Guayaki Yerba Mate Bottled Tea

Guayaki Yerba Mate Bottled Teas
www.guayaki.com



Why This Product Rocks

Most bottled iced teas are a jip – nothing but overly sweet H2O with just a faint memory of tea. Well, this bottled tea contender will leave you humming Yum Yum Gimme Some!

Guayaki have managed to turn out several very flavorful, bright with promise bottled Yerba Mate teas such as Pure Heart, Pure Passion and Pure Mind. Though most are sweetened with evaporated cane juice, they don’t taste ridiculously sweet like most. They do also offer a very good unsweetened version if you are trying to cut back on the sweet stuff.

For those new to Yerba Mate, it comes from the leaves of the South American holly shrub Ilex paraguariensis. On its own it has a stout flavor that may remind you of green tea but with even more grassy undertones. However, its flavor is subdued in these products.

As a bonus, all the hip ingredients like mate, rose hips, manioc root starch, acerola fruit and Himalayan crystal salt are organic.

Well Fed Man’s suggestion? Pop the top, close your eyes, tilt your head up to the heavens, and guzzle.

Guayaki is involved in lots of environmental do-goodery. To learn about their socially responsible and eco-friendly business practices click here

Body Benefits

Traditionally used as a digestive aid, Yerba Mate is awash in vitamins, minerals and active antioxidant phytochemicals such as chlorogenic acid not found in other teas. Hence it being coined the “liquid vegetable” that in animal studies has been reported to slow tumor growth.

Responsible for mate’s bitterness, heart-healthy saponin compounds in this national drink of Argentina are thought to help reduce LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and inflammation. While a 2009 British Journal of Nutrition study suggests mate’s phytochemicals can squelch oxidative damage to organs such as the liver.

On each bottle label it is suggested that Oxygen Radical Absorption Capacity is through the roof meaning that it could help soak up those pesky free radicals.

Each bottle contains about 70mg of naturally occurring caffeine, so if you need a little jolt this should do it. The caffeine leery should take note of this though.

Who Will Dig It

Anyone desperate for a bottled tea that doesn’t leave you wanting
Dwellers of the rainforest

Who Will Toss It

The peeps at Lipton

Find It At

Health and natural food stores. Some larger grocers may also carry it.

ProBar in Cuba

ProBar Fuels Cuba Cycling Trip
www.theprobar.com

Well Fed Man would like to extend a high-five to the peeps over at ProBar for their support of a recent self-supported bicycling trip around the affable island nation of Cuba. Heat, ridiculously steep ascents and, at times, few palatable food options meant that the 50 some bars we stuffed in the panniers came in very handy.

The 54-day, 3000-kilometre trip started in the magnificent city of Havana and moved south to Trinidad. A quaint World Heritage town adorned with cobblestone streets – not particularly great for a cyclist, but charming none the less.

From Trinidad a bus was hailed (yep, it’s cheating) east to Holguin to begin the cycling adventure around an area of Cuba known as The Oriente. This was a spectacular two weeks of pedaling that included coastal roads that left Well Fed Man agape, a New Year’s Eve pig roast with a large local family in La Mula, the infamous La Farola climb before the hair-raising descent into the charming seaside town of Baracoa, exceptionally friendly locales, sunburn at the white sand beach of Playa Magauna and plenty of ProBar’s filling the tummy and fueling the legs.

After 5-days and 500 plus kilometres of flat riding through Cuba’s central plains we made our way east of Havana into the Pinar Del Rio province. Saturated with verdant landscape, small villages, lots of ups and downs and magotes – huge rock formations that rise abruptly from the ground – the eastern reaches of Cuba is very much a cyclists’ paradise. But best of all, and the norm is most of the country, the roads are virtually car-free with horse carts outnumbering 4-wheeled machines several fold.

Cocoa Nibs

Navitas Naturals Raw Cocoa Nibs

www.navitasnaturals.com

Why this product rocks

Chocolate is hot these days. Not just because it rocks the taste buds but also there are plenty of good-for-the-body benefits.

Recent to the market, cocoa nibs are basically smashed up roasted cocao beans. This means that they are the purest form of chocolate you can toss down the gullet.

These diminutive chocolate goodies have big-time crunch and an intense, somewhat bitter flavor. Try them on cereal, yogurt, ice-cream or mixed into trail mix and baked goods.

Navitas is a forward-thinking company offering up organic, environmentally and socially-responsible unique, and you could say a bit odd-ball, food items from around the world. Camu powder anyone?

Body benefits

Cocoa nibs are loaded with polyphenol antioxidants that are exceptionally affable to your heart and may even boost brain functioning.

Magnesium is also plentiful. A mineral that is needed for hundreds of chemical reactions in the body including improving blood sugar control.

An ounce dishes up a whopping 9 grams of dietary fiber. By all accounts more of us are coming up short in the roughage department.

Although there is a high amount of saturated fat, the much maligned fat found in cocoa is mostly stearic acid which is considered to be a “neutral” saturated fat with little impact on blood cholesterol.

Who will dig it

Chocolate freaks and really, who isn’t?

Who will toss it

Hershey bigwigs

Find it at

Health food stores or online at http://www.navitasnaturals.com/. You’ll also find some fresh recipes on their website.