Do I have to give up my tea/coffee to reach my health goals?” This is one question I am often asked. The problem is not with your morning or evening cup of tea or coffee. Tea and coffee have been a part of our lifestyle since ages and all of us have enjoyed it regularly without any health issues. The problem lies in three things: increased frequency of its consumption, supersized portions, and the way it’s prepared.
All of us are born with a pH regulator in our body that balances between the acid and alkaline levels. However, consuming increased volumes of tea and coffee, consuming them on an empty stomach, less water intake, poor diet, high-stress levels and sedentary lifestyle can create problems.
Today, we live in a world where we want to get more and more out of the money we put in. So, investing in a beverage like tea/coffee and expecting huge serving sizes seems like a norm and thus people have forgotten what the ‘actual’ size of a tea/coffee cup used to be. One needs to understand the root cause of being low on energy all the time. There are so many who are totally dependent on that jolt the morning cup of tea/coffee gives. They crave for that caffeine and sugar fix to get them going, not realising it’s the sleep quality they need to fix.
Lastly, the way tea/coffee is brewed has changed, too. The traditional way of brewing tea involved the use of black tea leaves, freshly mashed ginger, cardamom, fennel, clove, black pepper and maybe a star anise, which was finally strained into a tiny teacup. It had the perfect combination of healthy and cooling spices to balance each other’s effect.
So, we need to get back to our roots and traditions. There was wisdom in serving small quantities of tea in earthen pots. And that cup of tea is extremely innocent and not the reason as to why your weight won’t budge. All we need is to consume it in the right quality and quantity.
(The author is part of integrative and lifestyle medicine, Holistic Nutrition)