Healthy Living How To

Vanessa Rae Romero

30 Days to Make or Break a Habit

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It's has now been 50 days since I gave up Diet Pepsi. My brain (and my husband) couldn't be happier! Behavior experts seem to agree it takes about 30 days to break a habit, if this is true, I've got this one licked.

When giving up an unhealthy habit it is often recommended to replace it with a healthy habit. And this is exactly what I did. I replaced, caramel color, aspartame, phosphoric acid, potassium benzoate, caffeine, citric acid, & natural flavor with black tea and green tea, with lemon juice and stevia. Not counting water, tea has been cited by many nutrition experts as the healthiest beverage.

Most people have heard of some, if not all, of the benefits of green tea, however, black tea imparts most of these as well. In addition to the health benefits, tea is friendly on the pocketbook, and it's easy to make!

Organic Iced Tea, Black Tea, Arnold Palmer

Organic Iced Black Tea

We have a 2 qt. Mr. Coffee Iced Tea Maker. You can pick one of these up at Target or Walmart for <$20. It couldn't be more simple – you put water in the designated reservoir, fill the pitcher with ice, add your tea bags and turn it on. In 5 minutes you have iced tea.I've been playing around with different varieties of teas, as well as varying degrees of sweetness and lemon. I've got a winner of a recipe that I have repeated many times with success. It has been enjoyed by my husband, my friends, my parents and both of my teenage boys. In fact the 16 yr. old wanted me to teach him how to make it.

 

You can make this with green or black tea, but currently I am loving black tea!

The Arnold Palmer of Teas
Makes 2 Quarts

  • 8 Organic Black Tea Bags (Decaf)
  • 1/4 c. Organic Lemon Juice (Costco sells two huge bottles of this for $8)
  • 1/8 tsp. NuNaturals Stevia Extract (Best-Tasting! Stevia. Not bitter!)
Brew your iced tea following the directions for your iced tea maker. To the finished tea add lemon juice & stevia.

If you do not have an iced tea maker you can still make iced tea.

Iced Tea Stove Top Method
Makes 2 Quarts

  • 4 c. Water
  • 4 c. Ice
  • 8 Tea Bags

Put 4 c. water in a pan and bring it to a boil. Remove pan from heat and steep tea bags for 10 minutes. In a pitcher add 4 c. ice cubes, then hot tea. Once the ice cubes are melted you should have 2 qts. of iced tea. Add the lemon juice & stevia.

In case you didn't pick up on my Arnold Palmer reference, this refers to the drink made famous by the golfer Arnold Palmer. It is half iced tea and half lemonade.

Edited to add: Just got this today in my e-mail: Green Tea Helps You Lose Weight