What to Look For When Choosing Iced Tea

by Shereen Jegtvig for foodessentials

When the weather warms up, so does our desire for a glass of iced tea to beat the heat. And Iced tea can be very good for you health because tea is rich in polyphenols that work as antioxidants to prevent damage to the cells in your body. Drinking tea may help prevent cancer or cardiovascular disease and it can help you lose weight. That is if you don’t load your iced tea down with excessive amounts of sugar.

If you have the time, you may want to make your own fresh iced tea, but maybe you’re in a hurry and you want to grab a bottle of iced tea at the local grocery or convenience store. That’s fine, but there are some things to consider when you buy a bottle or can of iced tea – it may contain more than just tea and water.

More often than not, prepared iced teas are sweetened with a lot of sugar or high fructose corn syrup. While a little sugar every day is fine, gulping down a huge bottle or two of sweetened ice tea can add too many calories. Some teas are sweetened with artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, which adds no calories, but many people prefer to avoid artificial sweeteners. You also want to look out for preservatives, especially the combination of sodium benzoate and ascorbic acid (vitamin C). While they are probably safe under most conditions, these two ingredients can combine to form a cancer causing substance when the product is stored at high temperatures.

Full-Caffeine or Decaff?

Generally, iced tea doesn’t contain as much caffeine as the same amount of hot coffee, but too much caffeine can leave you feeling jittery, anxious and unable to focus. If you’re sensitive to caffeine, you probably want to choose decaffeinated iced tea. Or an herbal tea that’s naturally caffeine-free.

While most tea is made from the leaves of Camilla sinensis plant, herbal teas are made from herbs, spices and flowers. Herbal teas are delicious when served hot or cold and many herbal teas have their own health benefits that can be as powerful as the polyphenols found in green or black tea.

FoodEssentials Lists to Help You Choose Iced Tea Drinks

There are several things to think about when you choose iced tea, so here are lists from our FoodEssentials database that will give you an idea of what you’re going to find in your favorite iced tea:

Low Calorie Iced Tea – Flavored

Preservative Free Iced Tea – Flavored

Low Sugar Decaffeinated Iced Tea

Color Free Decaffeinated Iced Tea

Resources for Iced Tea

Prevention.com: Tea contains powerful antioxidants. Are there as many antioxidants in a bottle of tea as there is in homemade tea? Prevention explains how homemade is best, but bottled isn’t bad.

The Washington Post: People who are prone to developing kidney stones probably need to watch their intake of regular or decaf iced tea due to the oxalates found in tealeaves.

HealthCastle: What are the health benefits of various varieties of tea? HealthCastle describes the different teas (black, green, oolong and white) and explains the differences in polyphenol content.

US News and World Report: A recent study found that drinking extremely hot tea may be linked to an increased risk of throat cancer. One more reason to enjoy your tea ice cold.

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