Step 7 - Green Tea

What's so great about green tea? Evidently, everything.

Besides claims that green tea helps prevent and/or alleviate the symptoms of depression, headaches, cancer, arthritis, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, infections and immune deficiencies, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition released a study in 1999 that revealed drinking green tea can actually aid in weight loss.

I was pointed in the direction of green tea for issues relating to cholesterol because it's one of the few foods or drinks that actually lowers bad cholesterol and raises good cholesterol at the same time.

So what is the source of these miraculous powers? Green tea is rich in catechin polyphenols (or epigallocatechin gallate to be more specific). In semi-plain English – some bad-ass anti-oxidants.

There's quite a bit of debate as to what the ideal daily amount of green tea is - everything from a couple of cups to ten cups or more. Considering green tea contains caffeine (albeit, much less so than coffee or your standard soft drink), I was hesitant to start knocking it back by the gallon.

Luckily, there are a few decaffeinated green tea options out there as well, but I wanted to make sure none of the health benefits were also stripped out in the process. And wouldn't you know it, they are. I also found that "caffeine free" is not entirely accurate when it comes to green tea – despite the bold claim on the packaging, it's evidently impossible to 100% decaffeinate green tea.

So I've decided on one cup every morning, but I have to say this research has dampened my enthusiasm a bit for this "super drink." A) I'm subjecting my body to caffeine again for the first time in almost two months and B) it seems one cup a day might not be nearly enough to reap any of the supposed health benefits.

Still, I'm subscribing to the belief that a little bit is better than nothing at all and keeping my fingers crossed that the caffeine content in green tea is low enough so as not to cause the same problems I had with Coke.

zài jiàn!