Green tea health benefits & buying guide

Green tea is without a doubt one of the healthiest things you can drink. It provides an amazing array of fitness & health benefits, contains almost no calories, and can actually help you lose weight. Also, it's not hard to find high-quality, delicious green tea at low prices.

I like to drink 2 or 3 cups of strong green tea right before my workouts to boost my energy and force my body to burn more fat. There's a reason why so many of the new diet pills and fat burners contain green tea extract. It's one of the few fat-burning substances with proven health benefits!

Anyone can benefit from adding a cup or two of green tea to their daily routine. There are so many good reasons that you almost can't afford not to...

From eDiets.com:

Green Tea: The Perfect Diet Drink

Lean, green cancer-fighting and calorie-burning machine - green tea is a hot drink!

I'm going to steep you in reasons for drinking green tea, and the facts will be boiled down into tasty tidbits. Then we’ll see which brands taste best.

1. Green tea has cancer-fighting properties. It contains a compound called EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate) that not only inhibits the growth of cancer cells; research is suggesting it can actually kill them!

2. Lose weight! Studies have shown that drinking green tea can help you burn calories.

3. You can stop wandering around a room, wondering why you came in there. Green tea prevents the build-up of an enzyme in brains that makes people forgetful. It’s great news for people worrying about Alzheimer’s disease!

4. Green tea has been shown to reduce "bad" cholesterol levels, therefore helping to prevent strokes and heart attacks.

5. Perhaps green tea can lower blood sugar levels. Animal studies have shown this benefit, and research suggests the same effect can be expected in humans.

6. Look and feel younger. The tea is rich in vitamins E and C, which are known to be beneficial for longevity. This includes reducing the aging effects of sun-damaged skin.

7. Green tea could prevent food poisoning and relieve a bout of diarrhea. It contains catechin, which can "sterilize" some bacteria that cause food poisoning.

8. Cure bad breath and improve your dental health. Those same bacteria-fighting properties that help prevent food poisoning also work in your mouth.

9. didn't get your flu shot? Drink lots of green tea! Early research is promising for the ability of green tea to destroy the influenza virus before it makes you sick.

10. Arthritis relief might be achieved with plenty of green tea; some studies suggest it reduces inflammation.

So, how much tea should you drink to get all these wonderful effects? Opinions vary, but the median consensus is about four to five cups per day. And remember, if you don't like hot tea, you can drink it iced.

Following are several types of green tea in order of which ones I think taste the best, starting with my favorite.

Tazo Green Tea Blend

Price: $3.99 for 20 tea bags; the price per serving is 20 cents.

Nutrition: All zeroes.

Taste: A superb cup of tea. There is a slight mint flavor from the spearmint leaves it contains, and a subtle citrus zest from lemon verbena leaves and lemongrass.

Stash Chai Green Tea

Price: $1.99 for 20 tea bags; the price per serving is 10 cents.

Nutrition: All zeroes.

Taste: This contains cinnamon, which is evident from the great smell when you take the cellophane off the box. I wasn’t sure I’d like it, because while I like cinnamon in food recipes, usually I don't care for it in drinks. But this a pleasure to drink; it has just a kiss of cinnamon and a hint of nutmeg. The wonderful flavor lingered in my mouth for half an hour.

Oregon Chai Kashmir Green Tea Chai Tea Latte, green tea and honey with almond

Price: $3.99 for a 32-ounce (946mL) carton with 8 servings (1 serving equals 1/2 cup or 118mL); the price per serving is 50 cents.

Nutrition: 81 calories, 0.5g fat, zero cholesterol, 12mg sodium, 19g carbohydrate (18 sugars) and 0.3g protein.

Taste: This is a concentrate to which you add half a cup of milk per serving. Chai, by the way, means tea. A common mistake is for people to say, "chai tea," and therefore they are saying, "tea tea." Just call it chai (rhymes with eye) and you'll be correct. Chai is tea mixed with milk, and it is usually served sweetened. I don't normally like sweet tea, nor do I put milk in my tea, so I didn't expect to enjoy this. Just goes to show you it pays to try new things, because this is delicious. If I didn't know it was tea and someone gave it to me, I would have thought it was white chocolate cocoa.

Celestial Seasonings Green Tea Sampler (Antioxidant, Lemon Zinger, Chamomile, Decaffeinated and Decaf Mandarin Orchard)

Price: $2 for 20 tea bags; the price per serving is 10 cents.

Nutrition: All zeroes. The Antioxidant Green Tea also has 110 percent of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C, and 20 percent of the RDAs for vitamins A and C. Three contain caffeine: Antioxidant, Lemon Zinger and Chamomile.

Taste: My favorite is the Chamomile, with its light tastes of peppermint, blackberry and honey. The others aren't bad, though. My husband loves the Lemon Zinger, as would anyone who likes lemon in their tea.

Wyler’s Light Green Tea with Peach soft drink mix

Price: A canister containing six packets, each of which makes 2 quarts of drink (1 serving equals 8 ounces, or 1/8 of the pitcher that one packet makes), costs $2.79; the price per serving is 6 cents.

Nutrition: A serving has 5 calories and zero fat, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrate or protein. It also has 10 percent of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C.

Taste: I think anyone who relishes sweet tea would like this drink. For that matter, any kid who craves Kool-Aid would likely enjoy it. I didn't tell my sons what was in the pitcher, and it was empty before the day’s end.

Carb Options Green Tea, orange and passionfruit flavored ice tea mix

Price: $4.99 for a 1.3-ounce (36g) canister with six pre-measured portions of tea mix (each portion makes 2 quarts), for a total of 48 servings per canister (1 serving equals 8 fluid ounces); the price per serving is 10 cents.

Nutrition: All zeroes.

Taste: It tastes like fruity and sweet iced tea. It is sweetened with Splenda. If you like fruit-flavor sweet tea, you'll probably enjoy this.

Bigelow Decaffeinated Green Tea

Price: $2.69 for 16 tea bags; the price per serving is 17 cents.

Nutrition: All zeroes.

Taste: The flavor is mild and inoffensive. I think this tastes more like black tea than any of the other green teas I drank.

Steaz Green Tea Soda

Price: A 12-ounce bottle costs $1.59, which is 1.5 servings; the price per serving is $1.06.

Nutrition: Each serving has 90 calories, zero fat or cholesterol, 35mg sodium, 23g carbohydrate (23 sugars, which is about half the amount of sugar in other sodas) and zero protein. The diet cola has 20 calories, zero fat or cholesterol, 20mg sodium, 5g carbohydrate (5 sugars) and zero protein.

These colas also boast 60 to 70 percent of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C.

Taste: My family and I were extremely dubious about how good would taste, but we were happily surprised to discover this bottled drink tastes great. It’s expensive, but is a refreshing and different way to get in a serving of green tea.

Traditional Medicinals Golden Green Tea

Price: $3.29 for 16 tea bags; the price per serving is 21 cents.

Nutrition: All zeroes.

Taste: This tastes grassy. It’s not bad, but then it’s not especially tasty, either. The box says it "helps maintain a healthy cholesterol level," and says it does this because, "In clinical studies, green tea has been shown to beneficially effect LDL and HDL cholesterol balance." I conclude that under this supposition, any green tea should have the same effect. Other green teas taste better.

Yogi Tea Green Tea Super Anti-Oxidant Anti-Aging Formula

Price: $3.99 for 16 tea bags; the price per serving is 25 cents.

Nutrition: All zeroes.

Taste: Anti-Aging? Sign me up! The anti-aging quality supposedly comes from a formula that includes a compound called Epigallo-catechin-3 gallate, "…an antioxidant that is about 100 times more potent than vitamin C and 25 times more potent than vitamin E." The special formula is supposed to help eliminate free radicals from your body; free radicals are nasty molecules that can accelerate the aging process, if your body has a high buildup of them.

This tea has hints of licorice, and has a slippery quality -- I'm guessing that’s from the burdock root. It’s not horrible, but it’s not a tea I would choose to drink for it’s yumminess.

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Becky Billingsley is the editor of Coastal Carolina Dining and CEO of The Food Syndicate. Contact her at becky@thefoodsyndicate.com.