Black Coffee in the Morning & Green Tea in the Afternoon is a Healthy Combination

Tea is the most consumed beverage after water. 2 billion people drink tea every morning. In the U.S. nearly 60% of adults drink coffee each morning and 78% drink it at least occasionally. On the average, coffee drinkers consume about two cups a day.

Both coffee and tea contain caffeine, although there are also decaffeinated varieties. Caffeine has been linked to adverse health effects, such as elevated blood pressure, gastric upset and anxiety.

In spite of the caffeine, both coffee and tea contain other health-promoting ingredients that may outweigh the caffeine drawback. Among those benefits are abundant antioxidants.

You Should Drink Organic Coffee:

Almost all coffee produced is heavily contaminated with pesticides, since coffee is one of the most heavily sprayed crops. The benefits of coffee can only be truly considered if we're talking about pesticide-free coffee. The only way to assure that you are drinking pesticide free coffee is to drink organic coffee.

Other Things To Be Aware Of:

Another thing to avoid is rancid coffee. The rate of rancidity increases dramatically once you grind the beans. Much of the bagged coffee that you will find in your grocery store is already degraded. So another basic principle in using coffee for its health benefits, is to grind your own coffee beans.

Thirdly, you'll want to make sure the coffee is roasted correctly. It is often the case that the foods with the darkest pigments offer the most phytonutrients. Dark roast coffee, such as French Roast, espresso or Turkish coffee, may contain the highest levels of phytonutrients.

The healthiest form of coffee is served black, meaning without any creamer or sweetener. Adding dairy may interfere with your body's absorption of beneficial chlorogenic acids, while the added sugar will contribute to insulin resistance, which is at the heart of most chronic disease.

Lastly, if you use a "drip" coffee maker, be sure to use non-bleached filters. The white ones are chlorine-bleached and some of this chlorine will leach from the filter during the brewing process. Bleached filters may also contain dangerous byproducts, such as dioxin.

Quality Is Key for Tea as Well:

There are other issues with tea. Green tea plants are known to be especially effective at absorbing lead from the soil, which is then taken up into the plants' leaves.

You should avoid buying tea that is grown in areas with excessive industrial pollution, such as in China. Nearly 90% of the world's green tea is produced in China, which may contain substantial amounts of lead.

While the lead in the tea leaves is not thought to leach very effectively into the tea, if you're consuming Matcha green tea, which contains the entire ground tea leaf, it is especially important that it comes from Japan, instead of China.

Both black and green teas are also naturally high in fluoride. This occurs even if the tea is organically grown. This is because the tea plant readily absorbs naturally occurring fluoride thorough its root system.

So, as with coffee, when selecting tea, opt for organic to avoid pesticides. You also should look for tea which is grown in a pristine environment. This will help you to avoid fluoride, heavy metals and other toxins from contaminated soil and water.

Too much of a good thing can no longer be a good thing, so try to limit your coffee consumption to one or two cups a day and then drink a few cups of green tea in the afternoon.

Pregnant women are advised to avoid coffee altogether, since caffeine can significantly impact a growing fetus. Caffeine can freely pass through the placenta. Since caffeine does not provide any benefits to a fetus, only potential hazards, pregnant women should avoid all forms of caffeine, including coffee and caffeinated teas.

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