Eating Tea

[namitsu]

Apperently tea extract contains just a bit of the useful nutrients. I just thought of putting green tea leaves into my blender to mix in my smoothies. But won't it contain a lot of caffeine or something? Is this a good idea? I'm most concerned with what amount i should eat (something like the amount I would use for one cup of tea?). I found an article about eating tea here

[williamhessian]

Originally Posted by namitsu

Apperently tea extract contains just a bit of the useful nutrients. I just thought of putting green tea leaves into my blender to mix in my smoothies. But won't it contain a lot of caffeine or something? Is this a good idea? I'm most concerned with what amount i should eat (something like the amount I would use for one cup of tea?). I found an article about eating tea here

Excellent article! I now want to start eating tea, i didnt realize the benefits of eating tea as opposed to drinking it. You will indeed get caffiene from the tea leaves. But you can always make tea with them first (thus, extracting the caffiene) and using the leaves afterwards. Steeping tea twice extracts almost all caffiene from the leaves, depending on how much you use and how long you steep of course.

I think a little caffiene is fine and if i were you I'd just put them in there regardless. However, if caffiene worries you, brew those leaves and then use them. Smart idea to put them in your smoothies.

[namitsu]

Originally Posted by williamhessian

I think a little caffiene is fine and if i were you I'd just put them in there regardless. However, if caffiene worries you, brew those leaves and then use them. Smart idea to put them in your smoothies.

I'm glad I could help by informing you about this . Excellent advice. Thank you.

[Minsc]

Green tea has lots of fluoride too because the tea plant absorbs fluoride from soil and there's a lot of it there due to pollution...
(which is bad; fluoride causes some bone problems when you eat it)

There's a lot of fluoride in brewed tea but I'd guess that you'd really get a lot of it from eating the actual leaf.

If you're worried about caffiene or fluoride, I'd try herbs(unfermented rooibos has quite a bit of antioxidants for a herb).

EDIT: Steeping tea will take out a lot of the antioxidants from it too but I'm not sure how much. I'm also pretty sure you'd destroy any vitamin C in it.

[namitsu]

Minsc, I wasn't even aware about fluoride content in tea. You make good point. I'll research the issue further.

[ChefSalad]

Somewhere around 95% of the caffeine in tea extracted within the first 30 seconds of steeping. Just thought you'd be interested.

[Jennihul]

I got green tea extract from Mercola.com and he claims it has no harmful fluoride.

Jennifer

[Minsc]

Originally Posted by Jennihul

I got green tea extract from Mercola.com and he claims it has no harmful fluoride.

Jennifer

Tea(except for herb tea) absorbs fluoride from the soil so if you grew it in soil that was free of fluoride, you'd have fluoride-free tea..

(just thought I'd mention it, also it means that you could grow your own tea without fluoride if you grow it in flouride-free soil)
(I'd say it's pretty hard to find something like loose tea that has no fluoride)

[Jennihul]

Yeah, apparently, they are growing it at a place in Japan very remote from industrial pollution that other teas take up from soil. Laboratory tested. Which can mean nothing but I'd rather buy my extract from a team of growers that is aware of heavy metal poisoning in teas and is at least striving to eliminate it rather than a company that is either completely unaware of the issue or doesn't think it matters or tries to hide it.

I'm sure no product is perfect.

Jennifer

[hoofhearted]

green tea is good stuff, been using it for years for it's antioxidants and metabolism boost. Good article on it here Green Tea Extract Information

Good Luck, Try a green tea salad!