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distinctlywhumpthing · 3 years

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Unintentional 5

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CW: Institutionalized slavery, dehumanization, scars, surgical/medical whump implied, let’s just go with “side effects” for now, explicit language.

The kid was all knees and elbows. He was tripping even walking across bare, flat sub-flooring, and would have fallen if Leo hadn’t been holding him. Each time the kid stumbled he tried to pull away from Leo, only to falter more so Leo had to reach to catch him. Their path across the house was curving and for every one step in the right direction, there were two in the opposite.

Leo finally got him to just sit down on the staircase and wrapped him up in a few of the drop cloth blankets. The little thing looked like he’d fall to pieces shivering so hard. Leo offered him the bread again to nibble on, mostly just so he could get some hot coffee in him next.

Once he’d eaten enough to start on the coffee, told him, “I have to get back to work. My partner called earlier and his kid has a snow day so he won’t be coming.”

Wide eyes blinked up at him.

“You finish that coffee while I work, okay?”

The kid nodded, one jerky dip of his head.

Leo hesitated for a moment. The kid was still shaking. He wondered if he had misjudged how long they’d been lying in that snowbank. The house wasn’t particularly warm since it was empty, not to mention the kid wasn’t wearing warm clothes. He clung to the blankets, keeping them tucked tightly around himself and curling smaller to hide under them. He kept the lip of the open thermos against his chin so that all the steam hit him in the face. His eyes never left Leo’s hands, from the moment he’d stood in front of him.

Leo thought it was like the kid had never felt warmth in his life. He dug through his bag and pulled out a beanie. “Here,” he said, moving to pull it over the kid’s head.

As soon as he got within touching distance, the kid realized what he was doing and scrambled backward. Half climbing the stairs in a crab crawl, half flattening to lie against them. The insulated water bottle clanged down the steps, splashing coffee onto Leo’s white coveralls.

The kid didn’t know where to look, still eyeing the hat—and more importantly, Leo’s hands—but also staring at the coffee everywhere.

Leo pulled back and held his hands up. “Easy, easy. You’re okay, I just thought you might be warmer with a hat on,” he explained.

The kid looked like he was on the verge of crying again.

Leo could have kicked himself. Of course, the kid wouldn’t want him anywhere near all of those scars. In fact, when he had gotten close, he was pretty sure one of the incisions still had stitches in it. He didn’t want to imagine the pain, although side effects from drugs could explain the kid’s wobbliness and general confusion.

“Don’t worry about the coffee. It’s no big deal,” he said, trying to catch the kid’s gaze.

His eyes were fixed on Leo’s left sneaker which was now stained with coffee but it was like he wasn’t really seeing what was right in front of him. It reminded Leo of how he reacted when he’d grabbed his wrist in the back of the van.

“Hey, look at me.”

It took a minute but, eventually, shaking as much as ever, the kid raised his eyes.

“They’re painting clothes, they’re meant to get messy. Hell, they’re already messy.”

It was true. There was a collage of different splatters, flecks, full-on spills, and sprays in various neutral shades with the occasional color from top to bottom of the coveralls. His slip-on Vans looked like the by-product of a YouTube tutorial but with the wrong palette to be trendy.

The kid looked him over again, chewing his lip. Leo waited until those wide eyes returned to his. Rather, directly below, he realized. The kid was staring at his cheekbones—only feigning eye contact.

“Does your head still hurt anywhere?”

Now he did raise his eyes to Leo’s. The kid shook his head emphatically, shrinking backward, and tugging at the blankets but they’d been pinned in the scrambling and weren’t budging to provide the cover the kid was seeking.

“Will you put on the hat yourself? I really think you will feel warmer.” Leo stayed back and held the hat out.

The kid slowly reached to take it with two hands and fumbled a few times trying to pull it on. Leo didn’t miss the wince as the knit acrylic finally pulled down over the freshest of the incisions. It probably needed to still be bandaged but it seemed unlikely he would let Leo get that close. What was he going to do with this kid? There was no way he could just send him away again.

“Do you know where you came from?” Leo asked.

The kid furrowed his eyebrows, eyes flicking around Leo’s face. “You…mmm…” His chin wobbled a little and he started gesturing with his hands.

It looked like he was solving a Rubik’s cube but Leo didn’t say that out loud.

“Boy…mmm…here…” The kid let out a shaky breath, punctuated by an almost-inaudible whimper.

“Okay, okay. Not that one.” Leo wanted to stop him from getting upset. “How about we try for a name again? What should I call you?”

“No…mmm…only…mmm…boy…” He swiped the tears running down his face and fruitlessly tugged at the blankets he was still sitting on.

Leo reached out to help, slowly, pointing to the blankets, and the kid still flinched violently against the wall. He continued to quake as Leo wrapped the blankets around his shoulders again. His fingers came out from the inside to grip the edges and he tucked his knees up against his chest. All Leo could see were the shoes, the tips of the kid’s fingers, and his face from his chin to where the hat hit his eyebrows. It made something knot in his chest when the kid immediately returned to closely watching his hands.

Leo stepped back and tried to cover his shaky exhale with a cough. What had this kid been through? Who could have been party to any of this? Why wasn’t someone taking care of him? Leo had no idea what he should do but this had immediately become so much more complicated than giving someone his coffee on a snowy day.

He softened his voice a little more. “I can’t just call you ‘boy’, that’s worse than ‘kid’.”

The kid didn’t look up but his forehead creased. “Before…mmm—” and then he started spouting numbers again. His eyes grew wider as he went on and he looked into Leo’s face. He started pressing himself back against the steps like he was leaning back to lounge, but there was nothing relaxed about the way his face was tightening.

Leo was sure his expression was blank, if not confused, but whatever the kid saw there must have set him off because he stopped speaking and tucked his chin into the blankets, not just shrinking back but cowering.

He shook his head at Leo. A sob hitched out of his chest, a bitter sound that was painful to hear. He fixed his eyes on Leo’s hands again but had pulled the blankets even over his nose. Leo was sure he would have been completely buried inside them if it weren’t for the threat standing right in front of him.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said quietly, knowing his words were useless.

The boy started softly again, face screwed up, “Eight, ten—” he stopped and shook his head.

Leo swallowed the lump in his throat. He wasn’t sure if the kid had misunderstood his question but that had been the second time he’d asked for a name. If it hadn’t surfaced by now, there must be a good—

“Oh!” Leo forgot to control his voice and the kid jumped at his exclamation. He was pressing himself against the wall now, too. Leo made sure to take it down a notch. He considered holding his hands behind his back if they were causing the boy so much anxiety but thought that might be worse. He kept them where they were, held out a little from his sides, fingers extended just slightly. “Did you say Aiden? Is your name Aiden?”

The kid tilted his head and raised his eyes to search Leo's face. He nodded slowly, biting his lip, forehead creased. His eyes never stopped moving as they traced Leo’s expression.

“Aiden,” Leo repeated, smiling.

The kid nodded even more.

Leo remembered his mom always saying eyes are the windows of the soul. Aiden’s were like trying to see into a window whose curtains were drawn. Leo could only see his own reflection in the glass. It was impossible to tell if there was someone looking back at him from the other side but at least now it looked like there might be a light on.

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wineanddinosaur · 4 years

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VinePair Podcast: American Wine Has Boundless Potential

American wine has never been in a better place. Wine is now being made in all 50 states, and the map of exceptional wine regions has expanded well beyond California. From Virginia to Michigan, New Mexico to New York, Texas to Idaho, American grape growers and winemakers are finding exciting new sites for viticulture and, in many cases, unfamiliar varieties that are greatly expanding the boundaries and potential for domestic wine.

On this week’s VinePair Podcast, Adam Teeter and Zach Geballe are joined by VinePair tastings director Keith Beavers to give an overview of the current landscape of the American wine industry in conjunction with VinePair’s American Wine Month. They discuss the emerging wine regions in Paso Robles, the Columbia Gorge, and the Great Lakes, and ponder what America’s love of wine tourism will mean for these regions and others moving forward.

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Adam: From the Ritz Cracker display at Publix, I’m Adam Teeter. You don’t get it? But no, really from Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter

Keith: From Brick City, I’m Keith Beavers

Zach: And in Seattle, Washington, very confused, I’m Zach Geballe.

A: And this is the VinePair Podcast. Zach, how are you confused? They had a press conference last weekend where Rudy Giuliani came live from the Four Seasons Total Landscaping instead of the Four Seasons Hotel.

Z: I guess…

A: So I’m coming live from the Ritz Cracker display instead of the Ritz Carlton.

Z: I got you. I feel like we’re like a week and a half late on this joke, though.

A: No, I think it’s good. I still think it’s hilarious. We’ll have to wait to see what it sounds like to the listeners, but anyways guys, so this podcast is all about American Wine Month. The month at VinePair, we’re devoting to all things U.S- made wine. I really want to thank our sponsors Virginia Wine, CakeBread Cellars, Domaine Carneros, and 3 Girls.

And I’m excited to talk to both of you about wine. Keith is our guest host, VinePair’s tasting director, for this week. But before we jump into that, we’ve been doing a pretty fun segment at the top of the show every week now about what everyone’s been drinking recently. I’m assuming you guys have been drinking some dope shit as of what happened last week. So Keith, what about you first?

K: Well, some dope shit is correct, Adam. Well, you know, American Wine Month at VinePair, I’ve been deep, deep, deep into American wine. And I’m really excited. I love Virginia wine, and I’ve been tasting some seriously great Virginia wine, and a lot has been sent to us. And it was kind of great. On Saturday, after the big announcement, I sat and drank a bottle of Jefferson Cabernet Franc from the area in which Thomas Jefferson allocated vineyard space, south of Monticello, to actually try to make America a wine-growing nation. And somebody came and they bought the property and they’re doing great things, and it’s just an amazing, beautiful Cabernet Franc so it kind of made sense. And I listened to the Jimmy Hendrix “Star-Spangled Banner” while I was drinking it.

A: Sweet. Zach, what about you, man?

Z: Well, I’ve also been on the American wine train, as I often am. And I think for me this past week, it was a lot of Willamette Valley Chardonnay. So Pinot Noir in the Willamette gets a lot of press, obviously. It’s by far what’s most widely grown and made there, but I’ve been really excited about Chardonnay from the Willamette and in particular a bottle from a producer called Cooper Mountain. Their old-vines Chardonnay, which I think date back to the late ’70s, some of the oldest Chardonnay plantings in the Willamette that are still in use and it was f****** delicious. So, I didn’t pair it with any music, Keith, I’m sorry. Well, pretty much all that gets played in my house these days are the songs my 2-year-old is obsessed with. So unless you really want to know how well Willamette Valley Chardonnay pairs with songs about bucket trucks and skid-steers, that’s another podcast.

A: Please, tell us more. So for me, that Saturday was a day I busted out the top stuff. And I’d had this bottle of Champagne in my house for a while and we just said, f*** it. So I opened a bottle of 2006 Pierre Jouët Belle Epoque Blanc de Blanc and it was awesome. ‘Cause I went out into the park in Fort Greene. Spike Lee was DJing, which was amazing. There was like a crazy amount of energy. And we just sat in the park myself, my wife Naomi, and Josh, who co-founded VinePair with me.

And we just drank the wine and it was really fun to watch everyone. And then people were sharing, you know, glasses and passing stuff back and forth. We had other things, too, but that was like the bottle that we popped first. You know, and it was just, you know, really memorable. And we actually, like, we brought coupes out with us.

It’s like whatever, let’s go full agro here. Just bring the glassware. And it was awesome. I mean, it was just a lot of fun, so that was, that was the most memorable thing I drank last week. Although I will say there was one other amazing experience I had, which was earlier in the day, actually that morning before everything got called, and this is why I was with Josh because I live in Brooklyn and Josh lives in Manhattan, so we don’t normally just find ourselves together when a random event like this occurs and everyone just decides to run out to somewhere and start drinking. But we had a meeting in the morning with Brian, this amazing entrepreneur who founded the sake distillery in Brooklyn called Brooklyn Kura, which now has pretty quickly over the past few years become known as the best Sake distillery outside of Japan. Sorry, sake brewery, and I’d never been to a sake brewery before, actually.

And first of all, the sakes were really delicious, but again, what do I know? I think they were very delicious. I enjoyed them, but I very easily admit that I don’t know a lot about sake, but these pleased my palate. And it was really cool to watch the process until I go back in the back with him and sort of understand how they’re actually making sake. Have either of you ever been to a sake brewery before?

K: No.

Z: I have, yeah, there’s one down in Oregon that I’ve been to.

A: It’s so interesting to watch what they’re doing. I didn’t realize how many people now are making more artisanal styles. Like, growing more artisanal-style rices in certain parts of the country. There’s a lot of really cool rice coming out of Arkansas, which I never would have thought of, and it was cool to watch. They don’t have the machine there that actually refines the rice. They’re actually able to still take advantage of the fact that there’s a lot of commercial sake distilleries in California. He was explaining all this stuff that we’re used to as Americans that sort of turned us off of sake, like the really warm sake bomb-type stuff.

None of that’s made in Japan. That’s all being made by Japanese companies, but in California, which I also didn’t know. But they have all these facilities where they can refine the rice. So they sell them to other people. But then there’s this one guy who he said is a little nuts, out of Chicago or maybe Indiana who’s started to set up his own sake place as well. And he went and bought his own refining machine. So he’ll take some of the more artisanal stuff and then sell them back to people like Brooklyn Kura.

K: This is insane.

A: It’s crazy. But then they soak the rice forever in water which I didn’t realize. And then the thing I didn’t realize is then they cook the rice and then they let a mold grow on it, and it’s actually the mold that creates the sugars that allows the fermentation.

Z: It’s really cool, too, because it’s like this weird kind of simultaneous fermentation. Well, not really two fermentations, but the Koji is producing the sugar out of the starch of the rice at the same time as yeasts are fermenting the sugar. So as you maybe saw some in-process as I have, it absolutely does not look like something you would want to ingest. It’s horrifying.

A: No, it doesn’t. Yeah. It’s literally like they’re just letting mold grow on rice and then when they go to brew it, it then comes out the way that it is, but he also had us taste some wild stuff. So first of all, another thing I didn’t realize was that sake doesn’t really age. He said that it can, but not in a way that you would think about with wine or things like that. Once it’s basically a cold temperature, it is what it is. He said there’s some funk, there’s some people doing some stuff in Japan where they are letting it sit for years and years. And it just changes. It just may not be the thing that everyone wants to drink. I kind of think it becomes a thing where like at the same time now people have a taste for Brett and stuff. It’s like, you get a taste for that kind of like weird funk that develops after the sake gets old. There’s definitely like a small population of sake drinkers that like that, but not a huge group. But that was super interesting to understand. And then they actually dry-hopped sake. And he poured it for us. And I literally thought that I was drinking liquid grapefruit juice. It was the craziest thing I’d ever tasted. And it was pink because it pulls out the colors from the hops, which is weird because hops are green, but for whatever reason, it ends up a pinkish-orange color, and they almost sell it as a rosé. And then of course they’re doing other stuff too. Like they’re making like a Pét-Nat sake. I was like, here we go.

Z: You really were in Brooklyn.

A: Yeah. I was in Brooklyn. I was in Industry City. But yeah, just shout out to them ‘cause they’re doing really cool stuff, and I thought it was delicious.

K: What was the alcohol on the dry-hopped?

A: It was like 12 percent or something like that. 12, 14. So, I mean it’ll hit you, but not in the way that other things will, it was very tasty.

I was very impressed and they’re of course trying to make sakes that they’re not encouraging you to then use as a spirits substitute for cocktails and stuff. Their whole goal is to have you drink the sake as it is. And also their big push, too, is to take it out of the American idea that you’re supposed to have it in those little short sake glasses. They obviously serve theirs in wine glasses and in smaller ones, more like what you would think of a white wine or something at a wedding. That’s kind of the way I think of what glass size they use. But he explained to me, too, where the small sake glass comes from, and it has nothing to do with aromas or anything like that. It’s that in Japanese culture, the more you’re serving the guests, the more pleasure it gives you. And so if it’s a smaller vessel, you have to serve your guests more often. And so that’s the only reason the sake glass is small, because we would constantly be refilling your person’s glass. And so that’s you showing yourself as being a very good host. But of course, Americans, as Brian joked, we see that glass and we’re like, “Sweet! It’s a shot.” We just throw it back. But yeah.

Z: This has been super interesting and I look forward to next year’s American sake month.

A: I know. Totally. But yeah, thanks Zach. You didn’t get the Ritz Cracker joke, now you’re just hating on my sake stuff.

Z: No, no I’m just saying let’s transition.

A: Well, yeah, let’s talk about American Wine Month. So I mean, all of us, we’re from different parts of the country. I mean I lived in the South for awhile. Then went to school in the South and moved up here. Zach you’re from the Northwest and then obviously went to school in New York. Keith’s from all over. Maryland, New York. So we’ve all sort of traveled a lot. And I think what’s really interesting about the United States is that first of all, as we know, there’s bonded wineries in all 50 States. As we noted, Zach, before we started the podcast, just being a bonded winery doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re making wine from vinifera, but they are making some sort of wine. But there’s really cool stuff happening all over the country. And I think what’s so exciting about it, is that it shows it’s not just about three or four of the regions that probably everyone knows. And there’s really amazing stuff coming from everywhere. And I guess my question to both of you guys to just start this is: Is there such a thing as American wine? What do you think American wine is? If someone said to you American wine, what would you immediately think of?

K: For me, I believe American wine is wine made from grapes that are not from here, by people that are not from here. We all came from somewhere else to be here, unless you’re an indigenous culture. And I think that American wine for me is defined by the ability to grow vines that are meant for the soils in which they’re grown in. And the wine is made in such a skillful way that it represents that area, whether it’s a Viognier, whether it’s Petit Manseng, whether it’s Cab Franc, whether it’s Grüner Veltliner, it doesn’t matter. In Texas they’re doing Tempranillo, and people dig it, but they’re also making fruit wine, you know? So I see American wine as this sort of Wild West mentality, but now finally with more information about science and technology, focusing more on the soil, more on where we grow grapes, why it’s good to grow them there. And then, making good wine. So that’s how I see it. And we’re not done yet. The Petaluma Gap in Sonoma was awarded in 2017. In Washington State, I just found out two weeks ago, two more AVAs were awarded in the Columbia Valley. So we’re still working on it, but I think that’s kind of what defines it to me.

Z: Yeah. And I think Keith you capture a really important piece here, which is what I often think about as well, which is this idea of — whether you want to use the Wild West metaphor — or to me, it’s just this idea that there was no existing wine culture in this country in terms of growing or consuming until quite recently. And some of what did exist was wiped out by Prohibition and it was slow to recover. And what’s been really exciting for me about American wine is that we are now at a place with the industry where it’s so much more developed and mature than it was 10, 15, 20 years ago. So that not everyone has to feel like they have to make a wine that refers to Europe. I mean, yes, the varieties, the cultivars, the clones, and of course the species itself is European in nature, but we are not necessarily seeing wine regions in the United States feel too confined by established European styles by saying, “Oh, well in Bordeaux, they plant these X number of varieties, and so those are the only things we can plant here.” Obviously you still see a lot of that. I don’t mean that those wines have disappeared. Of course they’re still very popular and rightfully so, but you do see experimentation with all kinds of different varieties and people saying, “Well, why can’t I grow a Spanish variety and a French variety and an Austrian variety and a Croatian variety all in my vineyard? I think they’ll work here. I want to make wines that are of these various styles or from these varieties. And I can do that.” And that’s a freedom that just does not exist in most other places. Few other places in the new world have similar spirits, but here in the U.S. we have this almost endless amount of land that could be potentially converted to viticulture, should someone want to do it.

A: Yeah, I think that’s true. I think the other thing that makes American wine so interesting is that this country is just so big. Every state is almost its own country. So, what works in the Finger Lakes may not necessarily work in Texas. But that’s OK because there’s other things that can work. And I think the thing that started to define American wine for me, which I really like, is that over the last decade, two decades even, there’s become less of a focus by a lot of the really top producers — and then everyone else has followed — of having to make a wine in America that tastes like a wine from the Old World. It’s like no, the Cabernet from Napa tastes like Cabernet from Napa. There’s less of that now. I remember even early on in my wine journey, I would go to the North Fork and the winemaker would say like, yeah, we’re really going for a Right Bank Bordeaux. And now you don’t hear that as much here. Why aren’t we saying no, this is a North Fork wine, right? This is what it is. And becoming more confident that, yes, we can take the grapes from Europe and the wines don’t have to be copies of the wines from Europe to be considered high quality and to be considered best in class and all of those things. They can be their own thing.

K: And what’s cool about that is the fact that what we did was, in trying to emulate European wine, we created our own styles. Which is really kind of cool. I mean, I know the meritage thing never really took where, you know, in California there was this word called meritage. And if you had a meritage if you used all the Bordeaux varieties and stuff, but we ended up making our own stuff and created our own style, which is really awesome.

A: Totally.

Z: Yeah. And I think actually to the point that you were making, Adam, as well, I think even more excitingly now, not only do you not hear wineries, and wine producers, wine regions say, “Oh yes, our wines are comparable to the wines of ‘pick your French region of choice.'” But even something like Napa, which is obviously an American wine region, I don’t even hear as many wineries, say, “Oh, we’re making a Cabernet like a Napa Cab.” There is a real understanding that what makes a lot of these parts of the country that are growing grapes and making wine so exciting is that they are their own thing. And yes, there’s going to always be some similarities. I mean, to some extent the character of each of these varieties or blends is going to show through, but it’s cool that whether you’re in Virginia, or Washington, or Oregon, or Texas, or Arizona, or any other place, I think the more that producers in those places can be comfortable saying, “We think we’re making a wine that’s really representative of this place and of these varieties of this place, of this vintage.” Those are the wines that I think all of us get excited about. And the wines that are harder to get excited about are someone who’s trying to make a replica of something that already exists. I mean, yeah. If you can make a wine that tastes like Château Margaux and it’s way cheaper, I guess that’s cool. But really the most exciting thing for me is to make a wine that is clearly and interestingly of the place it’s from. And this country has a lot of interesting, cool places. As you mentioned, Adam, it’s this incredibly vast country with incredibly different geology, climates. All these things that make for incredibly remarkable wine regions. And we’re just still scratching the surface. I mean, Keith, you mentioned how there’s new AVAs being awarded all over. And I mean, I was excited to see that Hawaii has now petitioned for its first AVA. The only wine I’ve ever tried from Hawaii is a pineapple wine, which was actually kind of good. But this is vinifera to be clear. But I think that’s super exciting and like, we don’t know. There’s all kinds of possibilities still out there. And the cool thing about wine is that it rewards exploration and experimentation and taking a chance. Of course, not all of them will work out, but there’s always that possibility.

A: My question to you guys is, over the last decade, we’ve seen new regions in Europe that have always existed, but have popped really big in the U.S. and more money has flooded in. So I’m thinking about, for example, like the Jura right? All of a sudden, a bunch of somms are talking about it and it was everywhere. Sicily, specifically Etna. And then all of a sudden, now you have Burgundy producers buying land there. You have Barbaresco and Barolo producers buying land there. What do you guys think? If there was a region that you think was going to pop next in the U.S. and you think, “Oh my God, this is the region that’s going to pop. And every single person is going to realize how great it is, and there’s gonna be money flooding in there.” Is there one or could you think of one?

K: Yeah. I mean, what’s cool about Washington State is it seems to be a really big — what is it, the second largest wine-producing region in the country? And there’s been some very significant investments there starting from back in the day. And I think we’re already seeing investment in Virginia. So to think of a brand new space —

A: No. I’m not saying brand new because you look and Etna existed forever, right? It just, all of a sudden, who knows what it was? It was someone saying like, “Oh my gosh, these are like Burgundy. And all of a sudden, everyone just started dumping money. Right? And it became the thing people were talking about. I’m just wondering, what are a few regions in the U.S. we think that there could be or, maybe there isn’t yet. Maybe there is, I agree with you that the thing I think is most ripe for it is Washington. And that’s honestly just because for whatever reason, Zach might think I’m kissing his a** right now. But for whatever reason, like that stage has flown under the radar for a really long time for no explainable reason.

Z: Allow me to explain why.

A: Please, because the explanation I’ve always heard is that Oregon just got there first or whatever, and people start talking about the Pinot Noirs, and people just forgot that Washington was there, but I’m sure there’s a better explanation than that.

Z: Well, I think that the biggest thing that’s changed about the wine industry in my time in it, and the way that consumers tend to think, is one of the things that worked against Washington for a long time was that it had no clear cut variety or style of wine that was the signature. And there’s certainly plenty of famous and highly priced Washington Cabernets and Cabernet-based blends. Pre-“Sideways,” there was a lot of emphasis on Merlot and I think Washington Merlot is actually really an exciting wine, for sure. But the strength of Washington is almost like the strength of the U.S. in a microcosm. It’s the diversity and it’s all the different things that can be made. And we’ve only, I think just in the last few years reached a place where in the American wine market, there’s actual interest in a lot of different kinds of wines, a lot of different varieties, a lot of different styles.

And so there are still the diehard “I only drink Pinot Noir. I only drink Cabernet. I only drink Chardonnay” folks, but most wine people that I meet these days or talk to, they’re interested in trying something new. And that’s where I think Washington has an incredible possibility, which is to say, “Hey, we are growing over a hundred different varieties.” There are people focusing on all kinds of different things in this state. There are wineries that focus exclusively on Spanish varieties. There are wineries that focus exclusively on white wines from the Rhône Valley and south of France. There are wineries that do just about everything in their own way in various different sizes. And the thing, to come to your question about a region, Adam, I actually think that one of the most exciting places in the country and a place that I think the same kind of people who got excited about the Jura are, or will be excited about, is the Columbia Gorge. And the biggest reason for that is that it is such an incredibly unusual appellation and growing region for Washington. So it’s on the border between Washington and Oregon. And unlike the vast majority of Washington, it’s actually relatively cool and a little bit more wet. So it isn’t as much of a sort of high desert environment like much of Eastern Washington. It’s much more like the Loire Valley in France in terms of its climate, but with a very different geology and a lot more elevation. And so you’re seeing people make amazing whites from both well-known varieties like Chardonnay, but also Grüner Veltliner. People are doing interesting things with Tocai Friulano and then you’re also seeing a lot of interesting cool- climate style reds, which has not been a big thing in Washington State for sure. But there’s interesting Pinot Noir there. There’s amazing Gamay, you’re seeing people do fun things with Cabernet Franc. And, and as you move to the eastern edge of the Columbia Gorge, you do get a little bit more of what we associate with the rest of Washington. So a little bit hotter, but you still have that real river influence. So it is its own area. And what’s cool is you have all the other things that I think draws people to places like the Jura is the producers are all pretty small. There’s no big wineries. So the wines are niche there, and they’re small production. And unfortunately it makes it hard to find some of those wines around the country, for sure. But for people who are interested in exploring, it’s an area where there’s a lot of interesting small- to medium-sized wineries who are doing fun things. And that’s definitely one area, again, because of my proximity is part, that I think is ripe for more discovery around the country.

K: Well, I think based on your question, Adam, this is I mean what it sounds like to me is the United States, we’re still working on it. You know, we have a lot of work to do because in 1980, the first AVA was awarded to Augusta, Mo. And then eight months later in 1981, the first AVA in California was awarded to Napa Valley. And since then, we’ve had 224 AVAs across the country. And for a long time, like I said earlier, people were forcing vines into soils that didn’t really work so much. But I think it’s not really about what the next exciting region is. I think it’s more about how we, as an American wine drinking culture, approach the places that exist. Maybe for example, Temecula has awesome wine. No one knows Temecula. Paso Robles.

A: I was waiting for it.

K: There it is. I am in love with that AVA. I think it’s an absolute phenomenon that it kind of flies under the radar because there’s a few brand names that are jiving on the American market that you can find in supermarkets in wine shops. But there’s also stuff that you can’t really get outside of Paso. Just like there’s things you can’t get out of Temecula, and things you can’t get out of Columbia Gorge. So I think that one of the things — and again, we’re in a pandemic and it’s different, but that’s not gonna last forever.

I guess what I’m saying is, we get to go to these places and see what these skilled winemakers are making. And I think the next thing with American drinking culture is to explore the diversity of the wines in the area. Let’s get people into Long Island Grüner Veltliner. And the thing is if you can’t get it, well the DTC, the direct-to-customer thing, is getting a little bit better. I think that celebrating what’s fun, and that in doing so we can actually educate the American wine consumer on more varieties, different kinds of cultivars and stuff. Like what’s Grüner Veltliner? Well, it’s this Austrian variety and it’s really awesome in Long Island, you know? So I think that’s where we should go next.

A: Yeah, I think, what’s difficult for people and I would say, you know, the best advice I could give about American wine is, don’t be scared to take a risk. And don’t turn your nose up just because you hear of a state and you’ve never heard that it makes wine before. Because I guarantee you there’s someone in that state making really great wine. Like when I’ve heard people be like, “Oh, Connecticut, they make wine? That can’t be good. Or New Jersey, New Jersey makes wine?” I mean I literally have not, which is a shame, ’cause I’m so close to New Jersey, there’s apparently a lot of amazing wineries in South Jersey. Yeah. You’re in New Jersey in Brick City, or Pennsylvania in Lancaster County, where my wife is from. She’s from Lancaster the city, but in the county, there’s an Amish guy that ripped up his farm and planted vineyards. And honestly, he makes a Merlot that’s amazing.

Z: I think the other area to think about and I’m super excited about, Adam — I think you and I like jokingly mentioned this way back in one of our very first podcasts – but it was like a lot of the states around the Great Lakes area where I think there’s really interesting potential, whether it’s in Michigan or potentially even in Wisconsin. As things start to change climatically, and as places get a little bit warmer potentially and drier during the summer, I think one thing that America doesn’t have a lot of are classic wine regions that are near large bodies of water that are not oceans. And when you compare that to Europe, the Finger Lakes are the one exception and we think the Finger Lakes are super exciting in part because of the possibility that that kind of viticulture provides. And I think you could see some really interesting wine coming out of those States in the next 10 to 20 years. I know one of the challenges for a lot of those areas is that traditionally they get so cold over the winter that there’s only a few varieties you can really plant that are cold-hardy. But, I think you’ve seen more and more development in understanding rootstocks and, and ways to shelter vines. That’s an area that I have my eye on. I think I’ve tried a couple of Rieslings from Michigan. That’s the extent of what I’ve tried from the Great Lakes, but, I’m really excited to see if there’s more investment and interest in putting some time into those.

K: Left Foot Charley and his no-residual, no-RS, no-residual-sugar Riesling from just North of Traverse city is just incredible. And what’s awesome is his winery is located in an old asylum. They took this asylum up in Michigan and then it closed down and they were repurposing it. It’s really intense.

A: Yeah. I mean, I think there’s a lot of opportunities, right? I mean, we’ve talked about Virginia a bunch. Obviously they sponsored American wine month, but we’ve been hot on Virginia for a long time. I think there’s a potential for it to be one of the great wine regions of the country. And especially on the East Coast, there’s a lot of stuff happening there that’s really exciting. And especially as the vintners are getting more up into the mountains, into the actual Shenandoah Mountains, they’re finding the cooler temperatures. They just have to deal with more stuff, and that’s the thing that’s going to be difficult, right? As some of these wine regions expand, how much are we going to be willing to also be OK with some of the things they need to do to be able to make good wine?

So, you know, in Virginia, they have to deal with a lot. And there’s a lot of humidity and stuff like that. And so being 100 percent organic is almost impossible, whereas it’s very easy in Napa. So is “sustainable” going to be enough? Right? Are we gonna be OK if they spray once or twice a year? ‘Cause they have to. I don’t know what it’s like in Texas. I just know Texas is super hot, but maybe it’s a dry heat. I don’t remember where it becomes a dry heat. So there’s gonna be things they have to do. There’s gonna be things that they have to do if we want to be able to have some of these different wine regions succeed. I think it’s crazy that we haven’t seen more. You look at certain regions like New Mexico, right? And the success of Gruet, and how amazing those sparkling wines are. And the fact that we haven’t had others yet, or I’m sure there are, but just other people haven’t followed in a really dramatic way. It surprises me to be honest. And that’s why I asked my original question, which was, you know, where do you guys think the money is going to come from, or what region do you see your money flooding into? And I wonder if it has a lot more to do with bias, right? Because there’s this amazing sparkling wine being made in New Mexico. And yet all the brands aren’t flooding in to be like, “We should be doing that, too. Look at what they’re doing.” This is a quality of wine that we can’t believe they’re being able to produce. And at this price point. Whereas when someone says, you know, Italy and Etna and everyone is like, “Oh yeah, of course Italy! Yeah. Dump the money in.” Or all of a sudden it’s like that bias of well, of course, it’s the Old World. And so they’ve always been making wine. So yeah, we all forgot about this region, but it’s always been there and is it easier for some people to accept for whatever reason when honestly, if you can produce great wine in a region, like why does it matter how long that region has been producing wine? Especially because if you look at the Sicilian history of producing wine, for a very long time, it was very, very bad. So how did that change? And the only thing that I can think of is the bias, that European bias.

Z: And I think the other piece of this is one thing we haven’t talked about and I don’t mean to get into a long conversation about, but a part of the American wine experience also has to do with tourism and visiting wineries. And I do think that one of the reasons you’ve seen a bias towards certain parts of the country is because those are places that are convenient for tourists, that are otherwise accessible, that are beautiful. And it may be the case that the beauty of the high desert in New Mexico, I think is actually very striking, but it’s not as much of an obvious tourist destination as Napa Valley. It also doesn’t have the density of other stuff to do. So I’m not saying there’s some reason, there’s a bad reason for that. And I think sometimes it’s hard to disentangle in the U.S. the difference between regions that are great wine destinations and great wine-producing regions. And those two things can be synonymous, but they’re not always, and some of the places that I’m excited about as regions that could produce great wine may never be places that are high on anyone’s travel list.

And that is also true in Europe, to be fair. I mean, I love the wines from Emilia-Romagna and I love the food from Emilia-Romagna in Italy, but it is not a pretty place. It’s basically flat and full of pig s***. And so, not every winery, and not every wine region is going to be beautiful or easy to access. But I think what we should be asking of these regions, whether they’re new or old, is that they be focused on quality and on producing the best wine they can. And it’s our job as journalists, as drinkers, to find those wines, to talk about them when they do merit discussion and to mention if it’s a great tourist destination or not, but you know, we’re all finding obviously in this year without tourism that there are other things that matter.

K: Well, the thing is the Finger Lakes is not easy to get to. And the Niagara Escarpment is not the easiest thing. It’s seven hours from New York driving, but it has become one of the national focuses of one grape: Riesling. But I think we can do it. It’s just a matter of, like Adam said, the bias. We need people to focus on it. And that’s the thing. In Europe, Sicily was mostly known for bulk wine, but there was always a small producer making awesome shit in Sicily. There’s always somebody down in Victoria making great wine and then one day is like, “Oh my gosh, I actually have people seeing me now.” It just takes a long time. And Gruet, it is unfortunate, but that was a very special thing where this guy from Champagne, the family comes over and sees potential there. And I wonder if they found the best spot for those, but nobody wants to compete with the amount of amazing wine they make there. Or Arizona, I mean, I had an amazing Malvasia from Arizona, and the AVAs in Arizona are not too far away from the large cities. So I think it just takes time, and we are a young nation. We’re only 240-something years old. We had 10 years of Prohibition. We weren’t really getting back into dry red wine and even white wine at all until the late 1960s. We’re still kind of figuring it out.

And I think that it makes sense that we would attach ourselves to “OK, well, Pinot Noir that’s Willamette. OK, I’m gonna do that.” “Cab that’s Napa. I’m gonna do that.” “Riesling, that’s Washington — well, now it’s New York. OK.” And we needed that. That’s kind of how the point system came across as these are things that America needed at a time when we were just trying to re-understand what we lost for 10 years. And I think that it’s just a matter of time before we really get a sense of this, but there’s an excitement that has to happen to make it happen when Virginia has been making wine for a long time. Jim Law has been there since like what, 1978? And Adam, you and I got to know Jim Law, like what, six years ago?

A: Eight years ago. I mean, before I started VinePair. Yeah I mean like eight or nine years ago, I think you’re the one who introduced me to him or somehow we found him together. And he’s highly respected, but then again he doesn’t care about being known outside of Virginia.

K: Right, but he mentored a bunch of people who do care. And you know, of course Barboursville helped, too. That’s I guess one of those investments where Barboursville was like, “OK. We see there was a family. We see what’s going on. We see we want to invest in that area.” I just think it’s going to take some time, but what’s cool about it is it’s very exciting. It’s very exciting. I think that in the future, we’re going to have more wine coming from the United States that is going to be more diverse and more fun to explore. I mean like, I’m going to go back to Paso real quick, Adam, if you’re cool with that.

A: No, please go back to Paso.

K: Paso is in this little plain area, and it used to be a place where the whole story is, outlaws could go into Paso and not be bothered ’cause it’s in this little patch of nothing. And actually, it was founded by two dudes and Jesse James’ uncle, actually. And it is this place that has always been sort of disconnected from everybody else. And when it became known to the rest of the United States, it was known mostly for Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel. But when I went to Paso, I drank, there’s a grape called Clairette that is a blending varietal from France. I drank a Clairette that was 15 months on the lees, like a Muscadet. And it was absolutely delicious. I had a Picpoul de Pinet, which is another native grape from the southern part of France. I had a Falanghina that was absolutely stunning. And it was made in skin fermenting as an orange wine. My mind was blown. So I had to go there to actually enjoy it. And I’m hoping that at some point we can actually figure out, like you said, Zach, figure out this tourism thing. That’s who we are as a country. Tourism is what we do. And I hope we can figure it out because there’s so much to be had in these small little pockets of America and these little AVAs. I mean, I know Paso is huge, but I’m telling you like other places that might have stunning, amazing wine, like Malvasia from Arizona, but it’s just not on the market.

A: No, I think Zach’s point about tourism is really important, ‘cause I do think that’s what’s helped a lot of the regions, and I think that that’s what then causes your mind to be blown because you show up there and you have a great meal and every wine region needs one good restaurant, you know what I mean? Just something to tie it together, because I remember when I first went to Paso, driving down the coast, and like no winery really had a place to tell us to go to for lunch. This was eight or nine years ago. And there just wasn’t really an answer. So we wound up going to what was an OK cafe and, I was like, “Oh man, there’s such potential here.” Once they get that high-end restaurant, or once they get that place where it all goes together, because that is what Napa and Sonoma have going for them. That is what other regions have going for them, is just this ability to give you that one 360-degree experience.

K: And now Paso finally has it.

A: Exactly. And so, I think that matters, as annoying as that is. It does. But there’s just so much stuff, I mean, just talking we could talk for another 45 minutes about it, so much stuff about American wine is really exciting right now. And the best thing is to just get out there and try to drink it. And if you can’t get out there now because of the pandemic, totally understandable. So get online and just read as you were saying, Keith. Yeah. And hit up DTC, read our reviews. We try to write about a lot of different wine regions. If you’re an American wine region that we don’t write about, get in touch with us. We want to taste your wine, send it to us. Send it to Zach too, ’cause you know, he’s in Seattle. But yeah, I mean, we want to taste your wine. I mean, I think we have no bias here, and I think that’s the thing that’s most important for anyone thinking about getting into these other regions is, don’t go in with bias, because I’m promising you, there’s someone in these regions who is producing really, really great juice.

K: I’m getting a Müller-Thurgau from Oregon coming in tomorrow.

Z: There you go.

A: Crazy. Well, guys, this has been an awesome conversation. Keith, thanks for being our guest co-host this week. Zach, I’ll see you right back here next week.

Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair podcast. If you enjoy listening to us every week, please leave us a review or rating on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever it is that you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now for the credits, VinePair produced by myself and Zach. It is also mixed and edited by him. Yeah, Zach, we know you do a lot. I’d also like to thank the entire VinePair team, including my co-founder, Josh and our associate editor, Cat. Thanks so much for listening. See you next week.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article VinePair Podcast: American Wine Has Boundless Potential appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/american-wine-podcast/

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johnboothus · 4 years

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VinePair Podcast: American Wine Has Boundless Potential

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Adam: From the Ritz Cracker display at Publix, I’m Adam Teeter. You don’t get it? But no, really from Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter

Keith: From Brick City, I’m Keith Beavers

Zach: And in Seattle, Washington, very confused, I’m Zach Geballe.

Z: I guess…

A: So I’m coming live from the Ritz Cracker display instead of the Ritz Carlton.

Z: I got you. I feel like we’re like a week and a half late on this joke, though.

A: Sweet. Zach, what about you, man?

K: No.

Z: I have, yeah, there’s one down in Oregon that I’ve been to.

K: This is insane.

Z: You really were in Brooklyn.

A: Yeah. I was in Brooklyn. I was in Industry City. But yeah, just shout out to them ‘cause they’re doing really cool stuff, and I thought it was delicious.

K: What was the alcohol on the dry-hopped?

A: It was like 12 percent or something like that. 12, 14. So, I mean it’ll hit you, but not in the way that other things will, it was very tasty.

Z: This has been super interesting and I look forward to next year’s American sake month.

A: I know. Totally. But yeah, thanks Zach. You didn’t get the Ritz Cracker joke, now you’re just hating on my sake stuff.

Z: No, no I’m just saying let’s transition.

A: Totally.

Z: Allow me to explain why.

A: I was waiting for it.

A: No, please go back to Paso.

K: And now Paso finally has it.

K: I’m getting a Müller-Thurgau from Oregon coming in tomorrow.

Z: There you go.

A: Crazy. Well, guys, this has been an awesome conversation. Keith, thanks for being our guest co-host this week. Zach, I’ll see you right back here next week.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article VinePair Podcast: American Wine Has Boundless Potential appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/american-wine-podcast/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/vinepair-podcast-american-wine-has-boundless-potential

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gethealthy18-blog · 4 years

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332: An Eastern, Ancient Traditional Approach to Health & Longevity With Simon Cheng of Pique Tea

New Post has been published on https://healingawerness.com/news/332-an-eastern-ancient-traditional-approach-to-health-longevity-with-simon-cheng-of-pique-tea/

332: An Eastern, Ancient Traditional Approach to Health & Longevity With Simon Cheng of Pique Tea

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

This episode is sponsored by UpSpring Baby, a company making innovative science-backed products for moms and babies. And I wanna tell you about one of their products in particular because even though I’m not even currently pregnant or have tiny babies, it’s been really helpful to me. I really like their Stomach Settle nausea relief drops, which are great for any kind of stomach upset from motion sickness, which I get and a couple of my daughters get, to morning sickness. which I thankfully do not have right now because I’m not pregnant, but any kind of bloating or digestive upset at all. I love to keep this on hand and my kids like them too. They help relieve nausea, motion sickness, gas, bloating, and any kind of digestive upset. In fact, I keep these in my car, in my kind of like emergency kit in each of my cars, and also in my purse just to have on hand because tummy aches can be a thing when out and on-the-go. Their lemon-ginger-honey flavored Stomach Settle drops contain not just one but three natural remedies for digestive upset, ginger, spearmint, and lemon. Plus, they contain vitamin B6 to help relieve occasional nausea, motion sickness, gas and bloating. Their ingredients are micronized, meaning that they provide faster-acting relief, and they have been really helpful, like I said, especially for motion sickness. They’re individually wrapped. They’re great for on-the-go, and I was able to negotiate a discount just for you. You can check this out at upspringbaby.com/pages/wellnessmama, and the code wellness10 saves you 10%.

This podcast is sponsored by Jigsaw Health, my source for magnesium. You probably know, if you’ve read my blog, that magnesium is responsible for over 300 biochemical reactions in the body. It impacts blood pressure, metabolism, immune function, and many other aspects of health, including hormones. It’s known as the master mineral and it’s one of the few supplements I take regularly. And I have found a specific way to take it that works best for me in very specific forms because if magnesium is taken in the wrong way it can lead to digestive upset or if it’s taken too quickly it can cause all kinds of problems. So, I take two supplements. One called MagSRT which is a slow release form of the dimagnesium malate. The slow release technology makes it easier on the digestive system. So I don’t get any of the digestive disturbance that comes with some forms of magnesium. I take this form in the morning and at lunch. So, two capsules with breakfast, two capsules with lunch. And at night, I take a different product MagSoothe, which is magnesium glycinate which is magnesium bound with the amino acid glycine to help sleep. And in combination, I noticed the biggest effect from those two particular products. You can check them both out and save by going to jigsawhealth.com/wellnessmama. And the code wellness10 will give you $10 off any order.

Hello, and welcome to the Wellness Mama Podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com, and I’m here today with Simon Cheng, who is the founder and CEO of Pique Tea. His own story is pretty fascinating. He went through a decade of health issues, which left him with really severe things like staples in his lungs and celebrating his 30th birthday with a tube of antibiotics directly into his heart valve. And he said, “Enough is enough,” and took control of his health, and has been studying all areas of health since then and has made a complete recovery. He now owns Pique Tea, which is the culmination of everything he’s learned about medicinal plants, and also things like breath work and all of the modalities that come into play with that. If you’re not familiar with Pique Tea, it’s one of my favorites. It’s a cold brew crystallized tea that is linked to better gut health. There are teas for stress and for sustained energy throughout the day.

Simon earned his undergraduate and Master’s degrees from Harvard and Stanford, and is the youngest member of the Harvard School of Public Health’s Nutrition Round Table. He’s also an educated Daoist healer, a Tea Master, a qi gong and tai chi practitioner and teacher, and shares today about a lot of his personal and research backed theories for improving not just lifespan, but health span and overall health. So, with that, let’s join Simon.

Katie: Simon, welcome and thank you for being here.

Simon: Thank you so much for having me, Katie. It’s a huge pleasure.

Katie: I am excited for our conversation and I actually want to jump in with a question I sometimes ask in the middle or toward the end of the interview, but I think it’s going to be a great springboard for us today, which is what are a few things that people don’t know or understand about your area of expertise? Which also is, of course, a great intro to your area of expertise.

Simon: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So there are a couple of things and I think that these concepts really form the foundation of everything that we do at Pique Tea. And with regards to our product development as well as our content strategy and everything that we’re trying to do with our mission. So the first one is that some of you may know I was born in Hong Kong and grew up there until I was in my late teens. And Hong Kong was recently ranked number one in life expectancy by the UN in the last set of statistics that was launched in 2016.

So number one in the world. And I think at various times has always been in the top 10. And I think that’s a very, very interesting thing because a lot of people study the Blue Zones, which are these famous areas of populations of centenarians. Many of them like Okinawa, Sardinia are places that are islands where people can enjoy fresh ocean air, abundant sunshine, a fairly relaxed lifestyle. On the contrary, Hong Kong is a very, very kind of, bustling financial center, very high GDP per capita, very little space, a lot of pollution. I think that’s something quite interesting that we can delve into a bit more.

The second thing is, really with regard to tea and tea consumption habits in the Western world and in the U.S. which is actually not a predominantly coffee drinking population. So tea really requires a drinking in adequate amount and quantity to unlock any sort of physical health benefits. And as you may know, Katie, tea has always been linked with meditation and mindfulness practices and breathwork. And this is the other side of the benefits that tea brings and it’s kind of the metaphysical one, call it mental, psychological, spiritual, and it requires drinking tea consciously. And this is something that we can delve more into as well. It’s directly linked to the active ingredients in tea, catechins, L-theanine, and caffeine the combination of the three.

And finally, this is the last thing, and this is kind of a deeper topic, but the foundation of our mission and our belief system is that tea really provides a gateway to higher consciousness, that kind of a window to your soul or the universe. I’m happy to discuss that a bit more. These are three things that people don’t really know a whole lot about with regard to tea and certainly what we do.

Katie: I love that. I’d love to start with detoxification a little bit more because, well, I think for one, there’s a lot of misconceptions when it comes to detoxification and what that actually means and then ways we can support it that are evidence-based. And of course, I think there’s a tremendous amount of evidence on both the different kinds of teas and then different herbs that are used in teas for that. But let’s start with your approach to detoxification and what people need to understand.

Simon: Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is directly tied into the understanding of life expectancy and of health and wellness in general. So my approach to detoxification is really about detoxification of environmental toxins. I know this is a topic that you’re very interested in. And I love the products that you’ve launched through Wellnesse. My approach to detoxification is really taking a five-sensory approach, right. This is something that I’ve been practicing for a long time. It’s really kind of the synthesis and distillation of a lot of practices I’ve noticed in other kind of health experts, healers, meditation experts, plant-based, doctors, and practitioners also, roughly follow, right.

And the idea is that consciousness is something that’s very impenetrable for a lot of people. And we can make that tangible by approaching it from this five sensory approach. So just on a very basic level, smell, right. That’s one of the five senses. We’re constantly surrounded by a barrage of air deodorizers, air fresheners, Christmas trees hanging in Ubers, people using ingredients or deodorizers in their home. Skincare products that have a lot of fragrance, cleaning products that have a lot of fragrance. And to develop kind of greater consciousness towards these chemicals and other toxins that are in the air, whether it’s paint fumes, one simply has to expose themselves to fresh air, right. So waking up and opening the window, sitting outdoors, going into the forest and the woods, spending time in nature. The more you do that, the more conscious you become of what clean pure air smells like.

The same thing goes for reducing the use of harmful products in your life. And another one would be taste, right. That’s an obvious one where if you’re eating fast food and Cheetos all day long, you’re not really gonna be able to appreciate or differentiate when you see something from a farmer’s market that’s five days old or three days old or a week old or a piece of fish that’s been frozen and thawed, you know, three times versus that’s fresh out of the ocean. And so really it’s about, again, developing that level of consciousness through very accessible ways that you can do step by step.

The same goes for touch, right. I mean, I know a lot of people that use sunblock and foundation every day. They go out every day of their lives. They’ve been using it. They wear a hundred percent synthetic fibers, toxic dyes. Your skin can’t breathe, right. So what if you stop using these products? And start wearing more natural fibers like cotton or wool or cashmere. You will start developing a level of consciousness that is completely different. You’ll understand what it feels like for your skin to actually breathe.

And the same things go for sight and sound. Ultimately, where we want to get to is a situation where you’re leading life naturally. You’re…what we call union with nature. So you’re using natural products, you’re wearing natural fibers, and you’re slowly kind of eliminating the noise and the pollution and the environmental toxins that we’re surrounded by. So, compare that with the life that we normally live with, breathing fresh air and having moments of silence and closing your eyes. It’s kind of the working towards that.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. And I think all of those factors that you mentioned, they’re easy to underestimate because we may not feel the immediate impact of the fibers in our clothing or things in household cleaners or in our skincare. But over time, those do have such a dramatic impact. That’s been an area for research for me as well. And like you mentioned, the reason I even started developing certain products that are especially typically contaminated. And I think often we don’t realize that impact until we do take those things away and then notice how much better we feel. And then also, of course, support the body in its natural detoxification pathways in the ways that you mentioned.

And I know we’ve touched on this before, but you are a big proponent of breathwork, and this is something I’ve been trying to dial-in in my own life. I feel like I’ve got the diet and lifestyle stuff pretty well dialed in, but stress and sleep are still areas where I can definitely improve. And so I’ve been experimenting with different forms of breathwork to try to optimize both of those. So I’d love to hear about your breathwork practices and the ways that this is linked to better health.

Simon: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, I mean if detoxification and elimination of noise and distraction is this gradual path from the extreme of fast food to the other extreme of farmer’s market fare, you can then also draw the same trajectory, right, from sight. So if you are constantly watching TV or have a lot of distractions. Some people won’t watch TV or don’t read, but they will actually just like to people watch, right. So suppose you take that to the extreme of just looking out at nature or what about looking at a white wall? Or what about just closing your eyes? That’s a step by step trajectory towards a mindfulness practice, right.

And so the same thing goes for fresh air. If you start having fresh air and not having any toxins in your surroundings, then you’ll actually start noticing you’re breathing more. And the same thing goes for sounds, right. It’s like the sounds of TV or the sounds of hip hop music or rock music that can be offensive or violent. What about just silence? Nothing, right. And this is not any sort of meditation practice, like this is just really walking the path towards higher consciousness, right. Just by doing these things, you’re already so far along the path of mindfulness practice and breathwork, well ahead of potentially anyone that’s like, “Oh, I do, TM or, I do pranayama or I do Wim Hof method” or in my case I do, medicinal breathwork, which is a Chi based method.

You’ve already gone so far down this road that subsequently what pursues after is simply a breathing technique, right. It’s all of the things I just mentioned, those different techniques that are different methods of breathing, of controlling your breath. But you have so far immersed yourself already in a mindfulness practice that the breathing technique comes very easily. And so I’ve delved in a little bit about medicinal breath work, which is the technique that I use. It’s based on traditional Chinese medicine. It’s a Taoist practice and it’s based on the concept of energy or Chi in your body, right.

And so it’s completely physiological. This is the difference. It’s not a spiritual practice, it’s not meant for enlightenment, it’s not meant for any sort of kind of metaphysical goal, so to speak. However, the physiological process is really kind of based on the concept that in your body there’s either tension, which is, equals blockage, or there’s relaxation, which equals unblockage free flow of energy. So for those of you who have been cupping or acupuncture or needles, a lot of this stuff is actually meant for unblocking blockages, right, so your energy can flow freely.

Now, with Qigong medicinal breathwork, you simply concentrate, your intent is very similar to pranayama, which is a yoga practice. You focus your intent during your breathing on a specific part of your body, it’s called the dantian which is also the sacral chakra in yoga. It’s kind of like an inch or two below your navel. And you concentrate your intent there because that’s meant to be the regulator or the engine of your body’s energy. So if you focus the energy there, it will redistribute energy throughout your entire body into your organs, into your legs, into your brain through the meridians, right. Through the way, the meridians are mapped through the acupuncturing maps. And so imagine there’s a series of rivers and streams and tributaries in your body. And these all have been mapped out for at least 2000 years, right. They’re very well established how that energy flows. And so you’re really just recycling, kick-starting if you will, like a turbocharger, the circulation of energy through these meridians. So it’s completely physiological. The great thing is that if you practice as well then a lot of the metaphysical benefits ensue. And those are some of the things that people meditate on a spiritual basis to achieve.

Katie: Got it. That makes sense. Yeah, I think, I love that you mentioned silence because I think that’s something that is in short supply in the modern world, for moms especially just understandably with small kids. But even short of just family, the normal family dynamics, which often don’t lead to silence, I think many of us are just in the habit of always having on music or TV or a podcast, as many people listening to this may have on.

And you’re right, I think there’s something beautiful in the silence. And also if it’s something you’re not used to, there can be discomfort in that silence for a while until you learn to be silent and still with yourself. And many cultures have some form of this. And I think we don’t do a great job of this in the modern world a lot of times, but so many cultures have some practice involving that silence and the stillness and being able to sit with one’s own self in comfort. And I think this is a perfect springboard into talking about awareness, which is another big topic for you that you touched on briefly and something that I know is a big part of your life. So walk us through that and how you cultivate this in your life.

Simon: Absolutely. So for me, awareness and consciousness are really the same thing. And it’s really based on the concept that everything that you need is already inside. Meaning that you have the ability to heal yourself if you listen to your body, that you have the ability already inside of you to realize your potential in whatever way and form that might take. And the challenges that we face is really one of not being able to hear that or see that. And that’s due to lack of awareness and lack of consciousness and call that the noise or the environmental toxins, whatever name you want to give it, it’s the thing that’s kind of stands between us and our true nature, right.

And so, becoming aware of that is really something that I try to help every single one of our customers, as well as every single person on our team, everyone that I meet, do in some way or form. And obviously the tea that we make is a huge part of that. Chemically, the tea has different compounds, L-theanine, caffeine, polyphenols that work in combination with each other to produce a very specific state of mind, of heightened awareness and alertness that is also calm and relaxed. There’s nothing like it out there.

And so this is going back to what I said earlier, when many people drink tea, they do it on the go. You know, they’re driving, they’re watching TV, they are whatever, listening to a podcast or working. In those instances, you cannot actually feel, you cannot be aware or conscious of the effects these biochemical compounds are having on you, right. L-theanine is a very calming compound and it reduces all the activity in the brain. Polyphenols actually are an antioxidant compound leading to immune support, greater sense of vitality. It makes you feel healthy.

The caffeine in tea is extremely different. It’s bound to the catechin compounds. It’s bound to the polyphenols, making it harder for your body to digest and break down. So there’s a time-release of the caffeine. Therefore the energy, the caffeine impact is a more gradual one, right. And more gradual, meaning that it’ll last longer, three to four hours and also doesn’t lead you to have a crash or you’re tired after. So the combination of these sensations, if you don’t kind of perceive with the level of consciousness and it’s not hard to do that, you can sit somewhere and just look outside your window and just feel the sensations. It’s hard for a tea to do its job from that kind of the metaphysical point of view, right. So that’s kind of our concept of awareness and something that we help everyone try to experience through the tea and through mindfulness practices.

Katie: I love that those two are… That you talk about how to really combine those two. And I think it will be great to go into some specifics about… Now that we’ve talked about the consciousness and the mental side about the physical and physiological benefits of teas as well because they certainly are well documented, well studied and used throughout the world in various ways. And so I’d love to just hit you with some kind of somewhat rapid-fire questions related to different types of tea. Right now, I’m a big fan of the Sun Goddess Matcha that you guys have. I’ve been trying to alternate and not drink coffee every day. And so I do green tea most days instead and so talk about that specifically. I know a lot of people are familiar with the idea of green tea being healthy, but matcha goes kind of above and beyond. And then yours goes even above and beyond that. So walk us through the benefits of this.

Simon: Yeah, absolutely. So this is a very special product that we made, recognizing a need in the market for something that was extremely high quality and yet pure, right. So one of the interesting things about matcha is that obviously originates from Japan. It’s a huge part of ceremonial tea, ceremony culture and also meditation culture in Japan. So used in temples, their schools of tea ceremony. It’s very traditional, is what I’m trying to say. And in the traditional approach to matcha, there is not a great deal of concern for organic agricultural practices in the purity of the matcha. They’re more interested in an appearance and taste, right.

And so the appearance and taste and all of the quality parameters of matcha have been established through these traditional approaches, right. So what we have come to know is ceremonial grade matcha, that’s like the highest grade of matcha. But like I said, a lot of these temples and schools of tea ceremony, they don’t care if the matcha is organic or not. And so, that was the struggle that I had is that, I love matcha, it’s tremendous for meditation and mindfulness because it’s very high in L-theanine. But I couldn’t get a pure source of it, right. There’s very, very little organic, ceremonial green matcha out there.

And so we developed one in partnership with a 10th-degree tea master. So there are only about 13 in the world. This gentleman is in his 50s and probably took the better half of his life to get this level of certification. And we obtained our tea from a very special source at the southernmost tip of Japan. It’s in an area called Kagoshima, so it’s next to Okinawa, which is one of the Blue Zones, so very, very far away from the industrial pollution in Japan. And it’s extremely pure, it’s actually like right next to the first national park that was designated in Japan.

So growing in the mountains, there’s no need for use of pesticides because it’s so cool and it’s mountainous so there isn’t a lot of pesticide drift issues. So, some of you may not be familiar, but in Japan, a lot of the agricultural land is very, very closely plotted together to increase space efficiency. And what happens when one farm uses pesticides is that it will drift over all the neighboring farms. So you can avoid this problem by having a tea farm in the mountains. And so of course, there’s a much lower amount of supply, right, so it’s scarcer.

And then second, it’s blended by this 10th-degree tea master. So it’s at a very high level of kind of ceremonial grade quality from all the different parameters of taste, of color, of froth, how…the mouthfeel and the texture. And then we’ve also quadrupled toxin screens. All of our products are triple toxin screened for heavy metals, pesticides, and toxic mold. We’ve gone one step further with this matcha to also screen for radioactive isotopes being particularly concerned because the matcha’s from Japan, there was a nuclear incident in Japan, that they have recovered from very well, but there’re still customers with concerns about it.

And so there’s a very, very high level of screening. That’s kind of it in a nutshell. Matcha is also shaded for a very long period with kind of natural, bamboo plant fiber shade. So this is going a little bit into the mechanics of how matcha is made. Matcha is shaded that’s primarily how it’s different than all other teas. And the shading actually inhibits photosynthesis, and it leads the matcha to develop high levels of chlorophyll as well as L-theanine which is the amino acid that leads to greater alpha activity in the brain, and it’s something that matcha is valued for, both from a taste point of view as well as from a health benefit.

Katie: I’m so glad you brought up the testing because I get a lot of questions related to that, especially the heavy metals, which of course, have become more of a concern in recent years. And I know that you guys, like you said, you test for that. And I know some people also really worry about fluoride in tea because of the ability of tea plants to absorb fluoride from the soil. Is that something you guys test for as well?

Simon: Yes, we definitely test for fluoride. And especially the Sun Goddess Matcha, it’s something that we test for. And it is indeed true that a lot of… Tea has a tendency to sequester toxins from the air. It’s one of those plants and so the source that you get it from is paramount, which is why we go through such great lengths to find pure sources of it.

Katie: Makes sense. Got it. So I’d love to now talk about some of the other types of teas and how they can be used to support the body in various ways, I know that you guys have a huge assortment now. And I’m going to ask some specific questions related to how each of those can be used. But walk us through some of the other types of teas that are available, especially from you guys, and how those can be implemented as part of this kind of whole-body approach.

Simon: Absolutely. So we have a tea-drinking protocol that we recommend to people and black teas are generally recommended for the mornings. Black tea has a lower concentration of catechins. Catechins are actually green tea antioxidants. Black tea has a whole different set of antioxidants called theaflavins and it’s what actually gives the black tea its color. But as a result of that, the caffeine from black tea actually sets on faster. So for those of you who are looking for an energy charge in the morning, black tea is really fantastic for that. Furthermore, the theaflavins in black tea are very supportive of the gut biome.

And this is something that, when you wake up in the morning and you haven’t eaten much or you’re drinking tea on an empty stomach, black tea tends to be much more suitable for those kind of instances of consumption. In the afternoon, we generally recommend green tea. And so with black tea we have English Breakfast, Earl Grey, a whole range of different black teas. In the afternoons is when we generally recommend people drink green teas. That’s kind of the after-lunch hour, if eaten, there might be a little bit of sluggishness from digesting the meal.

Green tea is generally fantastic for aiding digestive processes of kind of facilitating your metabolic system and also providing you with that energy that will last through the afternoon. And then at night, we have a range of different herbal teas, rooibos, hibiscus, we have a ginger tea. We also have a mushroom tea reishi. All these are fantastic in the evening because it provides you with different types of plant polyphenols. So we believe in drinking the rainbow as much as eating the rainbow. And in the evening you can kind of access the benefits of these different plant polyphenols and also help relax you and prepare you for a night of rest.

Katie: Yeah, I’m a huge fan of reishi at night for sleep and I definitely see a difference in my sleep when I consume reishi. I love that point about drinking the rainbow, not just eating the rainbow and it’s such a great solution when I hear from people who say they don’t like plain water. And so I think tea is a great, like pretty much non-caloric way to change up the taste of water and get a whole lot of benefits without it being a lot of the other products that are geared for people who don’t like the taste of water, that have a lot of ingredients most of us try to avoid. So I think it’s a great solution there. A question I am getting a lot with the increase in popularity of various types of fast, whether it be intermittent fasting, water fasting, etc., is how tea can fit into a fasting protocol. And if consuming tea without anything added to it breaks the fast or not.

Simon: Yes, absolutely. So fasting is an area of tremendous interest and kind of focus for us. It’s actually one of our three health pillars along with gut health and consciousness. We’ve developed a set of teas with Dr. Jason Fung, who is a nephrologist and kind of one of the leading experts on intermittent fasting. He’s actually a clinical doctor. So he’s helped thousands of people reap the benefits of fasting. It’s just really, really amazing work he’s done. He has consistently recommended tea for years and years now to his patients, specifically for their fast because it tends to help manage hunger pangs, provides satiety, so provides a sense of fullness, as well as support the different kind of fasting goals and fasting benefits that people are interested in.

Whether it breaks a fast or not is an interesting question. It technically, you know, by definition, and this is something that Dr. Fung will tell you as well, they do break the fast by definition, right. Because even on a very kind of trace level they could be, and I’m talking like maybe the low single digits of calories, right. So technically speaking, yes, any sort of caloric intake will break a fast. But the thing is, is that it’s in such a small quantity, the impact right, of the calories and the benefits are so overwhelmingly…outnumber this kind of minuscule downside, which is really a technical one. But, generally speaking, net of people are far better off using tea for their fast than not.

And there are different ways of using the tea. There’s, you can drink it during your feasting window and your fasting window, right. So for a lot of people and there are benefits for both. A lot of people think, “Oh, I can only drink it during my fasting window and that’s the only way I’ll benefit.” It’s actually not the case. Even if you’re eating during your feasting window and drinking tea, you will still reap the benefits of the kind of digestion support, the metabolic support and so forth. Thermogenesis is something Dr. Fung talks about a lot. Of course, at the same time, you can drink it in your fasting window.

Now some people actually are sensitive to the compounds in tea, be it the tannins or the caffeine and don’t take well to drinking it on an empty stomach. And I think that this is probably the small minority of users and certainly we have a whole range of different teas that are herbal, that are part herbal, part tea or that are a hundred percent full tea for these different kind of usages, right. And so we have a black tea, which is blended with a bergamot which we recommend for the mornings. We have a green tea that is blended with matcha that’s fantastic for the afternoons. And then we have an herbal tea for kind of all of the windows in between. Yeah, and so people really enjoy the process because it provides them with the satiety and also this freedom of choice. I think when you’re doing a fast one of the most dreadful things for people that gives them the most anxiety is like, “Oh, I just have to sit there and drink water.” It’s something that’s very daunting. But when you have a number of different flavored beneficial, hydrated hydrating options to choose from, it really goes very far in breaking up a fast.

Katie: I agree. It does make a tremendous difference. I’ve noticed that myself and I’ve experimented with both. I test pretty regularly, especially if I’m on a longer water fast, things like ketones and glucose and then even more traditional labs just to monitor all of that. And I do definitely notice a difference with things like tea in the monotony alone.

Katie: Another question, especially with the audience listening, many of them are parents and many moms, of course, and I get a lot of questions related to tea and if it’s safe to consume during periods of pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Simon: So there are many different approaches to this, and I can’t say that one is correct and another is wrong. Certainly, I think that, in this case, it’s certainly advisable to consult a health expert or a doctor so that they can get the specific health advice to the situation of the individual. That’s a hard one. I’ve certainly met people who do consume tea and I’ve met plenty of people who don’t during pregnancy.

Katie: Got you. I think, yeah, that’s always sage advice for anyone with a medical condition or especially anyone growing a new human is definitely, “Talk to your doctor and see.” I can say from experience, my doctor told me that like caffeine to a certain level was okay. So I did consume green tea during several of my pregnancies and certain herbal teas, but definitely echo your advice on, talk to your doctor and make sure there’s no other concerns that you aren’t aware of for your specific instance.

And I’d love to switch gears a little bit and talk about an idea of… And I know that you’ve talked about this and written about this a little bit, but not just lifespan but health span because we started this episode talking about areas where people live longer and in the health community there’s been more and more buzz about not just increasing how long we live, but increasing how long we live in a healthy way. And for people like you, I’m assuming those actually are one and the same, but I’d love to go deeper just specifically on the idea of health span. And other factors that you think can come into play to increase how long we’re living in a healthy way.

Simon: Yes, absolutely. My grandfather actually turns 105… He’ll turn 106 this December and so he’s really been kind of an example of longevity and very healthy of course, he plays a Bridge and Mahjong every day still, for about six hours. But he’s always been a great example to me of the meaning of living long and living healthily. I think this ties very much into what I mentioned at the beginning about Hong Kong being ranked amongst the highest in countries or in places for life expectancy. And not wanting to sound like a broken record here, but it really really goes back to the concept of consciousness and awareness.

So something my grandfather always told me is that, he…and this is something a very wise Austrian friend told him, he was a mountaineer. He said that, you know, I always regard my health as like a bank balance, you never want to draw it to zero, you certainly never want to draw it to negative. And every dollar or every penny that you put in there is going to increase your overall health and your overall wellness and longevity. And you’re in this constant effort to increase that balance, right, and not deplete it. So you always want to keep building it up and make it higher.

And I think that philosophically is very different than how a lot of people in this day and age understand health. I mean, just looking at what’s going on today, with the Coronavirus. There are so many people around me that are in my age group or in my organization, or friends that have this idea that Coronavirus is not going to kill them, it’s going to be bad for a couple days and they’ll recover, and everything will be fine. But that’s really in opposition to the concept of living well, for a long period, right. If you just want to live well, then certainly by all means, one should kind of live life to the fullest, right. The whole YOLO and do whatever they like and not be restrained by self-quarantine or limiting travel or not going to conferences or being…washing hands and all that stuff. Nobody wants to do that. In fact, traveling right now is as cheap as it could possibly be. So why not travel the world, right.

But the idea with the kind of more Eastern approach to health, and certainly one that my grandfather adopted, is that all of these things go to taking away the health credits that you have, right. So every time you get a flu, or every time you have an invasive procedure done, every time you’re taking something or other that for some issue that you had, there is something that’s taken away from your overall kind of bank balance of wellness credits, right. And so I think this is really kind of key and something that’s always in practice in Hong Kong and is certainly the case for Taiwan and Japan and Korea and in a lot of the Eastern cultures is this concept of constantly balancing, right.

So this is rebalancing even when you don’t feel like there’s something wrong, is basically the principle of prevention, right. So how prevention is basically about accumulating these health credits, and avoiding sickness, avoiding the feeling of symptoms, right. By the time you’re symptomatic, you’ve already gotten sick. And if you avoid the symptoms for long enough then things become chronic, and so on. And so it’s really about kind of the rebalancing. And you can do that by having a higher level of consciousness and awareness to how your body feels. If you wake up exhausted, then something is not right, right. If you’ve slept poorly for a couple of days in a row, you’ve been affected, something is not right. If you’re feeling some sort of discomfort in your body, pay attention to that, right. And see what we can do to address that and make it go away. That’s the idea.

Katie: Yeah. I love that. I think that’s really important perspective, especially at times like this when things are as they currently are. And yeah, I think that’s a perfect place to actually springboard into another question that I love to ask, which relates to mindset and learning and lifelong health, which is if there’s a book or a number of books that have really dramatically impacted your life and if so, what they are and why.

Simon: Yeah, absolutely. This is a tough question, Katie, because, I have a lot of favorite books. And certainly, my favorite book will change from time to time. But I guess the books that I tend to go back to the most are ones that are philosophical in nature or spiritual in nature. And the one that I tend to constantly carry with me and read time and time again, is a book I discovered when I was in my… In high school when I was in my mid-teens, and it’s the “Tao-Te Ching.” So it’s a Taoist text and many of you may have heard of it. It’s basically the concept of Taoism Watts was created in this book, of “Yin and Yang,” the entire kind of system of traditional Chinese medicine, of Qigong practice of all of this different energy work and using plants to heal the body from the eastern perspective is based on this book. So it’s rich in kind of philosophical wisdom, as well as very practical, wellness, health-based physical sort of practices. In fact, Tai-Chi is based on this book, The Art of War is based on this book. I would say that, you know, the better half of Chinese civilization is based on this book.

Katie: That’s fascinating. And a new recommendation. I’ll make sure we link that in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm, so you guys can grab it if you’d like. Simon, any parting advice you would like to leave in the ears of our listeners today?

Simon: Yeah, really just the concept that everything you need is already inside, that developing consciousness in all things starting with the easiest first, the five senses that we’re constantly using day in day out is a great way to start kind of examining what are some of the toxins, what are some of the noise that you can remove from your life?

Katie: I love it. And then, lastly, I know we will have links in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm, so you guys can find all of the teas and everything we’ve mentioned there along with a, I believe a special code just for you guys from Pique Tea but Simon, where can people stay in touch and keep in touch with you and learn more?

Simon: Yeah, definitely through piquetea.com or our Instagram account. This is by far the best way, I frequently interact with all of our customers, they’re all able to reach me through our email, I really do respond to them directly. And I also lead a mindfulness challenge, which will be coming up in July where I actually personally will be leading medicinal breathwork system in class. So love to interact with all of you. We also have a Facebook group called the Healers Circle, which I welcome everyone to join.

Katie: Wonderful. And you guys can find all of that in the show notes, again, at wellnessmama.fm, so that you can find those links and stay in touch. Simon, thank you again for your time today and for all the work that you do in creating such high-quality products.

Simon: Thank you so much, Katie. It’s been a huge pleasure.

Katie: And thanks to all of you as always, for listening and sharing your valuable resource, your time, with both of us today. We’re so grateful that you did, and I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of “The Wellness Mama Podcast. ”

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/simon-cheng/

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junker-town · 6 years

Text

Are the Rockies’ coffee orders too fancy for baseball? An extremely serious investigation

The conversation has to be had.

During their trip to Chicago to face the Cubs, the Rockies took part in a tried and true tradition of having the rookies go get coffee for the team when they play a day game after a night game. Noel Cuevas, Daniel Castro, and Harrison Musgrave did the honors this year for Colorado, with Cuevas in full uniform.

It’s a fun tradition and a far better way to do rookie hazing than to have them dress up as women, etc. Cuevas had a whole cart full of orders to bring back to Wrigley and it looked like he didn’t spill a single drink on the way back. That’s a five tool coffee delivery right there.

The delivery itself isn’t what we’re here to analyze though, the order is. It looks like there’s a lot of whipped cream on that cart ... so let’s take a glance at part of the massive order Cuevas was in charge of for his team.

Rookie duties call this morning for @noelcuevas56. He has to buy the whole clubhouse @Starbucks. Any guesses on how much this set him back? $$$$$ pic.twitter.com/kFlMqTu6wu

— Taylor McGregor (@Taylor_McGregor) May 2, 2018

A Nitro cold brew instead of just ordering an iced coffee? A venti caramel iced coffee? MULTIPLE caramel frappuccinos? Guys. What is this.

This is baseball. These aren’t baseball drinks.

Real baseball men drink black coffee only, hot with no milk. DON’T EVEN THINK OF MILK WHILE YOU ARE DRINK IT THAT IS WEAK. The more you scald your mouth the more hits you’ll have.

Day games mean the dip goes directly into the coffee to add some extra oomph. That’s how baseball men hit home runs that go very far. So far they hit the coffee shop and destroy the frappuccino machine so it can’t hurt anyone else.

Whipped cream? Whipped cream is for the bat boys only. Real baseball men only think of whipping and cream when they’re whipping the other team in a doubleheader or creaming the ball for a walk-off grand slam.

In 1904 the Boston Beaneaters benched their star shortstop for six games because they found out his wife worked for a creamery and they were worried even the association with cream would doom them. Thats a true story. Look it up.

Two pumps of vanilla in once iced coffee? Unless those are pumps in the weight room, the baseball men don’t want to hear about it. Lattes? No lattes in the clubhouse, it looks too close to the word “late” and nobody is ever late in baseball. You’re benched for just thinking about being late so lattes are obviously bad luck.

Tell the rookies to add that to the superstition board.

Actually, just having coffee before the game is also bad luck. Throw it all out! Now! Outside of the park’s limits though. To be sure none of the bad luck actually spills out and infects the team and takes away the baseball strength everyone worked so hard for. And make sure the team isn’t sponsored by any coffee shops either!

In all seriousness, this coffee order is actually pretty varied and everyone’s choices are good. It looks like it helped the Rockies to an 11-2 victory and it’s making me want a frappuccino right now. Extra caramel drizzle on top and whipped cream. Now where’s a rookie that will go pick it up for me?

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alexdmorgan30 · 5 years

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11 Ways to Heal a Broken Heart in Recovery

Heartbreak. At 14 or 54, we’ve all been there, but today we push through the pain, one-day-at-a-time, cold brew sober. And here’s what’s helping me now, because, despite what still feels like an endless volley of water balloons hitting concrete beneath my breastbone, the fibrillation is in my mind, not my chest cavity, and that scrappy muscle thumps on, still propping me upright each morning to face my new reality.1. Find that God of Your Understanding and Glom OnWhen I reached Step 3 with my sponsor, I got an assignment: flesh out your concept of a higher power, in writing. Lisa M. wanted detail, a God I could see and talk to, and grab by the elbow. And because I’m neither original nor progressive, I came up with a male God in human form — a cross between Santa Claus and Mr. T. to be exact. With a twinkle in his eye and a glint off his gold tooth, my HP is jolly and generous, strong and sexy, and funny as hell.And at this moment, when I’m finding myself on the sucky side of one-sided love, it’s not bad to have a real hunk who loves me for an HP. After an especially vicious salvo, when the heartbreak balloons start to leak out the eye sockets, I can HALT, remember the in-breath, and picture HP (and yes, predictably, I’m looking heavenward). Funny, his response is always the same: with bronzed torso and silver beard, forearms flexed and crossed over a white undershirt, the big man in the sky stares down at me, then starts nodding reassuringly. Suddenly, he flashes that easy smile and I know I’m good.2. Slam the SlogansH.A.L.T., Easy Does It, Turn It Over, Just for Today, Live and Let Live, This Too Shall Pass, When One Door Shuts Another Opens, Fear Is the Absence of Faith, The Elevator Is Broken - You’ll Have to Use the Steps. I’ve become something of a short-order chef when it comes to using a few well-chosen words to support my sobriety. Day and night, I sling slogans, flip affirmations, and call out quotes from famous dead people. I’ve scotched them to the inside of my kitchen cabinets, along with the 3rd, 6th, 7th and 11th step prayers. They are the comfort food my soul craves now. “Success is moving from failure to failure with no lack of enthusiasm.” - Winston Churchill. “If you want to be loved, love and do loving things.” - Ben Franklin. Words that nourish, as I’m waiting for the kettle to boil. Having well-chosen words highly visible in the kitchen (or as a screensaver) can be a real lifesaver!3. Phone TherapyAnd here’s a slogan I’m slamming hard today: “We drank alone, but we don’t stay sober alone.” The old timers carried quarters, and I make sure I leave home with my phone fully-charged. I listen to a morning meditation walking to the train, text three newcomers on the platform, compose a longer text to my sponsor in transit, then dial my best sober gal pal as I push through the turnstile on the final leg to work. I send silly GIFs to lift spirits, including mine, and add a trail of emoji butterflies, praying hands, and peace signs. By 8:00 a.m., the lonely in me already feels not so alone.4. Explore PodcastsRecovery Radio Network, Joe and Charlie, and the Alcoholics Anonymous Radio Show are three in my queue. On my lunch hour or driving upstate, I take 30-60 minutes to laugh, cry, and identify…5. Make a Gratitude ListMy first sober Christmas, going through a divorce with two kids still believing in Santa, the above-mentioned sober gal pal suggested I find ten things for which I was grateful, save them to my phone, and recite them like a mantra through the Twelve Days of Christmas. I did:1. My sobriety 2. My sons 3. AA program of recovery 4. AA fellowship 5. Food in my stomach 6. Roof over my head 7. Colombian coffee 8. My dog 9. My extended family 10. God (HP has since moved up to the #1 slot)It worked. I said no to nog that first Yuletide, and made merry for my sons instead. And counting off my blessings still works today, when I’m a shallow-breathing shell just going through the motions.6. Make an Extended Gratitude ListWhen the restless, irritable and discontent in me keeps spilling the glass half-full and this positive punch list isn’t getting me over the hump, I pour out ten more things to celebrate, like: my pre-war bathtub, which holds upwards of 60 gallons of bubble bath and the fact that I live within easy walking distance of two subway lines so I can always get into the city on weekends.7. Make Meetings“Meeting Makers Make It,” “Get Sober Feet,” “Carry the Body, the Mind Will Follow.” These three slogans in particular encouraged me as a newcomer, and I’m calling upon them now, in cardiac arrest, when my heart needs serious heartening. So I’m hitting my home group, and getting hugs from retirees with double-digit sobriety who pass fresh Kleenex and envelop in equanimous smiles. I’m also checking out other meetings across town, then going out for...8. Fellowship AfterwardsI’ve started tucking my Boggle into my handbag when I head out to my Friday night meeting. At the secretary’s report, I pull out the box, shake it, and invite anyone interested to a nearby diner for passable pie a la mode and a few rounds of a three-minute word game. Sometimes it’s Yahtzee. We roll the dice and down bottomless cups of bad coffee. Last week someone brought cards, and I lost badly at hearts (ha!). It’s good, wholesome fun, and by the time I hit my pillow, I’ve significantly pared down the number of waking hours I could have spent obsessing over-ahem-HIM.9. Self-CareSelf-care is somewhat self-defined. These days, after I’ve covered the basics—eat, sleep, bathe—I’m noodling what more I can do to support my mental, physical, and spiritual self. Prone to self-pity and self-indulgence just now, self-care is really urgent-care. So I ask: am I under-meditating and over-caffeinating? Am I speeding up at speed bumps? Am I four months behind in balancing my bank statement? Am I using money to buy what money can’t buy and damn the consequences? Am I treating every Monday like Cyber Monday and abusing the free delivery feature of Amazon Prime? Have I forgotten yoga and found red velvet cake in Costco’s freezer? Are my spot checks spotty lately because I just don’t want to cop to this alcoholic acting out, and instead keep blunting the full force of feeling??? Yes to all of the above. And this leads me back to Step 2: turn to top management for a takeover.Working Steps 2 and 3 is probably the most caring thing I’m doing for myself today: seeing the unmanageable, then seeing the way out. And also forgiving myself for these self-indulgent splurges. So what that I’ve added three pounds to my midline and three pairs of silver sandals to my shoe rack? The rent is paid, and my latchkey kids still let themselves in after school and seem content to eat my crockpot soup and call this home.10. Get on your Hobby HorseWhen was the last time you read “Chapter 6: Getting Active” in Living Sober, that handy paperback that’s not just for newcomers? This month I’ve been making good use of subsection 6B: “Activity not related to A.A.”The anonymous authors suggest “trying a new hobby” or “revisiting an old pastime, except you-know-what” (Yea, Amstel Light). Fat chance I’ll pick up cabinetmaking, leathercraft or macramé, but I am baking granola and simmering bone broths.I’m also revisiting my adolescence with amateur YouTube ballet routines by hammy-thighed figure skaters and dancing to Heavy D. music videos late into a Saturday night. I’m choosing happy music over sad, and tuning in to The Messiah, not Blue Christmas.I’m even considering “Starting on long neglected chores” like editing my nearly obsolete recipe binder, now that I’ve found Pinterest. And while I can’t claim to be going out of my way “Volunteering to do some useful service,” I am trying to be more useful on my job. And just as helping a newcomer find a meeting helps me, helping a kid graph algebraic equations makes me feel purposeful (when otherwise I feel like a mess).11. Become a card-carrying member of the “No Matter What Club”For God’s sake, whatever skillful or unskillful actions you end up taking during this time of triage, please don’t drink over him or her. They are not worth it. (And I’d put money down—money that I don’t have—on a bet that they’d agree with me.)Voila! My top eleven tips to help you over the hump of heartbreak! Take what you like and leave the rest.Have you had your heart broken in recovery? How did you heal? Let us know in the comments.

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pitz182 · 5 years

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11 Ways to Heal a Broken Heart in Recovery

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emlydunstan · 5 years

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11 Ways to Heal a Broken Heart in Recovery

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241841 https://www.thefix.com/11-ways-heal-broken-heart-recovery

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northshorehealthandfitness · 7 years

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It’s no surprise that running is likely to make anyone hungrier than usual — and there’s no better motivator to ramp up those miles than food. Hey, you’ve earned those calories, right? Shiny medals are nice, but something about a burger and beer post-5K sounds better and tastier. So whether you’re chasing a personal best or a cupcake at the finish line, we rounded up the 10 best races for fit foodies. Each bite, sip and slurp will make all the sweat worth it. (Races are listed by date.) RELATED: 263 Races for Every Distance and Destination

10 Best Races for Fit Foodies Across the U.S.

[caption id="attachment_62630" align="alignnone" width="620"]Photo: Courtesy of Hot Cider Hustle[/caption]

1. Hot Cider Hustle

Location: 31 cities across the U.S. Date: October through December If you live for that first chill in the air, these races that celebrate apple season are perfect for you. Fill up your finisher’s mug with the spiced apple cider that awaits you and re-fuel with caramel apples at the finish line. Distances vary by city and can include a 5K, 10K, 8K, 15K, 8-mile and half-marathon. [caption id="attachment_62682" align="alignnone" width="620"]Photo: Courtesy of RAM Racing[/caption]

2. Hot Chocolate 15K and 5K

Location: 18 cities across the U.S. Date: October 2017 through April 2018 There’s nothing more comforting during a cold winter run than a cup of hot chocolate to sip along the course. This race will give you as much of a sugar rush as adrenaline. In addition to warm cocoa, runners will also get to nosh on chocolate-dipped marshmallows during the race. Once you reach the finish line, you’ll receive a mug to fill up with even more hot chocolate and other dipping items like fruit and cookies. Race swag also includes a cozy pullover jacket. [caption id="attachment_62631" align="alignnone" width="620"]Photo: Courtesy of April Fool's Day Twinkie Run[/caption]

3. April Fool’s Day Twinkie Run

Location: Ann Arbor, MI Date: April 1, 2018 There are very few times in your life when indulging in a Twinkie is totally fine —and this is one of them. This three-mile race has a sweet cause of benefiting the nonprofit, Active Against ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease). While it’s not a participant requirement, runners are given the go-ahead to wolf down a Twinkie at the start and again at the halfway point. And for anyone eager to run a personal best, you’ll be happy to know that one minute will be shaved off your finishing time for every Twinkie you consume during the race. RELATED: Love Puppies, Beer and Brunch? 11 Run Clubs to Join Now [caption id="attachment_62632" align="alignnone" width="620"]Photo: Courtesy of Colin B Photography[/caption]

4. Burgers and Beer 5K

Location: Chicago, IL Date: July 2018 A burger and beer at the finish line? Sign us up! Sponsored by Budweiser and Clif Bar, among others, the race starts at Chicago’s Soldier field and takes runners on an out-and-back route on the city’s lakefront path. At the end of the race, cool down and refuel at the Budweiser Beer Garden, where you’ll get to pour refreshing brews into your souvenir glass beer stein. If you’re a vegetarian or vegan, they’ve got veggie burger options, too. [caption id="attachment_62633" align="alignnone" width="620"]Photo: Oregon Wine Country Half-Marathon[/caption]

5. Oregon Wine Country Half-Marathon

Location: Carlton, OR Date: September 2018 Oregon is one of the few U.S. locations where runners can find a late-summer race without the humidity and heat. Participants will race in cooler temps while running through the state’s scenic Willamette Valley, which is filled with rolling green hills of the Stoller Winery Vineyards. And at the finish line, a music festival awaits, complete with post-race Pinot Noir (locally sourced, of course). RELATED: The 15 Best Destination Half-Marathons in the World [caption id="attachment_62634" align="alignnone" width="620"]Photo: Courtesy of NYC Pizza Run[/caption]

6. NYC Pizza Run

Location: Brooklyn, NY Date: September 2018 If there’s one thing New York City is known for, it’s the delicious pizza! And what better way to sample it than at various checkpoints throughout a race? This 5K fun run, which recently moved to Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park from the East Village, offers runners two slices at each water station. Participants will also receive a t-shirt, goodie bag and a free drink at the after-party. Proceeds benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. [caption id="attachment_62635" align="alignnone" width="620"]Photo: Corndog Classic 5K[/caption]

7. Corndog Classic 5K

Location: Tulsa, OK Date: September 2018 The popular carnival food is the star of this event, which is presented by the Tulsa State Fair. Benefiting Food for Kids and the Tulsa Area United Way, this race is about eating and running as fast as you can. During optional breakfast challenge, participants will down a mini chicken and waffle, orange juice or mimosa and a mini caramel apple. And if binging on breakfast isn’t your thing, you’ll still receive plenty of treats and beverages. [caption id="attachment_62636" align="alignnone" width="620"]Photo: Courtesy of Wineglass Marathon[/caption]

8. Wineglass Marathon, Half-Marathon and 5K

Location: Corning, NY Date: September 29-30, 2018 This event is a popular destination race that takes runners through central New York’s breathtaking Finger Lakes region, which is home to more than 100 wineries. At the finish, you’ll receive the fanciest swag ever: an engraved wine glass, mini bottle of sparkling wine and chocolate truffles. As a bonus, this fast marathon is also a popular choice among runners looking to qualify for the Boston Marathon. (Check out our complete list of fast and fun marathons here.) RELATED: The 30 Best Thanksgiving Turkey Trots [caption id="attachment_62637" align="alignnone" width="620"]Photo: Courtesy of Bacon Run 5K[/caption]

9. Bacon Run 5K

Location: Atlanta, GA Date: October 2018 This delicious race allows runners to bring home the bacon — literally. After finishing the 5K, participants get to sample a variety of bacon-flavored treats and handfuls of cured meats from sponsors. Costumes — meat-themed or otherwise — are highly encouraged to add to the fun. But there’s a serious side, too: Proceeds go toward rescuing child victims of human trafficking. [caption id="attachment_62638" align="alignnone" width="620"]Photo: Courtesy of Hershey Half-Marathon[/caption]

10. Hershey Half-Marathon

Location: Hershey, PA Date: October 2018 Offering up a 13.1-mile tour of the candy bar’s namesake town, runners and walkers can choose to participate as individuals or as part of a two-person relay team. As a special ode to the chocolate town, the race proceeds benefit the Children’s Miracle Network at Penn Stat Hersey Children’ Hospital. Participants will get a goodie bag of t-shirts, a finisher's medal, post-race refreshments and two tickets to the Hershey Park In The Dark event. How sweet is that? Read More The 50 Best Half-Marathons in the U.S. 11 Incredible Charity Races That Give Back The 10 Most Iconic Spartan Races in the U.S.

The post The 10 Best Races That Are Fit for Foodies appeared first on Life by Daily Burn.

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#IFTTT #Fitness – Life by Daily Burn

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localfreshies · 7 years

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New Post has been published on Local Freshies | Be a local wherever you go

New Post has been published on http://localfreshies.com/4-amazing-mountain-towns-to-see-fireworks-for-fourth-of-july/

4 Amazing Mountain Towns to see Fireworks for Fourth of July

Growing up in Chicago, we would take public transit and head down to the Loop to watch the fireworks display. It was almost like a rite of passage as a teenager. Last year, we had the opportunity to check out Lake Tahoe’s festivities, and I have to admit… Riding your bike to the lake with the mountains as a silhouette was a marvelous way to celebrate the 4th. It got us thinking – “What other amazing mountain towns can you see fireworks without the massive metropolitan crowds like New York or Boston?”

Best Ski towns for 4th of July Fireworks 2017

Jackson Hole is one of the places to get away from the city crowds and see an awesome fireworks display. Image taken by: Rodney Preisch

Lake Tahoe, California

Image taken by Richard Thelen

We HAVE to start with our hometown. If you haven’t visited, you should! The crystal-clear water of Lake Tahoe plus the Sierra Nevadas will be the most visually arresting display in the country. But, be forewarned! Over 125,000 visitors check out this display so you need to plan ahead. Make it a day on the beach. Get your spot early and bring enough supplies to stay all day. Don’t forget to check out our Lake Tahoe Guide for local spots to eat and drink at plus much more!

Where to watch: Fireworks are visible from each town around the lake. Some popular hang-outs are Nevada Beach, Chimney Beach and Commons Beach. The adventurous can even watch from the summit of Mount Tallac but nothing beats being out on the water for the show. Book a spot aboard one of the many boating outfits such as The Tahoe Queen, M.S. Dixie II, Tahoe Amore or Tahoe Exclusive Boat Rentals.

Avon’s firework display is one of the largest in the state with over 10,000 shells being shot off. Image taken by: Nevada Lee Furrow

Vail, Colorado

Vail is home to not one but MULTIPLE displays of fireworks. The biggest in the region is right next door to Vail in the town of Avon, Colorado – the gateway to Beaver Creek Resort. In fact, they’re famous for the show they put on over Notthingham Lake. With over 10,000 shells set to blast to the heavens, you won’t go home disappointed. Come early and throw your blanket down in Harry A. Nottingham Park. You’ll enjoy food vendors, a beer garden and family-fun all starting at 5:00 p.m. and ending at 10 p.m. Don’t stay up too late though! The next day in Vail is the region’s largest parade starting at 10 a.m. followed by Vail’s fireworks display in the evening. For more info

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

The first sign you’ll see driving into town reads “Howdy Stranger yonder is Jackson Hole the last of the Old West.” With the Grand Teton Range looming in the distance and access to not just one but multiple national parks including the Elk Refuge, you can quickly get away from the crowds if you want to. For the Fourth of July, this place does its best to live up to its moniker of being the last of the Old West with the following:

Jackson doing its best to live up to its moniker of being the last of the Old West. Image taken by: Harmar V Denny

Town Square Shootout – Watch a lively reenactment of frontier justice at the Jackson Town Square. This show is the longest, continuously running shootout show in the country!

Jackson Hole Rodeo – The rodeo is regularly held each Wednesday and Saturday during the summer season at the Teton County Fairgrounds. The 4th of July Rodeo is a fine western tradition and a wonderful way to spend an evening as the sun sets over the Teton Range.

They finish it off right with a fireworks display in not just one location but TWO: The base of Snow King Mountain in the Town of Jackson and at the base of the Tetons in Teton Village. For more info

Park City, Utah

The road into Park City during the summer. Image taken by: Mike Bradshaw

Kick the day off with a pancake breakfast in the City Park then head up to Historic Main Street. The Annual 4th of July Parade with over 70 floats highlighting its colorful history will fill the streets. After that, the choices are endless! Enjoy listening to live music, run a 5K run sponsored by Cole Sport, watch rugby games or have a cold brew in the beer gardens. There’s literally something for everyone. After a full day of fun, it’s followed off by dessert… fireworks at dusk. For more info.

In the end, we hope you have an amazing fourth of July. If you looking for a few more ideas, check out last year’s 4th of July post. Happy festivities!

#4th of July

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consulting-celiac-in-the-tardis · 7 years

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5 Secrets to Eating an Energizing Breakfast When You're Working Full-Time

New blog post! There are two kinds of eaters: the people who skip breakfast and the ones who wish they could eat it for every meal. I've always been part of the latter group; even when I was taking 17 units of classes in college, I never went without some oatless oatmeal or a big smoothie bowl! However, now that I've started my first "real" job - as Senior Editor to Entity Magazine - I'm starting to understand why 31 million Americans skip breakfast everyday. In 2011, a survey by NPD Group found that 10 percent of Americans skip breakfast, reportedly because they aren't hungry, don't feel like eating or don't have time. And, considering how hard I find it to "slow down" and make time for breakfast when I'm working at home, I can only imagine the challenges the average commuter faces.

What's a workin' gal to do? Get some help from these five secrets to eating an energizing breakfast - whether you're working full time, a busy college student or anything in between! 1. Prep ahead of time as much as possible. There's no better party than a preppin' party...okay, that's a lie, but prepping your breakfast ahead of time can make your mornings ten times easier. You don't have to make your entire breakfast either. If you're going to eat a yogurt parfait once you get to work, cut up your fruit, put your granola in a bag and put your yogurt and other cold toppings close together in the fridge. This way, all you have to do is grab your bags in the morning and throw everything together in the office! If you do want to have a breakfast buffet waiting right when you wake up, some of my favorite prep-ahead meals include:

Overnight Quinoa Flakes: if you want a breakfast similar to oatmeal but packed with even more protein, this is what dreams (and happy tummies) are made of...

Cozy Cacao Oatless Zoats: zucchini has never tasted so sweet - and breakfast has never been more easy to eat on the go!

Eat Yo' Greens Mini Baked Pancakes: these gluten free and vegan pancakes stay good for over a week in the fridge, which makes them perfect to make on the weekend and eat all week!

Zucchini Bread Nana Ice Cream: this is my favorite breakfast to make ahead. Simply blend your smoothie as usual and store it in a glass container/jar in the freezer. When you want to eat it, pop it in the microwave on defrost until melted through and enjoy!

Berry Coconut Granola or Green Smoothie Granola: really, any of my granola recipes make delicious breakfasts with a fruit and little (plant based) milk or yogurt. Both recipes boast some hidden veggies, making them a healthier way to start your day.

Superfood Coconut Banana Cookies: cookies in the morning? Luckily, these are just healthy enough to count as a well-rounded breakfast!

Bliss Balls: these taste like candy, are packed with superfoods like coconut flour, dates and nuts, and are easily personalized. What more could you want?

Some of my personal faves!

Some nights, the last thing you want to do is spend time in the kitchen, prepping for the next day. Just try to remember how happy you (and your taste buds) will be the following morning! 2. Use naturally energizing ingredients. While I wouldn't classify myself as a night owl, calling me a "morning person" would be a bit of a stretch. So, even though I don't drink coffee, I need all the energy boosts I can get when I wake up. Luckily for me - and others who want to lower their coffee intake or don't drink it at all - there are plenty of other naturally energizing foods, including: fresh fruit (yay natural sugars!), water (with studies showing that dehydration can often make people feel fatigued), nuts (which are packed with magnesium and help convert sugar to energy) and cardamom (which promotes blood flow by expanding small blood vessels). If you want a coffee-like drink with none of the energy crash, you may want to add Macaccino to your grocery list. I recently got the chance to taste this superfood drink and fell in love with the chocolatey flavor. The Original Roasted Maca Blend that I tried boasts a mix of organic roasted maca, cocoa powder, mesquite powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg. As I've written before, maca has been shown to improve immune function, memory, focus and stress management - while also helping to balance hormones. As a result, this drink is about as healthy an energizing drink as you can get.

Hot cacao in smoothie form! ;)

Since I'm a total smoothie addict, I added a scoop of Macaccino to my morning nana ice cream. While I won't claim it made my work productivity double, I definitely enjoyed the rich, chocolatey flavor. Any energy boosts were just a bonus! You can also brew Macaccino like hot chocolate or coffee by just adding hot water. No matter how much of an early bird you are, we all need a little help from time to time. Whether it's fresh fruit, trail mix or Macaccino, just don't forget to include ingredients that will set your energy levels up (no pun intended) for success! 3. Know what processed foods are your friends - and don't feel guilty for using them! Maybe if I had my own personal chef, I'd always eat from scratch for breakfast - but that isn't my reality, and it isn't most of Americans'. In fact, a recent study found that more than half of Americans' calories come from "ultra-processed" foods. As I've mentioned before, processed foods is an umbrella term that can include a variety of foods - and some are way healthier for you than others. The key is learning which of these foods to avoid - like "ultra-processed" foods that contain ingredients like extra colors, sweeteners, emulsifiers and flavors - and which can be part of a healthy diet.

The perfect morning start...or night snack!

So what processed foods aren't as bad as their title might imply? Think of minimally processed products like whole grain breakfast cereals, pre-cut fruit or veggies, no sugar added yogurt, packaged trail mix or even pre-made granola. Lately, one of my favorite (and, full disclosure, sponsored) breakfast additions is Frontier Bites. These snacks boast eight natural ingredients - like nuts, seeds, brown rice syrup, organic honey, puffed rice and millet, and fruit - and no refined sugar. I'm particularly addicted to topping my So Delicious yogurt - or a green smoothie bowl - with some Macadamia Pineapple Coconut bites for crunch. Add some fresh fruit, nut butter and chia seeds for a well-rounded - not to mention super delicious - breakfast. The truth is, not everyone has the time, money or energy to make all of their own food, and we shouldn't feel ashamed to reaching to processed foods for a little help...especially when those products are as nutritious as they are delicious. 4. Stick to what you know works. Of course, maybe what kinda "works" for you is skipping breakfast altogether. However, when you're trying to introduce a new healthy habit into your life, don't go farther out of your comfort zone than absolutely necessary. As a blogger, I love trying new products. As a foodie, I love trying new recipes! Yet, I rarely miss having a smoothie bowl for breakfast (unless I'm traveling, in which case I just eat all of the smoothie toppings and lots of fruit!). Why? I know that smoothies won't upset my stomach and that they'll give me the fuel I need for a busy day.

My brunch at the airport!

My mom is also gluten free, but she has a very different daily menu. Her days start off better with a simple bowl of buckwheat flakes cooked in the microwave with water. Add one sliced banana, a little cinnamon and a drizzle of honey, and she's one happy eater - and so is her belly. The moral of these stories is basically to show that everybody is different and, well, every body is different too. No one wants to go into work feeling nauseous, overstuffed or still hungry, so keep experimenting until you find the breakfast that is "just right," in the words of Goldilocks. And when you find your edible soul mate? Make it a committed relationship and stick to a breakfast you know works for you! 5. Treat yo' self...while treating your body right! Now, "treating yourself" doesn't necessarily mean kicking off every morning with a bowl of ice cream. Maybe that's A-OK on your birthday - but you also need to regularly focus on treating your body to the fuel and nutrients it needs. When I'm working, taking a break for brunch can seem like an annoying interruption. However, I know that if I don't feed myself right, I won't be able to write "right" either!

Taking a trip on the sweeter side!

Your ultimate goal should be finding a breakfast that tastes like dessert but is healthy enough to be a main meal. My recent secret weapon is Heavenly Organics's raw honey. Compared to processed honey, their products offer a variety of health benefits - ranging from antioxidants to Vitamin C to properties that help stabilize blood pressure, aid digestion, fight cancer, lower bad cholesterol and decrease inflammation. And, of course, their honey tastes pretty scrumptious on everything from pancakes to oatless oatmeal. Some days, brownies are acceptable breakfast material. Other days, your body needs a green smoothie. Treating yourself - and your body right - means both breakfasts are allowed to land on your weekly menu, because feeding our cravings can be just as important as feeding our bodies. The definition of "treat" is up to you...and you and define it differently every day! Before I turned into a (pretty legit) "working woman," I never understood how so many people could regularly skip breakfast. Now, I have a better grasp on how difficult eating an energizing breakfast can be - and way more respect to the expert foodies who've already managed this feat for years!

Cheers to delicious work day mornings!

With the right prep time, healthy ingredients and mindset, though, eating breakfast while working a full time job doesn't have to be complicated. In fact, it can just be incredibly delicious! *I received these products free of charge in return for a written review. However, all thoughts and opinions are my own.* What is your favorite breakfast to eat before or at work? Have you ever tried Macaccino, Frontier Bites or Heavenly Organic honey before? Tell me your thoughts below! via Blogger http://ift.tt/2joik4i

#Blogger #college #celiac #gluten free #coeliac #celiacs #paleo #primal #foodporn #foodart

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