Pesticides are everywhere around us these days, from the food we buy at the grocery store to the parks outside our houses and school playgrounds.
To avoid their negative effects, you should make several efforts, such as consuming only homegrown and organic foods and cleaning purchased goods before eating. Nonetheless, these harmful pesticides tend to make their way into our lives and damage our health.
According to a recent study, the most popular brands of tea bags, such as Twinings, Tetley, and Lipton, contain high quantities of these harmful compounds.
Specifically, the CBC News performed an inquiry on the tea bags made by well-known brands throughout the world, including:
- Tetley
- Lipton (Yellow Label Black Tea and Pure Green Tea)
- Twinings
- King Cole
- No Name
- Red Rose
- Signal
- Uncle Lee’s Legends of China (Jasmine Green Tea and Green Tea)
The researchers utilized the same procedure used by the national Food Inspection Agency to test the quantities of pesticides on the dried tea leaves in an approved facility.
They discovered that pesticide residues were present in illegally high concentrations in more than half of the teas tested. Furthermore, 8 of the 10 teas examined had diverse pesticides, with one brand of tea containing more than 22 distinct pesticide kinds.
Furthermore, several of the pesticides found in these teas, such as monocrotophos and endosulfan, are on the verge of being outlawed in a few countries because they harm the environment and pose a risk to workers who handle them.
As a result, you should be aware that the best tea brands are those that do not include pesticides. The following tea bag brands, on the other hand, are the worst conceivable substitutes and should be avoided at all costs:
- King Cole, ing. This tea contains a lot of pesticides, as well as monocrotophos, which is being phased out since it causes irregular heartbeats, unconsciousness, and involuntary defecation.
- Legends of China by Uncle Lee (Green Tea). –More than 20 pesticides have been uncovered via research, including endosulfan, which is also on the verge of being outlawed in several countries due to a variety of negative effects such as nervous system diseases, tremors, and in some cases, death.
- Tea’s with “no name”. Pesticides of more than ten distinct kinds have been discovered in this tea.
The tea industry has reacted in response to these discoveries. For example, James O’ Young, vice president of Uncle Lee’s Legends of China, the tea brand determined to contain the highest pesticides, defended his brand by arguing that all tea has pesticides. He stated:
“If you drink tea, normal tea, I don’t care what brand it is, the reality of the matter is that this agricultural product does include pesticides.”
He ignored the fact that, of the ten brands examined, Red Rose was the only one that did not contain pesticides, according to CBC research. This demonstrates that tea may be grown without pesticide residue and that his remark is only one of several.
Source: theheartysoul.com
Other included sources linked in The Hearty Soul’s article:
http://www.panna.org/pesticides-big-picture/pesticides-101
http://www.fao.org/docrep/w5715e/w5715e04.htm
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/pesticide-traces-in-some-tea-exceed-allowable-limits-1.2564624
http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/blog/full-tea-test-results
http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/153376/
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