The long-awaited sequel to my first post on green tea has finally arrived!
Green Tea – Part II
Sorry about the long wait .. I have been so busy these past few months and I have had so many idea’s for posts which I just had to share with you. So I kept on pushing this post to the next week, and the next week .. So I do apologize and I hope you thoroughly enjoy part II of my post on green tea!
Part I focused on what exactly made green tea so healthy, and this post will focus on how much green tea we should be drinking to reap the full benefits, and my own experience with green tea consumption.
As we learned from part I, green tea contains catechins, which is a naturally occurring antioxidant, in addition to a slew of other health benefits. Green tea has a fairly bitter taste that can take a while to get used too. I never found the taste too overwhelming although I still find it a little bitter sometimes, although I honestly quite like the bitter taste of it. Which brings us to the question of ‘How much green tea do we actually need to drink to reap the full benefits?’
Good question – There have been several studies on this and it is quite confusing as they all say different things .. the only thing they can seem to agree on is that you should be drinking green tea! The studies vary greatly – an article written in 1999 stated that 10 cups of green tea a day helped delay the onset of cancer whereas a follow-up study found that patients with stage I and II cancer saw a longer disease free period and a lower recurrence rate when they drank over five cups a day than those who drank less than four cups a day. I found a more recent article written in 2012 by the same man who wrote the 1999 article which basically confirmed the idea that drinking 10 cups of green tea a day was significant in preventing cancer. The only problem with the fact that the two articles are from the same author is the fact that the author could have a bias … I mean come on, why would anyone willing refute their life’s work?
Honestly, it would be safe to say that drinking green tea, whatever the amount is better than drinking none. I would aim to have at least 3 cups a day but you know, don’t stress it if you just had one. I typically like to start my day with a cup of green tea and I have started bringing green tea bags to work so I can have some throughout the day. Do remember that green tea does contain a small amount of caffeine, so if you are sensitive to caffeine, start with one cup of green tea a day and increase it slowly and take not of how you feel.
In terms of steeping the green tea, I have read several (non-scientific) articles claiming that the longer you steep the tea bag, the more antioxidants will get released into the water. If anyone has links to scientific articles about this, please link me to them in the comments 🙂
All in all, I hope my green tea post series has made you want to give drinking green tea a go and/or has educated you about its health benefits. I love drinking green tea and I have found that it helps me control my cravings to a certain extent and because it is a diuretic, it does help debloat me if I have eaten a little bit too much! Any feedback or comments would be much appreciated!
Honestly yours,
Alice
References
Cooper, R. (2012). Green Tea and Theanine: Health Benefits. Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition, 63(S1), pp.90-97.
Fujiki, H. (1999). Two Stages of cancer prevention with green tea. Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology, 125(11), pp.589-597.
Fujiki, H., Imai, K., Nakachi, K., Shimizu, M., Moriwaki, H., & Suganuma, M. (2012). Challenging the effectiveness of green tea in primary and tertiary cancer prevention. Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology, 138(8), pp.1259-1270.