forward to the present and I am bitter about the fact that year after year, semester after semester I have spent hundreds of dollars on books that I rarely, if ever, used. I have a new method when it comes to books, I simply do not buy them unless by some miracle I actually have a professor who asks us to use our books to obtain information that they include in our tests. And you know what? I haven’t bought a single textbook this semester because I have yet to need or use them.
Why is this? We all need to stop and think about what is going on in our college campuses across the country. Why are students paying for an overpriced education in which they are forced to sit in overcrowded classrooms where their teachers will probably never know their name with an overpriced textbook that they will never use?
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