Drinking cranberry juice may help lower blood pressure

In this article, researchers demonstrate that drinking low-calorie cranberry juice may help lower your blood pressure. There are two issues I would like to point out in this study.

One, the subjects are all healthy, i.e. they do not suffer hypertension.

Two,  I would not call dropping of blood pressure values from an average of 121/73 mmHg to 118/70 mmHg significant. I can do better than that with only 10 minutes meditation. With one hour gardening, I can almost always drop my blood pressure from borderline high (just below 140/90 to below 130/85).

Criticism aside, I still think it is a good idea to drink cranberry juice (only the ones you make yourself with a juicer). Nobody really knows how much antioxidant is left with processed juice (check out how orange juice is made). Processed means all of the ready-made juices bought from the store.

Tofu

Tofu is made by coagulating soymilk. It has been eaten for its high protein content for at least two thousand years in Asia. It is popular among vegetarians for the completeness of soy protein (it is the only plant protein that contains all the essential amino acid for humans).

Even though the health benefits of tofu consumption are controversial, researchers have shown that tofu intake reduces cancer risk. 

Cruciferous Vegetables

Cruciferous vegetables are considered to be healthy foods. There are numerous cultivars including broccoli, cauliflowers, bok choy, Chinese broccoli, kale, napa, brussels sprouts, radish, mustard, cress, rutabaga, cabbage etc. Basically all the vegetables a kid does not like. We have been told to eat them by our grandmothers, parents, scientists, pretty much everybody. I did not like any vegetables as a child and remember being forced to drink the juice of bok choy as a punishment because I refused to eat vegetables.

Green Tea

Where I come from long long time ago (China), everyone has a tea cup in their hand with green tea leaves in it. The hot water is in thermal bottles not far way from them. Everywhere you go, the bus station, the train station, the gas station all provide hot water.

I have a cousin, who told me that he spends about 600 us dollars a year in tea for a country that a lot of people's yearly income is only that. He values tea a lot, for a good reason.