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Language: en
what happens when you put milk into tea
I know you're a big fan of tea on the
last conversation you spoke about a lot
of the benefits of tea but I think I've
heard you say that if you add milk to
your tea that actually you reduce some
of the beneficial effects is that right
you know those scientists that do
television shows to actually uh make
science accessible to people this is
kind of where we need to go with this
this topic so look tea green tea uh
especially has a natural Pol phenol
that's called kakin
egcg epig Galo cakin gallate egcg and
the C and kakin is actually just part of
the natural substance in the Tea Leaf so
whether you're um brewing tea with a bag
or whether it's loose leaf tea or
whether it's matcha which is just
powdered tea leaves um the fact of the
matter is that into the Brew into the
liquid the hot liquid uh comes all these
phytochemicals including these cakin so
when you sip straight tea the cakin go
right in they're easily absorbed by your
body and so you know our blood levels of
kakin go way up so many things that
kakin can do one of the things that's
important is actually it's it's a
relaxant it actually helps lower your
stress it lowers the catac colines and
so other things it helps your lipids it
actually also helps fight cancer it's
anti-inflammatory kind of like curcumin
it's it's a substance that has so many
beneficial things that at least when I
drink tea I want I want to get as much
as I can out of my food all right now I
I deeply respect traditions of of eating
and drinking and one of the things that
um you know I know is a tradition in
England is you know you put or in
Ireland you actually put some milk or
cream into your tea it actually um
changes the flavor profile uh and and
it's lovely I you know i' I've had
plenty of teas in England before and and
I I I find it to be just such an
incredibly um uh nice I feel great you
know sort of like having an English tea
put dairy in it here's what you need to
know Dairy and I'm talking about Cow
Dairy right so not not nutmilk this is
applies to Cow Dairy we'll come back to
the nut milk in a second Cow Dairy okay
actually is fat milk has got fat in it
like butter which is made out of milk
and um and the fat when you put it into
your tea does change its flavor but
that's not what we're talking about here
we're talking about the fact that when
milk or cream is put into tea the fat
molecules in the Cow Dairy form little
soap bubbles these are microscopic soap
bubbles they're called my cells fat
likes to stick with fat and so um tea is
mostly water and so when you pour milk
into tea the the bubbles the the dairy
fat sticks together and a little makes a
little tiny soap bubble and what does it
do those soap bubbles trap the
polyphenols from tea it traps the kakin
so you've got some good stuff wrapped in
a soap bubble of of dairy and now when
you drink the tea the canakin is trapped
in the soap bubble it doesn't get
absorbed as easily in your stomach and
it just rolls down your gut and a lot of
it comes out the other end okay and so
you're missing out on a lot of the good
stuff you get a great you know you get a
nice flavor and so I have you know what
I'm telling you is that if you're
drinking uh milk uh or or cow milk dairy
put it in your tea you're you're getting
the you're getting good flavor if you if
that's what you like but you're missing
out on all as as most the polyphenols so
just be aware that that's what you're
actually doing now if you want to
actually still cut the tea with
something that is milk like nut milks
are fine because they don't actually
have the same fatty reaction that the
dairy cow Dairy has so almond milk
cashew milk um those those soy milk
they're all fine I mean that's really
interesting and I like the way you frame
it with this deep respect for cultures
and
traditions because I hear that and I
think for someone who might be listening
or watching this and they think yeah but
you know what it's just a part part of
what I do like I I love putting milk in
my black tea or I know some people even
put it in their green tea which I
certainly haven't tried before they
might hear that and they may not want to
change what they do but is this where
potentially supplements could come in
let's say someone they like the taste of
Milky tea but they hear that and think
well I want all those benefits of those
polyphenols and the kakin that Dr Lee
was talking about maybe I can boost that
another way by taking a supplement is
there any Merit to that way of thinking
and I guess you could expand that
broadly into what is your view of you
know supplements as a whole huge
category but there are some really good
quality supplements out there perhaps
you could speak to those issues a little
bit please yeah well let's let's pick up
the Thro on te for a second because I I
had this discovery that might be uh
useful for your listeners who are in
exactly that situation where they like
the taste of milk in their tea I
discovered there is something called
milk
tea and it's actually from Taiwan it's
grown in the mountain and it actually
it's it's just pure tea leaves that when
you brew it it tastes like it's got
dairy in it oh wow it's quite it's quite
amazing I mean if if I made a cup of
that for you and then made a cup of of
of tea with milk in it you would have a
hard time telling the difference it's
quite remarkable milk tea it's a kind of
I think it's an ulong style tea so it's
mildly fermented and still got green
properties it's got polyphenols in it
but it literally it has to do with the
way the climate the the way that it's
naturally grown the type of tea it is so
all right so let's move that aside for a
second um um all right so what about
supplements you know I I think that we
should look to the word itself a dietary
supplement means something to top off so
I always tell people you know if you
have a choice of getting it from the
whole food the whole food will tend to
have a lot of other stuff that's good
for you if you eat whole plant-based
foods for example you get the fiber you
get the polyphenols you get a lot of
other chemical substances you get the
natural peptides that are found in foods
but if you got a pure supplement you
might get the one molecule or two
molecules that it's been created for
like a vitamin C supplement um if you
want to top off your vitamin C it's pure
vitamin C you're going to get a lot of
it if you if you take your take a m
vitamin but you know if you had Citrus
you're going to get all that flavor
you're going to get the a different kind
of flavor you're gonna you get some you
do get sugar you get fiber you got the
lemon and and all these other uh
hesperadin all these other bioactives
that you can't get from a regular
supplement alone that said you are
absolutely right supplements can be
really important particularly for people
who have difficulty getting a lot of of
of some nutrients or their food so for
example um I think omega-3 fatty acids
are a great supplement if you get a high
quality
omega-3 not everybody eats oily fish you
know day and you know two to three times
a week you know you only need to eat um
the amount in each serving with the size
of a deck of playing card so you don't
need to eat very much but you know
that's not something people most people
do people who live on the on the
coastline they might be doing it but
many people don't um so Omega threes are
so important to our health I mean this
has been shown time and time and again
that's a supplement that's that's
definitely worth taking and and and it's
a lot easier to swallow um Omega-3s than
it is actually to go to their fishmonger
and then to look at what the Catch of
the Day is that's an example another
example of a supplement I think is
really worth worth taking um is probably
vitamin D3 okay vitamin D uh you know
for for those of us who live in the
Northern Hemisphere where we don't have
as much sun uh all the time all year
round and where it's cold so we're
indoors a lot and not always Outdoors
under the sunshine so I'm not talking
Cod Del Soul I'm not talking about South
Africa you know or Australia I'm talking
about you know England northern Europe
North America you know and sort of the
northeastern side okay we don't get as
much sunlight even if we do go outside
because it's cold we wear a lot of
clothes and so our skin tends to be
covered up and so vitamin D is made by
our skin when sunlight actually hits it
and so we don't we tend to be vitamin D
deficient so here's an example of where
you can eat foods like mushrooms that
can have vitamin D for example uh by the
way I don't know if this is a little
little tip a tidbit for you I just told
you that human skin with ultraviolet
radiation from the sun will make more
vitamin D but did you know that if you
took just a plain old lowly white button
mushroom that contains some vitamin D if
you were to um before you eat it when
you buy it if you slice it like slice it
pretty thinly and you lay this the
slices out and you put it in your window
sill so your sun the Sun Shines on the
slice it will make more vitamin D wow
you will actually you'll actually
convert more vitamin D into the into the
mushroom so if you're going to prepare
something with mushrooms slice them
ahead of time stick them in front of a
sunny window no matter what time of the
year it is you know um maybe a couple
hours before you um cook with it and the
mushrooms will actually give you more
vitamin D but it's it's not it's a lot
easier to get your regular dose of daily
vitamin D um by actually just having D3
supplements and so that's an example
yeah no I love that and and certainly
what I found with my patients like I I
always adopt a food first approach
definitely but many people these days
have got as as you've already touched on
super busy stress out Lifestyles and
they're rushing around and they either
don't have time to cook a fresh whole
meal they're often buying things on the
go that probably aren't the best thing
for them they probably got high levels
of stress so actually they're probably
not even absorbing as many nutrients as
they could because their digestive
system isn't in the right place to
absorb those nutrients and I found
sometimes you know a good quality
supplement like let's say a whole food
sometime a green supplement which has
lots and lots lots of different
phytochemicals prebiotics polyphenol in
it could be helpful and sometimes could
be helpful in the short term to help
them have more energy and feel better so
that they can then make those lifestyle
choices so I know a lot of doctors take
a quite a hard line on supplements but
you've demonstrated some really
important ones that I think have been
shown in scientific Studies have real
benefits like vitamin D for sure so yeah
I really really appreciate you you know
I wanted support and underscore what you
just said you know that I I you know
there's there's always something
valuable to look at the history of
things
supplementation um did wasn't developed
to be an online internet scam okay
supplementation was a really serious
effort to improve global nutrition yeah
because you know back in even the early
20th century most of the world was
undernourished that's different than
Mountain nutrition I mean maybe there
was some Mal nutrition too but
undernutrition under nourish means that
you know we were eating food but we
weren't eating enough of the right
things at the right time and so one of
the things that supplements were
developed to do is to really fortify
supplement top off you know um everyone
so that everyone could have an more
equal chance of being of filling up
becoming replete with the key
micronutrients that we our body needs to
actually survive and so I think it's a
mistake to disparage supplements as a
category I mean this is a theme of what
we're talking about today yeah let's not
you know let's not throw the baby out
with the bath water let's not character
assassinate entire categories of things
let's be I mean let's let's be
Discerning and try to know exactly what
we're talking about there are some
dietary supplements that are absolutely
valuable some that uh research has
actually shown proven to be helpful and
some that are can be life-saving uh as
well pregnant moms really need to be
taking folage you know if you don't have
those you'll have neural tube defects in
your babies the the risk go much higher
so you really want to be able to
actually take yeah the evidence and so
this is the other thing I think maybe a
useful um coat hook or hat hook to hang
for your listeners is that supplements
are the real deal because they were once
designed originally designed to help the
body top off of with what it actually
needs but if the marketing and we're
back to marketing now sounds too too
good to be true if the claims sound like
they're just magical claims that's when
you're um that's when your spidey sense
your radar needs to go on that you know
maybe maybe there's something not quite
uh fully honest about what is being told
about this and it's being misrepresented
and so I think that every consumer needs
to be able to I mean again this is where
I come back to we all have mobile
devices we can easily search something
when in doubt look it up yeah check it
out and then make your own decision if
that if that fits your if it fits your
comfort
zone organic or non-organic is another
topic that people find confusing if
people are able to access organic and
they are able to afford it in your view
are there any benefits to choosing
that right well I want to just tell
everyone that first of all I was a
skeptic for many years about organic
food I thought it was marketing I
thought the food looked beautiful was
very expensive and I thought it was
mostly marketing and the marketing
message that I received as a consumer
was here's this beautiful food that's
more expensive and by the way we don't
grow it with pesticides and so you've
got less harmful chemicals on it and I
you know I it didn't feel right to me
and I had all these questions in my head
about like whether or not that's really
true and what if I just wash my food a
little bit more I mean I I I wasn't
really sure what was real or not well I
changed my mind a few years ago and I'll
tell you I was at the Royal Society in
London actually at a really incredible
meeting with um horticulturalists with
astrophysicists just a bunch of
incredible scientists and I had the
privilege of sitting next to a
horticulturalist and I was I was talking
with her about a a new paper research
paper that had come from out of the
journal nature which is a British
publication one of the Premier um
scientific uh journals and I said you
know I just read this paper that was
really astounded me they looked at
strawberries and they were looking for
the natural substance ELC acid which is
what makes strawberry's tart and
electric acid is anti-inflammatory it
helps your immune system it starves
cancer I've done research on electric
acid myself um and so I know how power
powerful it is and they were looking at
strawberries comparing organic versus um
convention grown strawberries another
way to say that is strawberries made
grown with pesticides or not with or no
pesticides and they were looking at elic
acid in the strawberries and when they
measured the conventionally grown
strawberries they all had some elic acid
that was fine okay um I expected that
but then when they measured the organic
strawberries every single organic
strawberry they measured had two times
or more of the elic acid and I thought
that was absolutely astounding that an
organically grown fruit would actually
have more of that beneficial substance
that Mother Nature's kind of um
bioactive and so I talked to the
horticulturist and I said okay so help
me understand why right so look you know
you know when you're talking to a real
scientist when when scientists admit
that they don't know something yeah
right so and and that's how anybody who
says they know everything probably not a
scientist I mean so so I I
literally admitted my my ignorance about
this and I asked the horor
culturist can you help me understand why
that might be and she gave me this
answer that I've subsequently Dove
deeply more deeply in and it's
absolutely true it's true with coffee as
well Mother Nature um uh in part made
these bioactives like elic acid in
strawberries or in coffee chlorogenic
acid is another one of these and the way
that um plants respond to bugs nibbling
on the stems and leaves biting at them
okay that's the pest okay okay might
make the plant not look so nice all
right might even like might even Mar the
fruit a little bit so it's not quite as
beautiful but the plant re reacts to
those little nibbles as an injury as a
wound and in response and the wound
healing response it produces more ELC
acid or in the case of coffee it makes
more chlorogenic acid so the little
nibbling is part of kind of the way that
Evolution actually developed um how
plants respond to create more of these
bioactives so
what happens so why is there this
difference well if you actually grow a
strawberry with pesticides there's fewer
bugs the plant looks nicer fruit looks
nicer no bugs no injury less electric
acid being made and so all of a sudden
like I this light bulb went off in my
head and I've this is a few years ago
that I I I I realized this and I had
this conversation everywhere I've looked
uh any research that's been done it is
true that the bioactives are higher in
the OR organically grown plants and and
that started to change my mind about
Organics because the argument now is not
that Organics have less bad
stuff the argument is the Organics have
more good stuff now all of a sudden I
have a different view of the the nature
of how this fruit is grown and what the
benefits of growing without pesticides
are