Half the world loves tea. Tea is a great way to enjoy a solid dose of caffeine without going overboard or damaging your teeth. The diversity across individual flavors of tea rivals the culinary value of coffee, though both drinks may be welcome during one’s morning commute. Many coffee drinks are not dolled up most healthily. From mochas to frappuccinos, coffee presents many opportunities to make your waistline verbally abuse you with a tape measure. There are sweet teas out there. The bottled one in the vending machine has enough sugar to cause heart palpitations, but most teas meant to be enjoyed hot are not that bad for you, even the sweeter, more conventional ones like black tea. The bergamot orange flavor of black tea almost makes the stuff taste like Froot Loops, but there is one healthy, almost savory tea one might often enjoy alongside Japanese food: green tea.
Green tea may be one of many tea gifts to offer someone with a penchant for culinary or, more specifically, an excellent breakfast. Many claim that green tea’s health benefits are myriad due to the presence of powerful antioxidants in every cup. Generally, antioxidants offer a lot to us, including reduced brain fog, fat loss, protection against cancer, lower risk of cardiac problems, and even others.
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Burning Fat Becomes Easier
Green tea encourages the body to burn fat in a few ways. Looking at the ingredients for a fat-burning supplement, you might notice that those ingredients overlap with much of what is in green tea. Primarily, green tea encourages fat loss by speeding up your metabolism enough to increase the amount of fat you burn by five percent. If your metabolism is slow enough to begin with, then green tea may not increase it by much, but at the end of the day, it is a nice way to enjoy a hot beverage that gives you a daily dose of caffeine without filling you with empty calories. Combined with caffeine, a potentially faster metabolism can indirectly encourage more progress during workout sessions by directly encouraging the body to harvest energy from fat.
It Reduces Bad Breath
Certainly, green tea will not plague you with coffee breath, but it also actively aids in oral hygiene with catechins. Catechins are compounds that prevent the invasion of harmful bacteria, which lowers the risk of infection in the mouth. Many bacteria are directly responsible for plaque, cavities, and general tooth decay, so if you brush only once a day, green tea might keep you from going to the dentist every three months.
It Protects The Brain From Deterioration
Not only might green tea clear brain fog in the short term, but it may also save you from more serious brain fog down the line. If most of us become old enough, “brain fog” can metastasize into Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease. A lot of research has, again, pointed to catechins as assistants with regard to brain function. Essentially, catechins protect neurons and maintain cognitive structures. Neurons are essential to your brain function because every memory of which you can conceive is a neuron. A song you have not heard in years becomes stuck in your head because a neuron was randomly activated. All of your thoughts are neurons firing. This is how centrally important they are, so it’s no wonder that green tea keeps brains from deteriorating.
Its Antioxidants May Prevent Cancer
Cancer is nothing beyond an uncontrolled growth of malevolent cells, yet it is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. “Oxidative damage” is a form of bodily deterioration that is as conducive to out-of-control cell growth as a sunburn. Oxidative damage can cause inflammation throughout one’s entire life. Naturally, antioxidants limit this type of damage, and green tea contains antioxidants, so matter how old you are, drink up! In particular, research has suggested that green tea is effective against three primary cancers: breast, prostate, and colorectal. Green tea can lower the risk of developing breast cancer by about 20% and decrease the risk of developing colorectal cancer by as much as 40%. Indeed, green tea is healthy enough to rival water. More research is necessary to discern just how much of an effect green tea has on other cancers, but to shorten a long and peer-reviewed story, green tea ought to have a generally positive effect on whatever diagnosis.
The one caveat is that you should not add milk to your tea. Milk reduces the potentially positive effects of antioxidants, so enjoy milk separately while drinking the tea without putting anything else in it, such as sugar. For tea lovers, a reverse osmosis water filter with heating function is an ideal choice.
