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Study Shows This Simple Eating Trick Will Keep You Happy and Healthy

Good food is well known for making us happier inside and out. A study shows how a simple trick can increase this effect.

Basics of the study

Every person has a different way to feel more comfortable. While for some it is relaxation methods such as yoga or meditation, others rely on sports, painting or talking to friends. But it is not uncommon for people to feel completely at ease after a delicious meal.

Based on the assumption that good food makes you happy, Edith Cowan University (ECU) initiated a study to prove that there is a connection between good food and our mental health.

A total of 657 people took part in the study, each of whom underwent a seven-week cooking course focused on preparing healthy food. After completing the cooking course, it was examined to what extent participation in the program affected general, but also mental health and subjective vitality. The term “subjective vitality” includes, among other things, perceived energy, willingness to perform and zest for life.

Cooking yourself: Good food should make you even happier

The results were impressive: The participants not only had a higher self-confidence when it came to cooking in general, but even adopted new and healthy eating habits in everyday life. In all three areas that were examined after the study, positive effects were found in the test persons: in general, but also in mental health and subjective vitality.

Basically, the study shows that there is a connection between health and healthy eating. Significant for an improvement in nutrition is not only healthy cooking, but also cooking at home – which increases the good feeling even more. According to the researchers, such nutritional improvement is also a way to combat mental health problems, obesity and other metabolic health disorders.

How much time is invested in cooking and the quality of the ingredients used is less relevant. It’s more about consciously turning to healthy cooking and doing something good for yourself; for example, just eating more fruit and vegetables can have a big effect.

Conclusion

In summary, it can be said that a healthier diet can be implemented at home and can have a positive effect on your physical and mental health. The question of how food can make you happier can be answered easily: Cooking at home is fresh, healthy and fun.

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Food

Matcha Tea: Does The Green Pick-Me-Up Make You Healthy and Happy?

Matcha tea was and is the best and finest tea in Japan, which used to be reserved for the elite only. The bright green, frothy drink is still considered a cult drink.

However, the trend towards matcha tea did not come to Germany directly from Japan, but from the USA. Stars, starlets and wannabes have been spotted there with the green “in” drink in their hands for a number of years.

It is said to make you slim, fit and healthy, and helps fight signs of aging and even cancer. Like all other green teas, it also serves as a stimulating alternative to coffee with its caffeine content (tein). Is the expensive cult drink worth its price?

Why is matcha tea actually powder?

Matcha tea is one of the green tea varieties and is traditionally drunk in Japan. The tea probably originally came from China, but was forgotten there. Unlike “normal” green teas, matcha tea is not prepared as a decoction of tea leaves, but from a bright green powder.

This powder consists of finely ground green tea leaves from which the stalks have been removed. “For Matcha of the highest quality, the tea farmers even remove the leaf veins by hand,” explains Heidrun Schubert from the Bavarian Consumer Advice Center

Only the pure leaf remains, which is also consumed as a whole in tea. Since matcha tea is a so-called “shade tea”, the tea bushes are shaded with bamboo mats or similar four weeks before harvest. This makes the leaves particularly intense green.

Prepare matcha tea

If the matcha tea from the green powder is not brewed properly, neither the taste nor the effect are said to be right. Preparing matcha tea is part of a tea ceremony in Japan. You don’t have to make a ceremony out of it at home, but it still takes some practice and effort.

The water for the foamy tea should be as soft as possible, it must have a temperature of 80° Celsius when brewing. The easiest way to check this is with a roast thermometer. About a teaspoon of the powder goes into a bowl, which you then pour on with around 100 milliliters of water.

Then manual work is required – matcha tea has to be opened during preparation. To do this, take a special broom made of bamboo (the Chasen) and stir with a loose wrist in your own movement until the powder has completely dissolved and a fine foam has formed on the surface.

The right accessories

In order for the preparation to succeed, you need the right accessories – a normal teacup or blender is not enough to create the perfect foam. A set consists of the already mentioned bamboo whisk, a suitable bowl and a bamboo spoon for portioning the tea powder. Purists or lovers then get a suitable ladle and a Japanese kettle.

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