Maximize Green Tea Benefits By Adding Lemon Juice

By Max Waters


Green tea health benefits may be drastically greater when lemon juice is included. To be able to fully understand this concept, it is necessary to first examine the importance of food combination.

Many nutritionists will certainly agree that food combination can hurt or help a person's physical condition. People suffering heartburn after a buffet may blame the "All You Can Eat" policy, but in some occasions bad food combination is the contributing factor. For example, combining melon with any other food is a poor idea.

Fruit in most cases are broken down inside the stomach without having issues. Melons are above 90 percent water which means they break down even faster. If the digestive process is delayed as a result of blending with other food, fermentation occurs in the stomach possibly causing excessive gas, acid reflux, upset stomach and indigestion. On the flip side, certain food mixtures improve the health rewards by assisting the absorption.

One example of a very good combination is olives and tomatoes. In the world of diet, tomatoes are reported to be a very good supply of Lycopene. Lycopene offers health advantages such as protection from cancer and fight against heart diseases. When tomatoes are consumed at the same time with olives the health rewards are boosted. Olives improve the absorption of Lycopene. Now what about lemon and tea?

Weight loss, cancer prevention, healthy heart, digestive aid and diabetes prevention are some of the tea benefits. These benefits are all achievable thanks to green tea's antioxidant, catechins. Despite the benefits of catechins, studies have shown these antioxidants are unstable in the human intestines after digestion leaving only about 20 percent of them for absorption.

Lemon also has antioxidant that is vitamin C. It contributes to some of lemon's positive aspects which include digestive aid, skin care, and fight against throat infections. Importantly vitamin C provides suitable environment for catechins to be available longer when mixed together.

By the addition of Vitamin C, human intestine turns to an acidic environment for catechins. This process allows catechins to be more available for absorption. In fact it does not need to be lemon. Any citrus fruit juice such as lime, grapefruit or orange will increase the absorption function. Yet lemon juice appears to be the most effective of all suggesting that some other elements of lemon also are adding to the catechins availability.

Adding lemon juice to tea can also be more delicious since tea's natural taste is bitter. For people looking for an alternative to tea, one can find many selections of green tea capsules with vitamin C.




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