DELICIOUS AND HEALTHY SUMMER COOLER
Jun 5th, 2011 by admin
Rick M sent encouraging research results for coffee drinkers, below; and it reminded us of a favorite summer beverage recipe.
If you like quick and easy and cheap, now you can also have delicious, refreshing, and healthy in a summer cooler with a good chance that the coffee consumption will to some extent suppress the diabetes-favoring honey and milk. The following recipe for a lighter, frappuccino-type cooler uses much less sweetener than most soft drinks and contains no corn syrup or artificial sweeteners.
Bring 1 cup of water to boil in a two-cup container and remove from heat. Add:
1/2 cup of instant coffee powder
1/2 cup of honey.
Stir to dissolve. Store the syrup in a squeeze-bottle container in the refrigerator and when you want a tall cooler, squeeze a couple of squirts into a tall glass. Add ice, milk, and water — about one-third of each. Stir or shake and enjoy.
Milk, rice milk, soy milk, or almond milk; all are great.
Epidemiological surveys have demonstrated that habitual coffee consumption reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes. The aim of this work was to study the anti-diabetic effect of coffee and caffeine in spontaneously diabetic KK-Ay mice. KK-Ay mice were given regular drinking water (controls) or 2-fold diluted coffee for 5 weeks. Coffee ingestion ameliorated the development of hyperglycemia and improved insulin sensitivity. White adipose tissue mRNA levels of inflammatory cytokines (MCP-1, IL-6, and TNF?), adipose tissue MCP-1 concentration, and serum IL-6 concentration in the coffee group were lower than the control group. Moreover, coffee ingestion improved the fatty liver. Caffeine ingestion as drinking water also caused an amelioration of hyperglycemia and an improvement of fatty liver. These results suggest that coffee exerts a suppressive effect on hyperglycemia by improving insulin sensitivity, partly due to reducing inflammatory cytokine expression and improving fatty liver. Moreover, caffeine may be one of the effective anti-diabetic compounds in coffee.