| On those iced tea orders, specify everything to a T
Now that a dining companion has taken to ordering iced tea "60-40" -- the desired ratio of sweet to unsweet -- and not been shot, I've decided there's no excuse for anything but clear communication between diner and server about tea. Not to mention everything else. So I appreciated a recent thread on a food Web site about missing modifiers -- words that servers should volunteer for clarity or that diners should ask further about, to be sure. People complained about ordering "tea" and not getting what they wanted. Some wanted plain and got fruit-flavored; some wanted sweet and got unsweet, some wanted hot and got cold (no, they weren't from around here). So whose responsibility is this? Everyone's, in an ideal world. But barring that, I'd break it down this way: • Diners should specify sweet or unsweet or hot when they expect basic and ubiquitous orange pekoe (which is a form of black tea: think Lipton).
Enzyme from tea could build cancer buffer
Results of an early phase clinical study released in August by the Arizona Cancer Center indicate that green tea may help prevent cancer in humans.
The research shows that in some people, high doses of the green tea component epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) increase the activity of a detoxification enzyme called glutathione S-transferase.
"This particular detoxification enzyme is responsible for getting rid of toxic chemicals - carcinogens," said Dr. Sherry Chow, research associate professor at the Cancer Center and principal investigator for the study.
Prior studies on animals have demonstrated green tea's detoxification properties, Chow said.
In the new study, 42 people were recruited and asked to refrain from consuming tea, she said.
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