Is green tea really healthy? The truth!

I was sipping on some green tea and then I thought why not make a post about it here.

What is it?

Green tea is a tea made from the leaves of Camellia sinensis. This is a evergreen shrub which is used to produce tea. It requires less processing to get green tea than to get black tea. Green teas are anti oxidants and reduce the effect of free radicals in our bodies.

What are free radicals?

Our body produces some amount of free radicals during chemical reactions for various life processes. Free radicals are highly reactive oxygen molecules which have lost an electron while travelling through the blood stream. Since they are at a loss of an electron they are ready to accept electron from other chemical processes going in our bodies. 

What these bad guys do is they take up electrons from other molecules and stop that reaction from happening altogether. This disrupts various important functions in our body. This makes them stable but in turn does a lot of damage, which in the long run can lead to cancer and heart disease.

The production of free radicals can increase due to factors like faulty eating habits, exposure to cancer causing substances like tobacco etc, toxic drugs, over exercising etc. In simple words, more the free radicals, more the damage to our bodies.

What are anti oxidants?

This is where anti- oxidants step in. As the name suggest, 'Anti' meaning to stop, 'oxidant' meaning oxidation. They stop the oxidation process.

Green tea is an anti-oxidant and what is does is to provide the electron which the free radical is looking for and neutralise it. They donate their electrons so that free radicals get stable and dont cause a havoc in our bodies. 

Green tea thus help to reduce the risk of:

Cancer

Heart diseases

Sugar control

Lipid control

Weight gain

Toxicity

What are the other various anti oxidants and their food sources?

The following are the other antioxidants with their food sources. The names are hard to remember, I know but we all can just remember the foods they are rich in.

Phytochemicals: Fruits, brocolli etc

Lycopene: Tomatoes, fruits and vegetables

Glutathione: Avocado and asparagus

Vitamin C: Citrus fruits, brocolli, brussels sprouts, amla etc

Vitamin A: Butter, dairy, fish products, carrots, egg yolk

Vitamin E: Almonds, spinach, walnuts, wheat germ etc

Selenium: Seafoods