Tea bags

[Oak Smoke]

I drink a lot of tea, mostly iced tea but a hot cup once in awhile. I’ve used the big one gallon Lipton tea bag’s for years. Yesterday my daughter tells me the tea bags are bad for me. Supposedly there are all kinds of questionable things in the bag its self. Evidently the paper is treated with plastic like chemicals. Have you heard of this? I just checked on loose leaf tea. It’ll be a pain in the butt to deal with and cost more too.

[dpearce]

Not sure about tea bags, but I gave up paper coffee filters years ago and switched to a French press because apparently they use bleaching methods on them. I imagine they do something similar to tea bags?

[Richard Chrz]

Well to be fair, tea is a processed food at some level, … same breath, pretty sure when it’s my time. My wife will not be saying, I knew those damn tea bags were going to get him…. 😜

[Richard Chrz]

Oak Smoke I think it was Redd Foxx that said “ Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothin”

[Alan Brice]

Word is sun tea is subject to bacteria. Brew yer tea then be done with it.

[Oak Smoke]

Alan Brice I can see that. I mean if SV needs to be above 130 F then sun tea would be unsafe. Then there’s that sunlight kills bacteria thing. Who knows?

[Uncle Bob]

At some point in time almost everything will end up on the "it's gonna kill you" list, until it isn't anymore. Ya makes yur choices and ya takes yur chances...

[Alan Brice]

Do not ferget ya hasta pays yer monies.

[MBMorgan]

There’s also those good old-fashioned metal mesh tea balls. Amazon has lots to choose from.

[Oak Smoke]

I just ordered one from Walmart.

[Oak Smoke]

Johnny Booth Does it count if it wasn’t tobacco.

[RonB]

I gave up tea bags because, for me, it's easier to use loose tea. I make 1/2 gal at a time using my AeroPress, but our son just puts the loose tea in a jar and fills it with hot water. When it is ready he pours the tea into another jar through a sieve and he's done. Here's the tea I buy . It will make ~ 17 half gal jars of tea.

That comes out to about $0.17 per 8 oz glass. Luzianne 24 count gal bags work out to ~ $0.02 per 8 oz glass.

[captainlee]

As a kid constantly drinking from the garden hose, playing with mercury, mercury fillings, eating lots of tuna and who knows what else. Still going strong at 75. Yes, all those paper products probably have chemicals in them. Honestly at this point in life I don't worry about it. How many times have they claimed coffee is bad for you then retracted. Heck we all consume smoked and charred foods that contain lots of fat. Where do you draw the line? Organic foods, check the country they are from and their definition and requirements for organic. Don't forget the chemicals in wine! 45 minutes until Happy Hour!

[Manxman]

"playing with mercury"

Excellent post, particularly remember rolling mercury around in my palm and never giving it a second thought! Life was so much more fun back in the day!

[captainlee]

You rolled it in your empty dresser drawer and when it hit the edge it went into many pieces then came back together as one. The stuff was incredible.

[Alan Brice]

Word is sitting is the New smoking. Guess Ima bout 2packs a day.

[Purc]

As always YMMV. That said, here is what little I know. Drinking non instant, non-flavored regular or Swiss Water method decaf coffee in moderation should be ok. During the roasting of coffee, a compound called Acrylamide is created and too much of this can be harmful. This compound has also been found in food as a result of our favorite Maillard Reaction. Seniors due to their older/more experienced kidney, liver, other organs can be stressed by this. Also, cafestol is in coffee and this can raise cholesterol levels among other health issues.
To lower these levels, a simple paper filter, preferably a non bleached filter will remove this. That's why I no longer drink French Press coffee but ether drip or pour over with a paper filter. Europe seams to study this more than the US just as they do with other food additives, dyes, and chemicals used in farming and food production that the Europeans don't allow to be used but the US still allows.

I believe that tea bags and toilet paper are not 100% paper and may contain plastic fibers and thus exposing us to nano plastics and forever chemicals that we consume. I've read that lower quality tea and tea dust goes into tea bags and better quality tea is sold in loose leaf form.

Again, YMMV and I'm still a meat eater, coffee drinker and have an occasional adult beverage.' And like Captain Lee, I'm still here and outside of some hair loss, hearing loss, weight gain, poor memory and poor eyesight, I 've had no side effects.

[RonB]

I accidentally, (well, at least I didn't start out on purpose ), went down the rabbit hole on tea. Tea dust and small particles left over from processing whole leaves are used in tea bags, but I don't know if there is enough powdered tea to meet demand produced this way. I'm thinking
that they probably wind up crushing whole leaves to get enough fine tea for bags.

[Oak Smoke]

As long as I can avoid anal seepage and the newest I’ve seen, a sometimes fatal infection between the anus and genitalia. I’ll be ok.

[Alan Brice]

Taint?

[Carolyn]

I heard the bags are treated with plastic to prevent them from tearing, so you get a dose of microplastics. I started cutting the bags and straining the tea.

[Alan Brice]

Don't the plastics just float to the top?

[Oak Smoke]

Alan Brice it appears that the ,this is bad for you crowd, gets all weird when you question them. I’m awaiting answers.

[Carolyn]

Alan Brice I haven't done a deep dive into microplastics. 🤔 I dunno. It was something I heard or read as part of some other thing I was watching or reading. I didn't really do any further investigation on it, but I will.
It might be one of those things where you get a dose, but it isn't enough of a dose to worry about. 🤷♀️

[texastweeter]

Do you use unbleached toilet paper?

[Manxman]

When I was a kid here in the UK we had Izal toilet paper, an interesting product if ever there was one that sort of skidded across the surface if you get my drift!

https://uk.nakedpaper.com/blogs/news/what-happened-to-izal-toilet-paper?srsltid=AfmBOopotr6J0PxNbzXRLr1hYrVwcSEaDOp6ED9Po4UsUJx4FM12IcFE

And no this isn't an April Fool!

[texastweeter]

Oak Smoke hahaha us too Scott 1000

[klflowers]

Yes

[zblongladder]

If you want a good way to infuse loose-leaf tea, the easiest way is probably a mug infuser. It's just a basket that goes into your mug and holds your tea leaves, and you even get the bonus that they're not all smushed into one tiny place like a tea bag. You can get them in both plastic and metal, depending on your preference. Tea in tea bags is generally low quality anyway...it's basically the fragments and dust left over after the full-sized tea leaves are processed. If you've never tried it, you really owe it to yourself to try proper, full-leaf tea sometime!

Here's an example of a mug infuser...it's really convenient, and when you're done, you can just empty it out by shaking it over the trash.

[klflowers]

When I was a kid, I cut my arm pretty deeply on a rusty fence post. Really deep. I still have a pretty prominent scar. I wrapped paper towels around it and duct taped it. Kept playing. Told my mom I couldn’t find a bandage. I try to avoid microplastics. I use liquid dishwashing soap and liquid tide, no pods. But I have to have coffee. And beer. And bourbon. Those are food groups. But no tea bags so I guess I am safe

[FireMan]

Aside from the tea bag bein suspect of its construction, yes there is some micro-plastics, the tea itself is not of the highest quality, stems, dust and the sort, kinda the dregs of the tea product. The rabbit hole I went down found that high quality loose leaf tea cost about the same as Coke or Pepsi per oz if yer into guzzling the stuff down. If I want a 16 ounces I grab water. Other wise throughout the day it is in a tea cup unless I go big at about 4-5 oz. I Gong Fu brew my tea, Oolong, Green Tea, Puh Ehr, Black, White, all different stages of roasting/processing tea. I am not speaking of the herbal stuff, just real tea. Got into the tea world during Covid when my cancer first reared its head and found green tea has fighting properties.
I could go on and on about real tea including Macha, which is a form of green tea. And please don’t mention about the coffee shop craze and their overly sugarized, inferior, Macha xphzt.
More if so desired in chattin.

[Oak Smoke]

I thought I’d give an update to this post. I’m glad I switched to loose leaf tea. It’s better tea! The stuff I’m using now I found on eBay of all places. The seller said it was approaching its use by date so he had a bunch of it at a great price. It was Lipton so I thought it would be fine. When it came in it said Lipton on the box but everything else was in Arabic. When I opened the box it was in a sealed Mylar bag. This is really good tea! Three level tablespoons will give you a gallon of nice full bodied tea. I started at 5 tbs but came down to 3 eventually. I have no idea what is in a tea bag but it’s not even close to being as good as what I’m using now.

[jayjordan]

Add me to the converted for loose leaf tea. We’re having our first cup this morning with breakfast, tastes so much better.
Already had a couple of metal ball infusers. Bought two kinds of organic loose leaf tea on Amazon because my wife prefers Irish Breakfast Tea and I like others.