Deborah Russell for District Court Judge!

If you know me, you know that I am not political. I do not even get into the politics of food and you all know how passionate I am about eating! But after spending a week and a half in court watching Deborah Russell prosecute Amy Senser, I am very impressed by her competence and thoroughness and was happy to learn that Deborah Russell is running for District Judge in Hennepin County.

I cannot vote for Deborah because I live in Ramsey County, but I will support her and I will ask my friends in Hennepin County to vote for her.

Each day of the trial we would "adjourn" to an empty conference room to eat the lunch sent over by True Thai, and most days Deborah would join us. In fact, one day County Attorney Mike Freeman ate with us.  In my personal opinion, you cannot have too many judges who like Thai food!

Tea vs diabetes

As a public health nurse, I know there are many good reasons to drink tea instead of coffee, but I did not know that tea drinkers are less prone to diabetes!

Not just a little tea, though. You need to drink four cups a day or more, at least according to a new German study. 

'Tea consumption may lower the risk of type 2 diabetes by influencing glucose digestion, glucose uptake, and by protecting beta-cells from free-radical damage. This beneficial effect may be due to the polyphenols present in tea.’

More research is needed, and it is important to distinguish between causation and correlation. The fact that heavy tea drinkers develop diabetes less often may not be due to the tea drinking. It could be that crumpets, a British tea time snack, is a great undiscovered cure for diabetes!

Or it could simply be that heavy tea drinkers don't consume as much sugar as folks who drink soda pop or sugary lattés.