Can This Green Elixir Help You look Younger and Live Stronger?

What is this liquid green magic?

Green tea!

Yes, I drink green tea nearly every day. I love the flavor, and I also love what it does for my body.

What is green tea?

It’s one of the most popular drinks in the world, and has been consumed for more than 3,000 years both ceremonially, and for its amazing health benefits.

Green tea comes from leaves, just like black tea. One difference is that green tea leaves are steamed to prevent them turning brown and withering. This gives the drink its distinct, green color and unique flavor profile.

Here are some of the benefits of green tea:

People who drink green tea live longer. We can actually boost our natural DNA repair molecules just by forming a habit of drinking green tea. It’s even better than mouthwash at stopping bacterial growth in our mouths!

But wait…there’s more:

Antioxidants

When we talk about antioxidants, we are talking about different substances, minerals, nutrients and other elements that prevent oxidation.

Have you ever left an apple slice out in the air? It turns brown! It oxidizes. If you put lemon juice (vitamin C is an antioxidant) on it, it helps keep the apple from turning brown.

That’s a simple way to see what antioxidants can do.

It’s such a common buzzword, but we take for granted just how powerful antioxidants are. Antioxidants help prevent aging at a cellular level. They stop free radicals (the atoms in our bodies that cause aging, illness and cell damage) from affecting us.

It is important to have an antioxidant-rich diet. We get antioxidants from plant-based foods and, yeah, you guessed it, green tea!

Green tea has one of the highest concentrations of antioxidants of any drink — 10mg-100mg per cup.

Now, that’s a big range! We obviously want the most benefit from our drink, so I’ll tell you later my favorite brands of green tea and where to get them.

Weight loss

One particular type of antioxidants, catechins, are incredibly effective at helping weight loss. Three to four cups a day can significantly reduce body weight, and even the risk of diabetes and other weight-related illnesses.

Energy

Organic green tea is a clean, clear source of energy your body will thank you for.

Your skin will glow from the antioxidants, and you will feel more alert and awake. It will give you mental clarity — both in short term from the caffeine, and long term because of the antioxidant benefits for the brain!

Brain health

Drinking green tea daily is associated with the lowered riskof neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s and dementia. It can either prevent or delay mild to severe cognitive disorders in the elderly.

In this study, people who drank tea had a better memory, and could perform tasks better!

Lowered risk of cancer

There is one particularly helpful element in green tea when it comes to cancer prevention — catechins. That’s right, the same polyphenols that help you lose weight are the ones that can help stop you from getting cancer! And studies show that those who drank tea, if they got cancer, had a delayed onset by an average of seven years.

Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) is the superhero. EGCG is tumor preventative, stops free radical damage, and inhibits all sorts of other body-degenerative occurrences. The daily goal for the best effect is 300mg-1,000mg.

It decreases the risk of:

Stomach cancer
Bladder cancer
Ovarian cancer
Breast cancer
Esophageal cancer
Colorectal cancer
Pancreatic cancer
Lung cancer
Skin cancer

Now, if that list alone isn’t enough to get everyone drinking green tea, I don’t know what is!

What kind should I buy and how do I make it?

Organic green tea is simple to make. Pour some hot water over a green tea bag and let it sit a few minutes, and you’ve got green tea. Personally, I prefer to buy the leaves loose, and steep them in a tea strainer. I find the quality and taste is better with loose tea. Tea bags are often filled with inferior leaves and leaf fragments. You also get less EGCG when you use tea bags.

But, if you want to brew the perfect cup, there is some debate on that.

Most people say that you should not boil the water for green tea — that it will burn the tea and affect the taste.

This may be true.

But there’s something else to consider. How do you optimize the extraction of antioxidants from green tea?

According to Dr. Mercola:

“Say you decided to prepare a cup of green tea and heated the water to less than boiling, then steeped your grocery store tea bag for less than a minute. Studies reveal that in comparison, using high-quality, loose leaf tea and brewing it in boiling water from three to four minutes increases the antioxidant potential three to five times over.

According to one study, the hotter the water you brew your loose-leaf tea in, the more antioxidants you can expect to benefit your body. Further, the EGCG extraction is particularly sensitive to water temperature; brewing water in 80 degrees C, or 176 degrees F, imparts only about 60 percent of the ECGC from the tea leaf.”

Also, to keep the maximum benefit, add a few drops of fresh lemon juice, and don’t add any milk.

For me, I’m going with the added antioxidant power every time.

Have you tried matcha tea, yet?

Matcha is a powdered form of green tea. This means the leaves are actually ground into a powder. So, you are not just getting the “juice” of the tea. When you take matcha, you get the benefits of the whole leaf. When I want something creamy, I love to make a matcha latte with homemade almond milk.

The other wonderful thing about matcha is that it soothes and relaxes you, while giving you a boost of energy — it causes focus without the jitters coffee can give. Matcha has 15 times the amount of antioxidants that high-antioxidant foods have. It also has 137 times the amount of antioxidants that poor quality green tea has.

My favourite Matcha is from OMG Tea in the UK:
https://www.omgteas.co.uk/product/organicsuperpremium/

Here is Dr. Mercola’s if you’re in the U.S.:
https://products.mercola.com/green-tea/

There is no reason not to drink green tea! You can find many different flavors- I love green tea jasmine. You can pack your own and travel with it . It’s packed with health benefits and tastes good too.

There are so many organic green tea choices out there. Experiment and find one you enjoy, preferably organic and loose leaf. And, if you can find a biodynamic green tea, you’re in for a real treat!