Are those Ice Teas we buy harmful to use like sugary juices or sodas? I'm talking specifically of those Lipton and Nestea products, I know they're not as healthy as drinking water, but how bad are they?
I really do not like the canned or bottled teas at all. Too many preservatives and sugars. It's so much better to use loose tea and make your own. We just bought an ice tea maker and I make at least 2 quarts a day. Except for the caffeine I like it much better than water on a hot day.
Anything with sugar or preservatives, will always be bad for a human to consume, and the people who create such products know this - but it sure does help to sell their crappy products. If I drink ice tea, I go for the plain but good product, like Tejava unsweetened ice tea.
I don't know specifics of course, but I do know that they are very high in sugar. I'm not a soda fan, so I switched to sweet tea. A friend of my daughters works at McDonald's and she has made the sweet tea on occasion. She said in one of the tea containers at McDonald's they put 5 lbs of sugar in to sweeten it!!! Yikes!!! From then on I started limiting the amount of sweet tea I drink!! Danyel
Ice Tea, particularly unsweetened and unflavored iced tea, is a much healthier option than all the other sugary processed drinks out there with all sorts of other artificial chemicals in them. You can always buy the decaf stuff or go half and half with regular and decaf if you are concerned about your caffeine intake. I drink regular unsweetened iced tea all day long, and never had any problems getting the shakes and feeling scatterbrained like I did when I was drinking coffee regularly. Someone mentioned to me that the caffeine in tea goes through your body faster than that which comes from coffee, which lingers and builds up. Not sure how true that is, but I definitely don't crash and burn off of tea. It's much cheaper to simply brew your own tea at home, not to mention much more convenient since you don't have to lug giant gallons of tea in from the grocery stores, then have to deal with the containers filling up your recycle bins and trash bags.
If you buy it in the bottled form and it specifically said "sweetened", then yes. If you buy the unsweetened ones, no. I tend to buy the lipton tea that you brew at home and I keep a jug of it at home or something. But if I'm out and about and REALLY want some iced tea, I would go for the unsweetened ones. Often the sweetened ones are too sweet for me anyway :/
I haven't checked but it probably contains the same types of sweeteners they use on juices and sodas since they are factory standards for being cheap and easy to handle. Also they probably use just as much chemicals and preservatives. The best option in this case would probably be to just buy their tea bags and add sugar to it so you could use as much or as less as you like and you also get to control what goes into it and keep chemicals out of the equation.
I make my own Lemon Iced Tea. It tastes much better when you make it at home due to no chemicals being pumped in and is much more healthier as well. It can be quite cheap as well!
I think so, yes. We buy the powdered Nestea ones in sachets. They taste good, but I know that they contain a lot of sugar.
Sweetened tea can have lots of sugar or sweeteners in them, so they're not that great for you. I'd buy unsweetened teas. If you like sweeter flavors, maybe look for an all natural fruit flavored kind. I hardly drink tea but when I do I just make it at home. I like knowing what goes into it.
If either of those products contain aspartame, then you're right on the money: they can be harmful especially when taken in excess. If you drink Nestea or Lipton products say once in a blue moon, it's unlikely for you to feel the negative effects of aspartame, which can cause cancer. However, if you're a regular drinker of such products, you need to switch to natural or herbal teas. These are better for your system as they detoxify and do not contain the said ingredient. If you still want to drink iced tea products, then make sure they utilize Stevia instead of aspartame.
I like to buy my raspberry ice tea from an organic store. They will tell me what ingredients are in there especially if I am in training for tennis.
I recommend iced green tea without sugar which is what Dr. Oz recommends. It took my taste buds a few days to adjust to unsweetened tea that tastes like dirt, but after that it was easy. This tea may help you to lose water weight like it does for me so that is an added bonus. I have lost several inches off my waist and a flatter stomach. You can add honey to it if that helps your palate or you can drink it watered down so it's not so strong. I like to buy the Bigelo green tea bags with lemon-they are my favorite. It's a little more expensive but the lemon covers up the strong taste for me and then I don't need sugar. This tea is equally delicious cold or hot. Lipton and Tetley are great.
They are bad as what you think or worse. To make it straight, drinking them wouldn't do you any good other than the mere satisfaction from the pleasure the bring. Almost what you taste in it is sugar. So basically you are just like drinking a sugar dissolved in water. If you want a really refreshing iced tea, make your own. Get a real tea bag, pour a boiling water in it. Then make it cold, put it in the refrigerator. Once it's cold, put Splenda and a real lemon extract. It would be great. This is what we're doing.
They're pretty much as bad as regular soft drinks in terms of sugar content. I would suggest brewing your own tea from teabags/tea leaves, adding a dash of lemon juice/jasmine leaves/rose buds to give it some additional fragrance and complexity, then drinking in hot or cold depending on preference. It's both cheaper and healthier, without sugar and preservatives! If you absolutely must drink some iced tea, I would suggest hunting around for a low sugar version, without aspartame or other artificial sweeteners.
