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Re: Tea talk

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2018 8:30 am
by Just Old Al
Atomic wrote:
Catawampus wrote:"Now produced with less floor sweepings, and with non-GMO certified heavy metals!"
Whenever I see a "Natural, Herbal" etc. item that "treats" and "cleanses toxins" I think "Projectile Vomiting."
Gotta say that was my first thought as well.

Re: Tea talk

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2018 1:36 pm
by TazManiac
Actually, I'd normally assume the other end of the tube, but as it turns out it wasn't so bad.

Tasted like savory food seasoning, upped the Kidney Output if anything...

Re: Tea talk

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2018 2:54 pm
by DinkyInky
Just Old Al wrote:
Atomic wrote:
Catawampus wrote:"Now produced with less floor sweepings, and with non-GMO certified heavy metals!"
Whenever I see a "Natural, Herbal" etc. item that "treats" and "cleanses toxins" I think "Projectile Vomiting."
Gotta say that was my first thought as well.
Most real tisane(that don't promote anything), are blends of herbs and spices steeped in hot water and drank for health.

Ginger and Lemon for example for congestion and upset stomachs. Add honey to "cleanse" the GI tract.

Most Indian tisane follow that in general, but have crazy spices and herbs that I'd rather turn into soup or ochazuke. I've had more than one Tulsi that tasted like curry. The "Holy Basil" isn't bad, but I'd rather eat it with rice than drink it plain.

For some reason, they seem to think they need to advertise like a Carny Barker to get you to buy something you planned on getting anyway.

It's this funky circus poster advertising that makes me buy my own herbs, roots, and spices, and make my own, because I just don't know how much is flim-flam.

Re: Tea talk

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2018 6:11 pm
by Dave
Atomic wrote:Whenever I see a "Natural, Herbal" etc. item that "treats" and "cleanses toxins" I think "Projectile Vomiting."
"Specially grown for those keen on regurgitation" (Money Python, in the Australian Table Wines sketch)

Re: Tea talk

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2018 6:13 pm
by Catawampus
DinkyInky wrote:It's this funky circus poster advertising that makes me buy my own herbs, roots, and spices, and make my own, because I just don't know how much is flim-flam.
About 35% flim, 45% flam.

I don't buy teas or tisanes for any sort of medicinal properties or anything such as that. I just buy or avoid them due to their taste.

Re: Tea talk

Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2018 8:51 pm
by GlytchMeister
Catawampus wrote:
DinkyInky wrote:It's this funky circus poster advertising that makes me buy my own herbs, roots, and spices, and make my own, because I just don't know how much is flim-flam.
About 35% flim, 45% flam.

I don't buy teas or tisanes for any sort of medicinal properties or anything such as that. I just buy or avoid them due to their taste.
If your body isn’t cleansing itself of toxins, you either need to fix your your liver or your kidneys... or replace them.

Teas, herbs, essential oils, even supplements, etc do not cleanse. They taste funny and sometimes they might help supply certain nutrients. For example, your body won’t take extra vitamin C. It’s water soluble. So all the extra C gets peed out. Taking excess fat-soluble supplements (and other categories) can actually be dangerous, as they are harder for your body to eliminate and thus take longer - so you can overdose much more easily.

Even medically confirmed antidotes work, as I understand it, by chemically reacting with toxins to render the end products either biologically inert or at least more easily handled and eliminated by your body. Either way, the end result is your liver or kidneys filtering out what you don’t need and getting rid of it.

Honey, as referenced by Dinky above, is confirmed to have antibacterial properties and thus has some effectiveness against sore throats and other minor issues in the uppermost bits of the GI tract. However, I doubt those properties are retained after the honey is passed through stomach acid and then the small intestine. If it did, it’d just mess with your gut bacteria, which is no trifling thing.

Re: Tea talk

Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2018 1:12 am
by TazManiac
One thing to keep in most recent perspective; I was sick, I was going to be drinking copious amounts of hot beverages, it worked better that I mixed up the line up if for no other reason than it staved off complacent boredom.

Re: Tea talk

Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2018 9:35 pm
by GlytchMeister
I won’t argue that. Just putting... perhaps more than just my two evidence-based cents in on any expectation that herbal tea will do something special that regular hot tea or any other hot beverage can’t do due to “healing properties” of the herbs and whatnot that aren’t verified in peer-reviewed science.

Just been seeing a lot of woo and snake oil going around and don’t want to miss a chance to keep someone from falling into the “natural moms”, “antivax”, “alternative medicine”, or anything peddled by “Dr.” Oz (who should lose his medical liscence), David Avocado Wolfe (who should be vivisected, in my opinion, for all the harm he’s caused), or Gweneth Paltrow (who should probably talk to a real gynecologist because yikes).

Re: Tea talk

Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2018 10:58 am
by DinkyInky
GlytchMeister wrote:I won’t argue that. Just putting... perhaps more than just my two evidence-based cents in on any expectation that herbal tea will do something special that regular hot tea or any other hot beverage can’t do due to “healing properties” of the herbs and whatnot that aren’t verified in peer-reviewed science.

Just been seeing a lot of woo and snake oil going around and don’t want to miss a chance to keep someone from falling into the “natural moms”, “antivax”, “alternative medicine”, or anything peddled by “Dr.” Oz (who should lose his medical liscence), David Avocado Wolfe (who should be vivisected, in my opinion, for all the harm he’s caused), or Gweneth Paltrow (who should probably talk to a real gynecologist because yikes).
I've been drinking herbal tisane for years for minor issues.
I used to sing...a lot. My register was fairly high. I drank certain tisane to keep my throat healthy.
I had nodes at one point when I didn't take care of it, and well... I never want surgery for that ever again.
The main option for prevention of them is to not overuse your vocal chords.
Try not talking to any for most of the day, even while at work, then repeat forever. Not likely.
The tisane soothes the throat so regular usage doesn't feel like a scouring brush is regularly applied when you speak.

Not all tisane are quackery. Some formed the basics of our modern apothecary/pharmaceuticals. I research not just the company, but the medical properties(if any) of each botanical component before I consume it.
It's misunderstanding and misuse that made for quackery. Remember, tomatoes were once thought of as poison, and not a tasty pizza and pasta ingredient.

I have kidney issues. Raw cranberry juice and fresh yogurt help prevent the need for expensive surgeries to remove the stones, and can sometimes(not always) help in passing stones already formed. I've not found a tisane that helps as well as that, but if I did, I would drink a few glasses a day to prevent them, as they are ten times more painful than going into labour.

For major issue, a competent physician who actually listens to their patient and doesn't automatically prescribe either the most expensive test, or a palliative medication at the first complaint.

And yeah, I agree, Gwyneth Paltrow is cuckoo nuts.

Oh, and I'm a "Natural Mom"...a real one. I walk/ride instead of drive when possible, I buy fresh, organic greens whenever I can afford to, cook meals from raw ingredients when time and money allows, recycle/reuse whenever I can, use renewable sustainable sources for crafting/cooking/eating. I'm highly offended idiot nutjobs stole a wholesome routine and makes sensible living and parenting look bad.

Yeah, a brilliant heart surgeon, and he chose snake oil cashouts over saving lives. I despise him.
His research into myocardial bridges could have saved countless lives had the bastard carried though with the research instead of opting for primetime.

Re: Tea talk

Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2018 2:04 pm
by Catawampus
Plenty of herbal remedies do have real pharmaceutical effects, and it's fine when those are advertised and sold for those effects. The problems start when they're sold for whatever supposed and exaggerated effects the seller makes up for them, or when people always go with consulting some herbal guru instead of an actual trained specialist when trying to treat a serious ailment.

Re: Tea talk

Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 9:55 pm
by GlytchMeister
The real problem I have is refusing to concede that other people know better than oneself. The “natural moms”, Anti-vaxxers, etc I’m talking about, for example, get a kick out of being so self-assured and feeling superior to everyone else because they think they know everything there is to know, but when pressed for proof or citations of any merit, they foist the burden of proof off on those asking for said proof... or they cite a David avocado Wolfe meme.

People who approach things the way you do, Dinky, I got no problem with. You drink something that helps you. Ok. That’s fine. You suggest it to someone else. That’s ok too, as long as it’s not Hemlock Tea or some shit. You do not, however, try to pass it off as anything more than “yo this worked for my throat” nor do you say it helped cure endometriosis or something equally fantastic.

So you don’t try to make people think you have more than just anecdotal evidence when you don’t, and you actually do real research into the ingredients. I’d be willing to bet you’d shoulder the burden of proof, too.

I also have no problem with people using plants medicinally. Shit, I’ve drank pine tea when I was homeless for the vitamin C.

But when people start saying “duuuude, pot cures cancer” or “this exotic fruit from the ass end of Argentina will cure your Ankylosing Spindylitis” or “tumeric will help with ____” without citing solid evidence... and especially when they try to make money off of it... that’s when I really get irritable.

Side note: Tumeric has properties that fool the usual methods of chemical drug discovery into giving false positives. So no, it’s not a miracle spice. It either has no medicinal value, or, it does, but the complexity of the spice makes real drug discovery from it prohibitively expensive.

Re: Tea talk

Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 10:03 pm
by GlytchMeister
That being said: organic is looking like it is no better in terms of safety or environmental impact than non-organic. Sometimes, like the milk I buy, it keeps longer and/or tastes better or whatever. I don’t mind that, those are still valid reasons to buy something. Also, I realize you have allergies up the wazoo even worse than I do, so I understand the concern about pesticides... but there have been lots of cases where “organic” doesn’t mean pesticide free, and can actually mean they use more pesticides in the end. It can also be less safe and less efficient due to, essentially, a rollback of a few decades or more in terms of ag tech.

And finally, for the love of science, don’t be afraid of GMO. It’s fine. Really. Hell, technically speaking, all bananas, all corn, all sweet potatoes, and most other crops qualify, to some degree, as “Genetically modified.”

Re: Tea talk

Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2018 11:47 pm
by Typeminer
Turmeric smells good, and it makes the rice a pretty color. I like it.

My dad was taking turmeric capsules and garlic capsules for I'm not sure what. I asked him a couple of times, why not just cook with it? But that would mean cooking rather than eating crap from the dent store.

I don't know squat about biology, really, but I've been handling molecular biology and genetics research articles for 10 or 12 years. Gene recombination wouldn't work if it was that unnatural. It's all just how you arrange the amino acids, kids.

I'm less worried about GMOs than about the motivations of the multinational megacorporations that want to manufacture them. I don't worry a lot about the health effects of GMO corn and soybeans, but spraying all of Nebraska with glyphosate? What could go wrong? :roll:

Re: Tea talk

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2018 12:17 pm
by DinkyInky
GlytchMeister wrote:That being said: organic is looking like it is no better in terms of safety or environmental impact than non-organic. Sometimes, like the milk I buy, it keeps longer and/or tastes better or whatever. I don’t mind that, those are still valid reasons to buy something. Also, I realize you have allergies up the wazoo even worse than I do, so I understand the concern about pesticides... but there have been lots of cases where “organic” doesn’t mean pesticide free, and can actually mean they use more pesticides in the end. It can also be less safe and less efficient due to, essentially, a rollback of a few decades or more in terms of ag tech.

And finally, for the love of science, don’t be afraid of GMO. It’s fine. Really. Hell, technically speaking, all bananas, all corn, all sweet potatoes, and most other crops qualify, to some degree, as “Genetically modified.”
Organic Dairy is a must because of the rBGH/rBST, and chemicals they feed the cows and chickens is very not good for anyone, and it causes quite a few issues like false lactose intolerance, early onset puberty, allergic reactions due to the medication treatments for the livestock causing reactions in those sensitive to it.

A lot of my health problems developed because of it, and while not reversible, was eased by organic dairy. I'll take having to drink a gallon of milk/eat cheese and yogurt in a few days v. untold amounts of agony and doctor visits from the standard dairy any day.

Organic for me, is Farmer's Markets. Local farmers, and green farming. Less chemicals.

I lived near AGROW sites, and used to read the tags and did fun tests on the stray corn that wild grew into my friends yard(we pulled them so their farm didn't get co-opted into the field because AGROW was too lazy to police their fields). Some of those corn were very not safe for consumption(dedicated high-yield, low nutrition strain for bio-fuel).

Just imagine the hell it caused one year when they cross-pollinated with Mother's heirloom corn. She tore those plants up and slapped an AGROW worker with them. Said worker paid her(not the norm) because the particular strain was not supposed to be able to self-propagate, and it was "illuminating".

I do get mad that here and there are plants that GMO inadvertently killed off or are in the process of killing off the ones they were trying to save.

But having done hybridization of Hostas and roses, I'm very far from against GMO, I just wish they exercised far more caution, yanno?
Fast-tracking hybridization has a metric ton of side consequences. I'd rather take my time with it.