Must-Read: Let’s Talk Green Tea for a Moment

Green Tea

Green tea, green tea, green tea, green tea. All you hear about from health nuts, ever, is to drink lots and lots of green tea. “It’s just like coffee,” they’ll say, “but with actual health benefits!” For years people have been trying to get me to drink it, and for whatever reason – maybe the fact that it’s green and I generally associate that color with frogs and boogers – I always return to my old steady friend of coffee.

But this new little article over at Men’s Fitness has me rethinking things a bit.

In it, they talk about the many, many health benefits of the amazing little tea leaf. And did I mention this sucker is cheap? The most eye-opening side effect of drinking green tea:

Burns fat and helps you lose weight
Some studies have found green tea extract, which is rich in polyphenols and catechins, to be useful for obesity management since it induces thermogenesis and stimulates fat oxidation. A type of catechin prevalent in green tea, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), is said to increase resting metabolism and stimulate fat-burning. Dutch researchers helped 76 people lose weight and, over the next three months, gave the patients either a 270-milligram capsule of green tea or a placebo every day. The group who took the green tea continued to lose weight but the group taking the placebo soon regained their lost weight. Another study agreed that EGCG has the potential to increase fat oxidation in men and may contribute to the anti-obesity effects of green tea.

Now I know this isn’t new news to many people, but it’s still good every now and then to revisit this news. And also, please keep in mind, green tea does not mean those insane jacked-up-with-sugar Lipton Tea green tea things they put out. Might as well be drinking Vitamin Water at that point (which, to be clear, is pretty much as bad for you as drinking a can of Coke).