Ways of enjoying tea – a cultural thing!
How do you like your tea? With milk, with milk and sugar or simply black!
Researchers at Tea Research Association in Assam, India, found that the effect of antioxidants, theaflavins and thearubigins which help to cut cholesterol and reduce the amount of fat absorbed by the gut get neutralised if milk, especially cow milk is added to the tea.
Dr. Devajit Borthakur, a scientist at the Tea Research Association in Assam says that “When tea is taken with milk, theaflavins and thearubigins form complexes with the milk protein, which causes them to precipitate. Therefore, we neither get the health benefits from these compounds nor from milk. Therefore, it is always advised to take tea without milk.”
According to the results of a study published in the Nutrition Research, addition of milk reduces the antioxidant potential of tea by 7 to 25%. Skimmed milk decreased the antioxidant capacity much more than semi skimmed or whole milk.
When milk is added to tea, casein from milk binds to ECGC. However plant based milks like soy milk does not contain casein and do not exhibit this phenomenon.
“Although the addition of milk may not inhibit the catechin or quercetin concentrations, it may affect other antioxidant components such as the theaflavins and thearubigins that will affect the total antioxidant capacity of black tea,” wrote Lisa Ryan and Sébastien Petit from the Functional Food Centre at Oxford Brookes University.
In many regions of the world, like India and Britain, a majority of the population consumes tea with milk.
© 2007 - 2024 NutritionVista.com. All rights reserved. A single copy of these materials may be reprinted for noncommercial personal use only. All articles and content written by the Nutritionvista.com team for NutritionVista.com are the sole property of J.L.S Healthcare Pvt. Ltd. Content may not be copied without express permission to do so. If you want to link back to an article, please ensure a working link to the article title is used and is functioning at all times.