Thursday, August 14, 2008

Weight Loss Miracle Tea


Loose oolong tea leaves. By Minato.

Surely you've heard of this tea, a "celebrity secret" and magical fat melter. Extremely aggressive advertising has made it difficult to ignore.

Bombarded with nine tea ads for every ten on facebook, I eventually started to wonder - just what are these guys actually selling people?

Turns out that this miracle draught is oolong tea. The same oolong tea you can buy at your grocer for 2-3$ a box.

Loose leaf oolong tea has a gentle flavour and contains polyphenols (the magical ingredient). Polyphenols are a group of plant molecules that may or may not have health benefits. (The science is inconclusive.) Polyphenols can be found in a large variety of food sources, including fruits, vegetables, beer, chocolate and other teas. [Wikipedia]

Despite the claims of fat melting properties, the only way anyone is going to loose weight drinking oolong tea is if they drink so much of it that it becomes a replacement for high calorie drinks, like pop and coffee with cream.

Not that my readers are likely tea-dieters, I'm just annoyed by the scamming.

2 comments:

Ryan Cooper said...

Clearly, since there are polyphenols in beer, drinking beer would also be an effective weight-loss strategy.

Rachael said...

I approve of this strategy. ;)