Friday, November 30, 2007

Hansen's Imported From Nature Tea

I have tried not to use my blog as a place to rant. If I pick a tea to review and it turns out that the tea is poor, so be it. But more and more I try to avoid reviewing a tea that I know will be unpleasant or simply unpalatable. What would be the point? "Bigelow Green Tea, not so good." No shit, right? But I simply can not hold my peace on this any longer.

Americans have a rather dichotomous relationship with our bodies. We are collectively caught up in the health food craze, tea good, carbs bad, and yet we are a nation of fat people. 127 million Americans are overweight; 60 million are considered obese.1

Of course there are a variety of reasons for this, but I think part of the problem is this propaganda war that food and beverage companies have launched against we the consumers. Junk food proclaimed as healthy; Oreos with no trans fat, low-carb beer, and now Hansen's new line of Imported From Nature Tea, "lightly sweetened," with 75 mg of EGCG (its on the label four times, so you wont miss it) and 46 grams of sugar.

I was curious just how much 46 grams of sugar is, so I took a picture, an approximation of the ingredients: 16 oz water, 4 grams of tea (BOP), and 46 grams of sugar.


Maybe its just me, but I think the picture speaks for itself.

6 comments:

MarshalN said...

Totally agreed -- when I see a "low fat" box of cookies that probably ends up having more sugar in it than I have in my entire house, it's pretty scary.

Tea Geek said...

Bravo!

It bugs me sometimes when people tell me they're drinking tea "for the antioxidants" and want to know which one has the most? I smile and say, "which kind of antioxidant do you want the most of?"

Having been a game tester and publisher in a previous life, I think Americans are power-gamers as a whole. "I want to eat the creamiest, the sweetest, the fattest whatever. Then I'll do the *one* exercise that will burn the most calories until I can take the pill that will shed the pounds so I don't have to do the exercise. Tea makes you lose weight, right? I love my tea with cream and sugar."

Yeah. I'm with you on this one.

Mary R said...

Two words for you Space: Good. God.

For the amount of sugar in one bottle of that, I could have a nice piece of cake! That's insane.

Steven Dodd said...

For 10 calories more per serving, you could have an energy drink like Monster. Chug a Monster, and you're ready for extremely extreme sports or whatever it is people do these days. If I want antioxidants, I'll eat some vegetables.

MarshalN said...

"Lightly sweetened!"

Chayan Barua said...

Really a nice blog of Tea