tea time and a must read

Growing up, drinking tea was a special treat and usually reserved for when we had guests. My sisters and I had special decorative tea cups from which we could sip our black-tea-that-was-mostly-milk.

I can't remember when we were deemed old enough to drink it straight up and on a regular basis. Certainly by the time I was 16 and we moved to English. Because you know the British love their tea time. And their cookies. We all gained at least 5 pounds that first month there. Eating cookies every night after dinner will do that to you. But I digress...

Before pregnancy, I drank mostly caffeinated tea - Earl Gray and Mango loose leaf were my favorites. Then I switched to decaf with my first pregnancy and never switched back to regular.

But all that changed when a friend prompted me to look into the decaffeination process. You can read about it here (it's not the must read I mentioned above). So now I'm developing a taste for herbal teas which are naturally caffeine-free. Particularly rooibos (pronounced "roy-boss).

And because tea is an industry where workers can be exploited, I've committed to buying fair trade teas.

Like this one.

I found this box and a vanilla almond flavor one at a discount grocery store where I shop. Naturally caffeine-free + fair trade = a gift from God.

And now for the must read. Put on a pot of herbal, fair trade tea, or another warm beverage of your choosing and pull up a chair. It's an article from the New York Times on how the packaged food industry manipulates their products to get us eating and buying more. Please consider reading it and passing it along to others whom you know and love.