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Image: Shutterstock Green smoothies, green lattes, green ice cream and green noodles all have one thing in common, well two, if you count being delicious. They all likely contain dried, pulverized green tea leaves, called matcha, that give them their green colour and contain a host of health benefits. Matcha has been growing in popularity in the west of late, but has a long history in East Asia. Consumption of dried, ground tea leaves can be traced as far back as the Tang dynasty in China, some thirteen hundred years ago, when green tea leaves were steamed and formed into...

Image: Shutterstock The human love affair with cocoa can be traced back to as early as the twentieth century B.C.E., where it was consumed as a beverage by the Mataya people on the Pacific coast of Chiapas. In fact, it’s likely that it was consumed as an alcoholic drink, given the residues and types of vessels found. By the time Europeans arrived in Central and South America in the 1500s it was widely consumed by the Mayan and Aztec civilizations and by 1600 it had reached Europe, where it took the Spanish court, and then the western world, by storm....

  Thick, yellow and spicy: that’s golden milk. Also known as turmeric milk, or haldi doodh in Hindi, it is the latest in a long line of health foods to emerge from the Indian subcontinent over the past number of years, following the well trodden path of ghee, coconut oil and homemade yogurt. The yellow-gold spice turmeric holds a special place in Indian culture - the Hindi religion considers it sacred and auspicious. The spice is used in wedding ceremonies to dye the mangala sutra - a necklace used as a kind of wedding ring - and in some parts...

We’ve all heard the buzz about keto, but just what is it?  To answer that question we first need to understand what keto is supposed to mean. Keto is short for ketosis, which is something that happens when your body doesn’t have enough carbohydrates to burn for energy. Instead, it burns fat and makes things called ketones, which your body can also use for fuel. This is a neat little trick that your body has that allows it to access your body’s energy stores - i.e. body fat - when food is scarce.  So what is a keto diet, then? ...