Tea is freakin' amazing... page

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So, I spent the last week visiting my grandparents who are sufficiently indoctrinated to the CW ways of eating, to the point that when I even BRIEFLY mentioned my low-carb, primal diet with lots of IFing (they asked how I was so skinny and healthy looking) to them, they quickly reversed tact and told me that this kind of diet will kill me.

Determined to change my ways, they fed me one of the richest, carb/grain heavy diets I have ever eaten (even when I was still eating SADly). Of course, to refuse the food they were serving, to tell them the diet that got them both to 85 years of age is entirely unhealthy would have been rude, uncalled for, and only make me seem ungrateful their hospitality. However, for the first three days, the results were predictable. I gained weight, lots of water weight definitely, suffered from massive, MASSIVE bloating, and had to fight off the urge to take a LONG nap after every single meal.

About the fourth day there, I discovered, however, that they lived close to a Teavana. I love tea and have made it a regular part of my routine these days. My grandparents, however, are coffee drinkers (although I do enjoy the occassional cup of high quality joe). While at their place, I had no access to tea for the first few days, until I discovered the Teavana.

Now, as some of you may know already, Teavana offers a drink bar, where you can order any tea they have on display and they will make it for you. I used the opportunity to explore a wide range of black, oolong, green, white, pu-erh teas and yerba mate blends. I abused that bar and spent WAY too much money there.

Here's the kicker though. Upon reintroducing tea into my diet, without changing the other foods I was eating (didn't really have a choice anyway), my post-meal bloating dropped to almost zero, I never had the urge to take a nap, even after such heavy meals, and I lost the majority of the water weight I had put on.

I went from feeling like crap constantly, to feeling pretty dang good all the time. Not as if I was on my primal diet of course, but definitely a 200% improvement. All from ingesting a beverage made from the leaves of a plant (well, ok, two plants if you include the yerba mate) that is high in antioxidants. Each type of tea has slightly different benefits, so I was probably reaping the benefits of including so many different types of tea in my daily consumption of course, but this was an amazing turnaround that came almost overnight. All in all, I'd say this stuff is pretty dang amazing.

I'm not proselytizing here, but I'd say this is a pretty good indication that tea is a wonderful thing to include as a part of your daily routine.

Oh well, back to primal living!

[patski]

I LOOOOOOOOOVE tea. Yerba mate is a favourite of mine.

It's a Canadian company, but we have David's Tea here which is similar to Teavana: tea bar, huge selection of white, green, rooibos, oolong, puerh (sp?), herbal and mate teas. Really amazing concoctions...I am a hardcore addict! "Checkmate" is a black + white tea which tastes like chocolate. I shit thee not.

Drumroll, a company here just got bought out by Teavana. You ought to try their White Samurai Chai. It's AMAZING!!!

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Teavana had a drink which was a mix of their Ayurvedic white chai and their samurai yerba mate chai blends together. The sample was sweetened with sugar, but I had them make it for me unsweetened, and it was still delishious, both hot and iced.

The fact that tea could make me feel so great, even when I was eating like crap multiple times daily, really made me think that this stuff is truly amazing.

[patski]

Tea is a godsend!

I find tea tastes better and more flavourful with a touch of honey, or my new favourite: coconut sap/sugar. Just enough to bring out the flavour; it's like salt in a way. But I don't sweeten white or green teas. Black/herbal/rooibos only.

Teavana has amazing white teas: very floral, gorgeous scents and taste wonderful.

I don't know if they ship to the US, but check out davidstea.com

[Drumroll]

I drink all of my teas unsweetened. The reason for this is because I want to be able to taste the unadulterated flavors of the teas (or yerba mate or tisanes, ect.).

Some people might consider me a bit of a tea snob, and I suppose, rightly so. But I want to know what it is that I'm drinking actually TASTES like (and not just what I'm adding to it does). And I find that you are probably getting more benefits from the tea without the sugar anyway.

[DeeDub]

So you fixed the bloating, low energy eating problem by drinking too much caffeine, which is a diuretic and stimulant.

Hey, whatever gets ya through the day! Gotta adapt to whatever situation we find ourselves in...

[Drumroll]

Nah, not really that much caffeine. A cup of black tea or yerba mate in the morning, maybe an afternoon cup of green or oolong tea, and then white or herbal teas only in the evening.

All told, it was probably close to 150 milligrams of caffeine a day. Mark himself said that levels of up to 300 milligrams are probably safe. How about those folks who sip espresso and coffee all day? I bet they're pushing 500 - 600 milligrams of caffeine a day. So all in all, I'm ok with the amounts I consumed.

[DeeDub]

150mg is two servings of Red Bull - three servings of Mountain Dew - nearly 5 servings of Coke - yeah, that is a lot.

That some people go full on retard with this drug and consume even more doesn't change that fact.

But again - ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

Cheers!

[Englishman in Oz]

150mg is two servings of Red Bull - three servings of Mountain Dew - nearly 5 servings of Coke - yeah, that is a lot.

That some people go full on retard with this drug and consume even more doesn't change that fact.

But again - ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

Cheers!

Don't compare caffeine obtained through high quality pure teas with Red Bull and Coke. That's ridiculous.

[Drumroll]

I agree that caffeine is a drug. This is, by and large, the reason why I do not ever go over 300 milligrams a day, and try to stay well below that. Research has shown that small doses of caffeine can be therapeutic and even beneficial to overall well-being.

Some people are sensitive to the effects of caffeine and should avoid it altogether. The majority of humans, however, unless they become habitual abusers (such as those you see consuming coffee at all hours of the day), are unlikely to suffer any ill effects from consuming reasonable amounts. Just like certain other things we talk about on this site (dairy comes to mind), it's all about determining your level of tolerance and keeping your consumption well within those levels.