There are lots of benefits to drinking tea, oral and systemic. We’ve blogged about some of them before.
But we’ve also noted a considerable downside: Many teas can contain a good amount of fluoride, which isn’t exactly something you want to be ingesting.
As with bottled water and other beverages, the challenge is finding fluoride-free options, which is why we’re excited to share a new resource we recently learned about.
Last month, Truth About Fluoride launched a tool that delivers the fluoride facts on more than 300 brands and varieties of tea. It’s super easy to use, and the info is presented in a clear and understandable way.
For instance, say you wanted to find out how much fluoride is in that cup of Twinings Irish Breakfast Tea you enjoy each morning. Just enter the brand and hit the search button to get the results.
Presto! There are 1.9 ppm of fluoride in just under one (measuring) cup of tea. (A standard teacup holds a bit less than this, but a standard mug holds a little bit more.)
How about the Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice you have each afternoon as a pick-me-up?
Zero fluoride! And that’s as it should be, since it’s an herbal tea, made with plant matter other than tea leaves. Yet you might also notice that it’s “not approved” by the website. Why should this be?
Long answer short, this happens when a tea contains an unhealthy ingredient.
And when it comes to tea, that unhealthy ingredient is typically “natural flavors”.
Now to explain this as quickly as possible: there’s nothing natural about “natural flavors”. In fact, there can be up to 100 chemicals in a single natural flavor (4).
And there’s much we don’t know about the impact of those chemicals on human health, singly or in combination. (For a look at what we do know, be sure to check out the article linked to in the quote above.)
The guide is a work in progress, with its creator promising regular updates. He’s also open to requests if you don’t find a particular product yet in his database.
So head on over and check it out now – along with all the other useful info there and across the website!