blogger: RE: [ACWDYG ] Tea and Iron Absorption

Kamis, 21 Februari 2008

RE: [ACWDYG ] Tea and Iron Absorption

Sonya, I love a good tall glass of *sweet tea. Emphasis on SWEET<G> But from my own experience, it can be over done. I used to consume a huge pitcher of tea daily all summer. No joke, no exaggeration!! Just the facts, Ma'am!
By sometime in mid fall, I'd end up nearly screaming and locked up with bladder problem/pain/unable to evacuate. After years of this annual agravation, I told my mother about it and she told me I had that problem when I was a knee-high baby and Dr got on to her for giving me tea. In those days no air conditioning and people would have cold tea to cool off and momma couldn't bare to turn me away when she drank hers so would freely give me some.
Now I am sure a lot of the problem was the way I over used sugar, but I cut WAY back on tea and don't use sugar and have been doing well past 20 years. I still like my tea sweet, so use an herb called Stevia. ...It is claimed to be safe for victims of Diabetes but FDA wont approve it for anything but supplement. Many of us users of Stevia think the pink and blue people wouldn't like it to be passed! <G>
---- Sonya Bellamy <sonya.bellamy.iaoq@statefarm.com> wrote:
> Good information thanks for sharing

> I was having dinner with friends last night and the waitress was asking
> if we would like tea to go with our meal. One of my friends highlighted
> that his wife read somewhere that it is not good to drink tea with meal
> as it reduces the iron intake from our meal. I found it quite
> interesting and when I woke up this morning, I googled to see if I can
> find any information regarding this.
>
> It wasn't difficult to find information in the internet at all nowadays
> - as long as you spend some time on it. The search returned several
> results related and non-related. In all of the related results, they had
> shown similar information - that tea reduces the iron intake to a
> certain extent and it really depends. I will come to that in a short
> while.
>
> Before we go on, let's take a look at the mineral iron, with the symbol
> Fe in the periodic table. From my previous knowledge in school, I knew
> that iron is an essential part in hemoglobin for oxygen transport around
> the body. According to the British Nutrition Foundation, they stated,
> "Iron is also required for energy metabolism and is necessary for
> neurological development of developing embryos. Iron is also needed for
> the normal function of the immune system." Iron can be found in foods in
> two forms, namely haem and non-haem iron. Haem iron is found mainly in
> meat, liver, offal and meat products. According to a document by the UK
> Tea Council, typically 20-30% of haem iron is absorbed from the diet and
> the level of haem iron absorption is relatively unaffected by other
> dietary factors.

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