Make sure your cup of tea isn’t a toxic brew
We’ve known about the health wonders of tea for years. Some varieties, like green tea, are loaded with antioxidants that can give your brain a boost and even help you prevent cancer.
But before you brew your next cup, there’s an urgent warning you need to hear. And it isn’t about the water.
Researchers have found that some brands of tea come with toxic levels of heavy metals, fluoride, and even pesticides that can be dangerous for your health.
Fortunately, with a little smart shopping, you can still get all the benefits of tea — while avoiding the risks.
But this is one time when you shouldn’t look to save a buck — and need to be extra careful. Over the past several years, researchers have studied dozens of teas on the market today and here’s what they found:
Fluoride: If you think you’re not drinking any fluoride with your tea because your water is filtered or free of it, well, that’s not the case. Tea is a natural carrier of fluoride, something it absorbs from the soil.
The good news is that the high levels of antioxidants in tea can counteract the fluoride damage, but only if your tea is fresh and still contains all those protective compounds. Tests have found that as tea quality goes down, the fluoride amounts go up.
Heavy metals: A large study published in the Journal of Toxicology found significant amounts of aluminum, lead, arsenic and cadmium in a number of the teas tested, including green tea. Chinese oolong had the most, and organic white had the least.
Again, it looks like tea can pick up these metals in the soil or during the manufacturing process.
Pesticides: Canadian researchers looked at big brands such as Tetley, Twining’s, and Lipton, and found pesticide residues that exceeded Canadian limits in over half the varieties. Plus, eight out of 10 were carrying chemical residues.
Now, that doesn’t mean you need to swear off tea — I’m sure not going to. But if getting a belly-full of these toxins isn’t exactly your cup of tea (I just had to say that!), there are some simple ways to stay safe, including:
- Limiting your brew time: Researchers found that when tea was steeped for longer than 15 minutes it had higher levels of aluminum and lead. The recommended time to brew tea is around three minutes.
- Checking where your tea came from: While tea is said to have originated in China thousands of years ago, these days you want to look somewhere else for your tea leaves. That’s because Chinese tea is said to be the most contaminated, likely due to the heavy pollution and tainted soil in China.
- Losing the lemon (at least while brewing): Lemon lowers the pH of tea, which can extract more impurities from the leaves while it’s steeping.
- Buying loose leaves: If you got a nice teapot for Christmas, now is the time to put it to use! Loose tea is said to be generally fresher and of better quality. And the fresher your tea is, the higher the antioxidants and the lower the fluoride. You can also brew loose tea for a slightly longer time than bagged tea.
But if you really want to be a tea purist, consider something called “single estate” tea. That’s tea harvested from one plantation, not blended leaves from all over the world. Some experts say that drinking these pure blends is a good way to lower fluoride and get a healthier brew.
Sources:
“New studies reveal that certain teas pose dangerous health risks” Tori Rodriguez, January 15, 2016, Yahoo Health, news.yahoo.com
