Green tea

From RationalWiki
(Redirected from Green Tea)
Jump to: navigation, search
Deliciously edible!

Food and Diet

link=:category:
Dubious diets
Food woo
Mmmh... Tea...

Green tea is a delightfully light tea that is dried in such a way that it does not darken like black tea. The leaves are less oxidized and it has a shelf life of a year (more or less), unlike black tea, which can last for years and years in drinkable condition if kept dry.

Green tea's inclusion at RationalWiki, however, is due to its woo status as the Next-Best-Panacea-and-Weightloss-Drink ever! Maladies other than a fat ass for which it's touted as a treatment include baldness in both men and women,[1] and that pesky malady called "cancer."[2]

Contents

[edit] The two sides

[edit] Please Buy Me

  • It works, and I've got all kinds of scientificky sounding stuff here to convince you.
  • I link to all kinds of articles you've never heard of, from sources you've never heard of, and some of my super-uber links even work.
  • I'm a critic. Really, really I am. But long and hard research has convinced me!


[edit] We remain highly dubious

  • Web MD says there is a study on mice suggesting green tea helps oxidize fat. There is also some suggestion that the routinization of drinking tea helps a person focus on remaining on a diet. Expected loss by tea alone is minimal, under 5 Lbs. Most importantly, any ol' green tea is as good as the expensive "weight loss stuff" sold at exorbitant prices. And by the way, sorry to say, you still have to diet with the tea.
  • FDA: Green tea is an uber tasty drink that actually may do some good. So might walking every day.

[edit] The conclusion

Caffeine speeds up your metabolism a bit. There's also more theobromine (which is related to caffeine and works a bit like it) than in black tea, and a slightly higher concentration of vitamin C. Some forms of tea, including green tea, contain L-Theanine, an amino acid, which has been shown to very mildly reduce anxiety. Tea, depending a bit on where it's grown, can reduce tooth decay; this is because tea plants are great at soaking up all that delicious fluoride in the soil.

Tea, wine, chocolate, açaí berries, are all yummy additions to a healthy diet and have numerous potential positive side effects. Eat them, enjoy them, but don't expect miracles here.

Also, large doses can impede the effectiveness of chemotherapy for treating cancer[3]

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. http://www.hairloss-research.org/LinkGreenTearaisesSHBG1-08.html
  2. http://www.cancer.org/Treatment/TreatmentsandSideEffects/ComplementaryandAlternativeMedicine/HerbsVitaminsandMinerals/Green-Tea
  3. green tea is one of the treatments considered in this study.
Personal tools
Namespaces

Variants
Actions
Navigation
Community
Tools
support