Danny M says, "Hi, Chris, question two for me. Can you share your thoughts on timing green tea
consumption around meals, including what, if any, nutrients that may significantly interfere with
and how long to space green tea away from, and which foods that can be consumed with?
Also thank you for the nice Pique Tea Masterpass discount." You're welcome. Unfortunately,
I can't say much about this. So when I was in grad school and I was writing a green tea review,
I did come across research that if you take green tea catechins at the same time as glucose,
you will have more stable blood glucose. But if you take it an hour before the glucose,
you will have a bigger hyperglycemic spike. Because the green tea catechins will block
glucose absorption in the intestines, and they will also block glucose absorption in the cells.
They also block intestinal absorption of almost everything. So they blocked toxins and they
blocked vitamins. But I asked a lab mate of mine who came from China, what the normal
consumption of green tea in China is, what the traditional consumption is, with meals or without?
She started thinking through lots of different things that people do. One of those traditions
is to have very, very dilute green tea that is just sipped on all through the day like water.
So it's not clearly with a meal or without a meal, but as she thought through it more,
she told me, "You know what? There's just so many different traditions
that are disparate and sometimes conflicting, that you can't say what's traditional. Because
everything under the sun, every permutation you could think of,
of how to drink green tea is traditional." So then I asked a lab mate of mine, well, not
a lab mate, but some office mate from a different lab which we shared the grad student office. Asked
an office mate of mine, who is from Korea what the traditional consumption of green tea in Korea is.
He told me that no one in Korea now drinks green tea traditionally. Ever
since the American research on EGCG came out, most people get their green tea from
energy drinks that have EGCG added to them that they buy at the store. So I don't know.
I don't know what to tell you. I mean, I can tell you that if you're worried about
spiking your blood sugar, take it with a meal. If you're worried about nutrient absorption,
take it at least an hour away from the meal. But other than that, it's a trade off.
If your blood sugar's stable when you take it away from the meal, take it away from
meal because it's not hurting your blood sugar too much or at all, and it's not hurting your
nutrient absorption either. But that's all I can tell you. Thanks Danny, for your question.