A recipe for making the healthiest beverage even healthier.
The Healthiest Beverage
Doctor's Note
For more on the spices in chai tea, check out these videos:
And check out the prequel: Nutrition Without Calories.
Check out all of my spice videos. And I have a bunch on chocolate, too.
For more context, see my associated blog post: Countering Dietary Pollutants & Pesticides.
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Please feel free to post any ask-the-doctor type questions here in the comments section and I’d be happy to try to answer them. And check out the prequel “Nutrition Without Calories” video. Also, there are 1,449 other subjects covered in the rest of my videos–please feel free to explore them as well!
Dr. Greger,
Having watched ALL of your videos on soy and soymilk, what can you tell the group about how pasteurization affects the phytonutrient and phytoestrogen density in soymilk?
Also, is there any difference between using organic soy and GMO soy regarding all the potential benefits o consuming soy?
Thanks so much! Love your work!
Of course organic is always best. As regards GMO products I would apply the precautionary principle and avoid entirely. A good review was done in Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr 49:164-175(2009) which discusses the toxicity of GMO products on various organs including liver, kidney, pancreas, and reproductive systems. Given the complexity of the issue I imagine we will never know for sure. Best approach given that situation in my opinion is to not mess with “Mother Nature”. The best we can do is insist that we have accurate labeling laws so we can vote with our purchases. Given many corporations desires to avoid accurate labeling in the US that is going to be hard.
Do you think that the soy milk blocks the phytonutrients effect at all?
Great question Eric. see my answer here: http://nutritionfacts.org/videos/healthy-chocolate-milkshakes/comment-page-1/#comment-1569
Do you have a set recipe you use for your drink, or do you just throw things together? I’d like to try making chai but I’m just not sure how. (I can’t use commercial chai because I’m allergic to cloves.)
Which chai tea brand do you use? there are so many out there and I want to get the healthiest one
I make my own Chai masala tea. Here is a recipe:
Step 1: gently roast the following until pleasant frangrance appears:
1 cup fennel seeds2 Tbsp green cardomom pod seeds1 Tbsp big black cardomom pod seeds1/2 Tbsp black peppercorns1 Tbsp cloves4 Tbsp cinnamon bark (flat variety)1 Tbsp chopped almond
Step 2: grind roasted spices to powder form
Step 3: Store ground mixture in an airtight container
Step 4: for each cup of tea use 1/4 tsp of the chai mix and add minced ginger and green tea bag (optionally).
I also am wondering about soy blocking the phytonutrients. Didn’t you say in the last post that it did?
Also, tea is a diuretic, so you’d still need water, no?
Hello becochic!
I believe I can answer your question. In a petri dish, it seemed that soymilk did in fact bind up the phytonutrients of tea making it nutritionally close to plain water. It is uncertain whether berries and cacao and for that matter, other phytonutrient dense meals will be blocked by soymilk. I believe the main concern is with tea and soy milk but to be safe I would avoid it with nutrient dense meals. Almond milk would be a safer choice of a milk if you plan to drink it with the tea. http://nutritionfacts.org/videos/soymilk-suppression/ Do note that dairy blocked the phytonutrients in all 3 cases, tea, berries and cacao. http://nutritionfacts.org/videos/nutrient-blocking-effects-of-dairy/
Now in studies shown soy releases the phytonutrients later in digestion. See video on adding dairy vs soy to coffee
To make your morning oatmeal even “yummier”, use chai tea instead of water when making it.
What a fantastic idea! I’m always trying to think of ways to sneak more of those antioxidant-packed spices into my daily diet (that was the inspiration for my Healthy Pumpkin Pie recipe). If anyone else has creative (or at least palatable! :) ways to sneak cloves into one’s diet please do share. Like my new Pink Juice with Green Foam video, this site is all about trying to translate these new findings into practical ways to incorporate the best available science on nutrition into our day-to-day lives.
My daily super-nutrient breakfast (all organic, measurements are aprox.): – 1/4 cup Rolled Oats – 1 pinch Clove powder – 1 tsp Cinnamon powder- 1 tsp Green Macha Tea powder- 1 Tbsp Coco powder (Unsweetened, Fair Trade)- 2 Tbsp Flax (Organic)- 1/8 cup Blue Berries (wild frozen or fresh)- 1/8 cup Toasted Walnut pieces- 1/8 cup Dried Cranberries- 1/8 cup Dried Currents- 1 Amla (Indian Goodberry – frozen / grated)- 1 Diced Kiwi- Unsweetened Almond MilkIt sounds like a lot, but it’s just one bowl & pretty quick to make (the dry ingredients can be put together in larger quantities ahead of time).I really look forward to getting out of bed in the morning for this! (It’s not as sweet as you might like, but you can adjust that.)I got the idea to create this by watching all the NutritionFacts.org videos and trying to incorporate all the best suggestions that I could. Additional suggestions are very welcome!I hope others might find this helpful.Cheers!-Mark
I will replace Flax Seeds with Chia Seeds
Sweeten with date sugar :)
Do you cook it ? Thanks !
Thank you for the incredible breakfast recipe!!
I love this spice in pumpkin pancakes, using rolled oats, almond milk, banana, pumpkin puree and chai spice :)
Dear Dr. Greger,
I was born with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (hypermobility type 3) and suffer a great deal with pain from the continually subluxing joints and muscular sprains caused by the weak connective tissue and, consequently overwhelming exhaustion after anything like normal activity. I’ve eaten a vegan diet from the age of 20 and am now 63. Could you advise me, please, on anything I can eat to strengthen my connective tissue (as far as dna will allow) and to reduce the pain. Because of IBS, which comes along with the EDS, I can’t digest beans without getting terrible pain. I can, however, eat tofu and processed soya products.
Thank you very much for all of your work and being so generous in sharing it. It’s wonderful to have scientific medical information from a vegan doctor.
with many thanks, Francesca.
I’m wondering….which is best for say, coffee, tea or baking, molasses or erythritol? Thanks so much for any feed back.
Love you Dr. Gregor! I am wondering if you have a caffeine free version of your Chai tea drink? I love to have it! Thanks
Dr. G, do you make your own CHAI? Or can you recomend a source for it?
I want to know about health benefits of rice bran oil.
I have been enjoying your clips and have learnt so much from your factual presentations. This has bowled me to start drinking soy milk for the first time in forty years. My question is about what soy milk to get. I currently buy a soy milk which contains cane sugar which I really enjoy but am concerned that it has fewer benefits with the sugar. Even so, it would still be better than cows milk for me? Could I get your advice. Thanks
They do sell unsweetened soymilk and this would probably be the better choice. Soymilk will always beat out dairy though.
There were a couple questions here regarding Chai sources, so, given that I’m from Vermont, I’d like to promote the Chai Wallah brand from VT, http://www.chai-wallah.com/about.html I LOVE it. The doctor also mentioned adding cocao or something… but I add carob powder and/or mesquite pod powder, vanilla, and extra cinnamon. It helps to drink this one with a spoon for an occasional stir, as it’s quite muddy, but in a good way. :)
So, Chai is a great way to integrate cloves and other high-powered anti-oxidant sources (spices), and, as well, this site is becoming a hub for innovating our dining options :), so let’s recall the video here on hibiscus tea… so, I learned about SORREL this week, and I’m not talking about the green plant but instead: Agua de Jamaica (Mexico). This is a hibiscus-based drink out of Jamacia & Trinidad. I guess they use the plant name as the drink name, another word for hibiscus. Lots of references on this online. In short, it uses ginger, cinnamon, cloves, etc etc, the recipes are quite varied, Also, I’ve realized that in making these drinks, the traditional methods use lots of the raw flower, and there seems to be many ways to prepare it. (This reminds me: Glogg is a tradition Scandinavian drink (alcohol) which also uses spices mention here.)
http://www.jamaicatravelandculture.com/food_and_drink/sorrel_drink.htm
Is this healthier than Hibiscus tea with lemon juice?
does the use of too much tea masala/ginger cause anal itching
If you apply it to that area I’m sure it does
thank you
In addition to Chai tea, there is Cadamon Cinnamon Herbal tea at the Republic of Tea. They also sell Chai tea. http://www.republicoftea.com/cardamom-cinnamon-herbal-tea/p/V00677/ Do you think you could mix Chai tea and Hibiscus tea?
Why not just grind the spices yourself and toss it into the cup with your favorite tea, and pocket the $10 that they are charging for a tin of 36 tea bag?
Dear Doctor,
Would really love watching your videos, but since I have a severe hearing loss caused by a lifelong celiac condition, which was only discovered when I reached my 54th year, damages where big.
Please subtitle your videos!
Thanks, Silvia
Hi Silvia,
Thank you for your support! All of our videos have English subtitles. You can enable them by clicking the CC button on the bottom-right corner of the videos on YouTube. Many of the videos are available in different languages as well.
Screenshot: http://prntscr.com/hnhy0l
Consumerlab.com recently reported that cocoa powders contain high levels of cadmium (averaging 0.7 mcg/g) and lead (averaging 0.11 mcg/g.) Consumer Lab recommends limiting intake to just one cup per day for beverages prepared with cocoa powder due to cadmium and/or lead contamination in every cocoa powder they tested. None of the cocoa powders they tested were “Approved” because they each contained more than 0.3 mcg/gram due to cadmium or lead which is the limit suggested by the World Health Organization. Dr. Greger, can you weigh in on this?