Adding Milk to Tea: Good or Bad for Health?
Milk in a cup of tea: don’t let major corporate tea packers cloud your understanding
The reason for my inquisitiveness also being that the brands under Unilevers have not been known for quality tea. If you have read enough from this site, you’d have known that there are different catechins and some are more contributive to health and they are in dramatically larger amount in better quality tea, particularly green tea, which the Anglo-Dutch company is not good at.
In an earlier study in Italy, scientists have also come to the conclusion that the antioxidative potential of tea is roughly the same with or without milk. They have another conclusion though, that green tea is six times more powerful in this potential than black tea (5).
Going beyond anti-oxidative effects
However, the anti-oxidative potential in tea is just one of its benefits. EGCG, the most potent of all catechins, accounted for many major health benefits of tea, such as the prevention of cancer and cardiovascular diseases, should be an important measure in our understanding of the effects of milk on tea.
Plasma concentration of catechins after consumption of green tea and green tea with milk
Unit in nmol/l. Data simplified from Table 3 of the same source as in note 6, Simultaneous ingestion of dietary proteins reduces the bioavailability of galloyalated catechins from green tea in humans (6). Note that this is basing on green tea; the catechins level is 6 times less in black tea (5).
measuring what really goes into our blood
Scientists from universities in Germany made such one study using green tea. Rather than observing imitation bio-activities in a few lab glasses or measuring a few arbitrarily selected individuals, they have chosen 24 women all with similar age (26±0.5), health conditions including BMI and blood hemoglobin, and using some of the straightest control practices to measure what goes into the blood after drinking green tea with and without milk (6).
They have found that while the total catechins that are absorbed into the blood can be 25% lower with milk, but EGCG may go as low as 58% compared to drinking straight. They have used also soy milk as a substitute for dairy milk and came to similar conclusion.
Although it is not known what bio-activities this would mean having a reduced amount of catechins and at the same time some protein and protein compound in the blood, it seems not to be a wise decision to add milk to tea for those who are health conscious. However, I’d like to point out that the “average” green tea with milk still contains a few hundred percent more catechins (and EGCG) than the “average” black tea (7). The difference would be even more dramatic when using finer green teas. In another word, if you want to continue to have milk in your tea and yet greedy for some salutary catechins, green tea is perhaps a better answer. ( That’s one reason I have this recipe here for you: Jasmine Milk Tea )
I would have to point out that in the same report, they have pointed out that one reason for the inconsistent findings by previous cohort studies on whether black tea drinking reduces risks of cardiovascular diseases is the positive conclusions in cultures where black tea is consumed straight, while negative in cultures where milk is added (6).
much in the effects of milk on tea is yet to find out, bar corporate influence
Although it is not known (or agreed amongst the scientists) what milk would cause in the salutary nature of tea, whatever the amount of EGCG absorbed into the blood stream, there is one interesting study showing that one of tea’s health benefits maybe depleted by adding milk — that of weight control.
In a study in the Netherlands (again), two scientists concluded that the ability of tea catechins to burn away your calories (by thermogenesis) would not exist if there is milk in green tea (8). They say the ability to burn your calories by milk is not affected, though. There is 169mg of total catechins in each of 1580 mg of the tea drink used in their experiments, ie 16mg per 150ml cup of tea. That would have to be an awfully low quality green tea (9), perhaps like those available in teabags by Unilever brands?
Frieslandcampina ( a major dairy company in Europe ) sponsored the study.
I have nothing against milk and love it in many of my recipes and a big warm cup of it very regularly. I’d just love to see better and more scientifically appropriate studies on the topic of milk and tea. There are also people who should avoid it and any respectable scholars should not project wrong ideas with questionable scientific reports.
Meanwhile, my advice is to find tea selections that you’d enjoy to drink plain and those that are finer quality and preferably from an array of tea categories. This ensures you get enough of all benefits from different substances in tea. If you ever do crave for sugar and cream sometimes, you know a good tea would at least balance off the fats and calories. Perhaps you can occasionally indulge yourself with somethings as wonderful as my jasmine milk tea recipe!
