Mighty Leaf Tropical Green Tea for Weight Loss?

What is it in green tea that causes you to lose weight? Is it the CATECHINS and if so, how much catechins are in Mighty Leaf Tropical Green Tea or any of the Mighty Leaf green teas because those are my favorite?

Answer:

The three major compounds of green tea are catechins, caffeine and theanine. Scientists have found that both the catechins and caffeine content of green tea can help people lose weight.

Theanine has some weight loss effects, but its results have not been consistently shown in various studies.

Ideally you would like the tea brands to tell you exactly how much catechins and caffeine each tea contains. But in practice this is difficult to do.

Tea is an agricultural product, and chemical content does vary tremendously by plant parts, seasonality, growing location and the subsequent storage. Even if they do provide a chemical guideline, it will be difficult to verify. Trust is a scarce commodity these days.

By far the most practical method to tell the good tea apart from bad tea is to rely on visual examination and taste buds (the palate), as there is evidence that a richly flavoured cup of tea is more likely to contain higher concentration of catechins, caffeine and theaninie.

The general advice I give when buying green tea that CAN help you lose weight is this:

- Go for unflavoured loose green tea. As manufacturers have the tendency to sell you low quality tea leaves with is then flavoured (with lemon, ginseng, pomegranate etc) to make it taste good.

You can add honey, lemon, ginseng, ginger whatsoever at home. But don't let your manufacturers do it for you. If you buy a flavoured tea, you miss the chance to tell the good tea from the bad. A good cup of tea should taste rich and smooth - unflavoured.

- Go for young tea buds and shoots,

It is well established in the Chinese and Japanese scientific community (where tea agricultural science is much more advanced) that the catechins and caffeine content of green tea decreases with leaf age.

In other words, young tea buds contains more nutrition and antioxidants, and much more likely to promote weight loss compared to the older, more matured leaves harvested later in the season.

How does a tea bud looks like? It is sharp and pointed. It has slightly unfurled leaves that are barely opened.

I haven't tried any of Mighty Leaf products so I can't say for sure. A casual look at the Tropical Green reveals the following:

- It is flavoured with tropical fruit
- It probably is a tea bag, although I am not 100% sure.

So the signs are not good. At the end of the day, you have to make a choice based on how the tea makes you feel, and experiment with different types of tea until you find something you really like.

The most important thing to remember when drinking green tea for health benefits is that population studies conducted by scientists are based on the drinking habits of the Chinese and Japanese - who tend to drink unflavoured loose green tea, not flavoured tea bags or powder which is so popular in the West. These two countries tend to esteem tea buds - which are sold at higher prices.

The following article probably explains it better:

Green Tea Diet - How To Be A Successful Loser

I hope this helps.
Julian