How to be healthy and lose the fat? Eat and drink liquorice!

Our Herb of the Day is the “grandfather of herbs” – LIQUORICE

Here at Mama Tea, we LOVE liquorice. We use it in our New Mama fennel tea to give the tea a lovely sweet taste and we are all fans of the sweet. We have always known that it is one of the uber-herbs – packed full of goodies! However, it was whilst researching this amazing herb, that we came across this fascinating research study carried out in Padua, Italy in 2003:

How to be healthy

 “Effect of Licorice on the Reduction of Body Fat Mass in Healthy Subjects (Armanini et al. 2003)

In this study, seven men and eight women took 3.5 grams of a commercial liquorice product per day for two months.Test subjects has a 10 per cent reduction in body fat mass with NO change in calorific intake.

Isn’t that incredible!? I can lose body fat just by eating some liquorice or drinking my liquorice tea???

No, Mama, not the AllSorts!!

What is Body Fat Mass?

This is basically the percentage of your body that is made up of fat. Good old Wikipedia provides the nitty gritty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_fat_percentage 

This is an interesting blog on how to calculate body fat. http://www.bodyhack.com/blog/5-ways-to-measure-body-fat-composition-1433 

Ok, so I just want to lose the fat. I am not so concerned about measuring it but I am keen to feel leaner and fitter and ultimately healthy! The idea of eating a tiny amount of liquorice every day to reduce fat really appeals to me!

“Bikini Tea”

At food fairs and tea tastings, we sell a LOT of New Mama herbal tea, mainly based on the wonderful taste of the tea. I always joke that it is my “bikini tea” that I drink whenever I am getting ready for hols/losing weight/trying to fit into THAT dress. The reason for this is that contains FENNEL the appetite suppressing herb. However, as it also contains liquorice, it is no joke that New Mama might be this Mama’s bikini tea!

Cuppa anyone?

The Mama