Bottled Teas Contain Little or No Antioxidants

[kind2creatures]

Bottled tea beverages contain little or no antioxidants

by Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

(NaturalNews) Countless studies over the years about the health benefits of tea -- particularly green tea -- have driven many health-conscious consumers to stock up on all the latest tea beverages that claim to improve health. But a recent study has shown that most commercial bottled tea drinks contain virtually no antioxidants and a whole lot of sugar or artificial sweeteners.

"Consumers understand very well the concept of the health benefits from drinking tea or consuming other tea products," explained Shiming Li, Ph.D., an analytical and natural product chemist, concerning the study. "However, there is a huge gap between the perception that tea consumption is healthy and the actual amount of the healthful nutrients -- polyphenols -- found in bottled tea beverages. Our analysis of tea beverages found that the polyphenol content is extremely low."

Polyphenols are the unique antioxidants commonly found in freshly-brewed tea that exhibit anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer and anti-diabetic effects on the body. But after analyzing six different brands of bottled tea beverages, Li and his colleagues discovered that three contained "virtually no" polyphenols, and the others had so little that they provided little benefit.

To put this into perspective, an average cup of home-brewed green or black tea contains anywhere from 50 to 150 milligrams of polyphenols. The bottled teas examined, on the other hand, contained as little as three milligrams of polyphenols per bottle.

"Someone would have to drink bottle after bottle of these teas in some cases to receive health benefits," emphasized Li.

Part of the reason why commercial bottled teas contain so little polyphenols is that these antioxidants are what give tea its bitter flavor. So in order to appeal to the masses, commercial producers often dilute, process and sweeten the tea to make it more appealing to consumers.

Sources for this story include:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_relea...

[jfh]

Many benefits of herbs are destroyed during the heating process. That includes tea (camillia seninsis) and the popular herbal teas. The only things that survive pretty will are the minerals and sterols. I suspect the tannins survive pretty well too. Vitamins do not.

[EarlyBird]

I would never waste MY money on any bottled teas, but I'm not surprised to
hear this. I may make enough regular tea for 2 days but not longer.
Green and herbal tea are made fresh when I choose those.

[Ted_Hutchinson]

Leaves definitely make the best grade of tea and typically contain less fluoride.
Tea bags tea is not as good as leaves but the lowest grade of tea goes to commercial brewers so that's where you find the highest fluoride levels.
Also brewing technique comes into it.
At home 30 seconds to at most 2 minutes is all that's required to brew, that way you can reuse the leaves a second or third time and each short brew will not contain much fluoride.
Commercial brewers will want to achieve the most amount of flavour from the least cost of leaves so will stew tea for longer and then mask the bitterness with sugar or other sweetener thus increasing the amount of fluoride in the tea.

[mountainrain]

Okay. I had a hard time trying to find a place to post my question but it seems to fit in here. My husband is taking MMS drops to fight cancer and we've been trying to do all the right things with the diet BUT antioxidants conflict with MMS drops so....tea containing antioxidants is 'out' ...cannot drink that along with the drops....all the 'good' foods contain antioxidants...what to do? Everywhere you turn, it's all about antioxidants but the MMS is about oxidation.........I am really starting to go a bit insane.........