Thursday, November 24, 2011

What's in Your Green Tea

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Because green tea is so enjoyable, it's easy to find an excuse to clear away all the hectic stuff in life and sit and relax with a nice cup. Because it's more natural, it is definitely the one that comes to mind for a relaxing drink. The tea westerners drink the most is black tea which is highly processed, but more and more people are going back to the source, which has been drank for thousands of years in Asia and is sometimes also known as Chinese tea. So what exactly is in green tea?

Mostly Flavonoids and Caffeine. The compounds called flavonoids are also found in wine as well as fruit, dark chocolate and vegetables. Most of a US adult's flavonoid intake comes from tea. So what do flavonoids do? They determine how the food tastes, how it looks, and dietitians believe they are used by the body and are therefor the beneficial components of the food, though many of the processes at work are little understood and still the subject of extensive research.

By being less processed than black tea green tea comes with many more flavonoids and therefore it is only logical to assume it is healthier, but it's important to remember that only further research will find this out in the end. Fortunately most research is focused on this variety for the same reason. Flavonoids belong to a group of substances collectively known as catechins (there are many different types of catechins) and the catechins in green tea include gallocatechin which is abbreviated to (GC), epicatechin (EC), and then the mouthfulls epigallocatechin (EGC), as well as the one you might need practice to get your tongue around; epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG).

The other component, caffeine is one we are all vastly more familiar with. A regular cup of coffee contains 95 milligrams of caffeine, and in contrast green tea has around 30 milligrams per cup. While too much caffeine is bad for us, its generally agreed that some can be very beneficial. For example, caffeine is believed to reduce the chance of getting Parkinson's disease and it's also implicated in the potential mechanism that helps with weight loss. Again much more study is needed to verify these avenues of research, but it's a good start.

Extract of green tea is available in health shops, though it's perhaps not the best route to take to get the benefits. The best way to get any potential benefits is just to drink green tea. People have been drinking it for thousands of years, and the effects of drinking it are fairly well know, as well as how much is safe to drink which is between 3 - 9 cups per day.

Because of these contents, and the benefits they may bring about, Chinese is not only the better choice in comparison to black tea, coffee, and sodas - but indeed one more and more people find endearing because it's so natural and tastes so good.

This is an interesting and tasty subject, so you'll surely want to read more about green tea by visiting our website and checking out the answers to your questions such as the best green tea choices or find the best white tea vs green tea info as well as much more at Mind Wend.

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