Monday, September 29, 2014

Matcha Green Tea Powder

This stuff is big-time polyphenols for big-time health benefits!


I’ll admit that I got my bag of KissMe Organics Matcha for free with a request for a review. I’ve been a one cup of green tea per day is plenty kind of believer, good for the health but, honestly, I prefer coffee.  Green tea’s not fun, green tea tastes odd.  But I had no idea just how odd green tea could taste until I tried a half teaspoon of this green Matcha powder which doesn’t even really dissolve when mixed in hot water.  Odd is not necessarily unpleasant, the flavor is like a slightly gritty, mild infusion of grass clippings.  But what a great way to get one’s green tea intake out of the way in one earthy serving  (yeah, I fact-checked; it really does have 137X the anti-oxidants of the brewed China Green Tips variety), and. oh my, check out the health benefits.


There’s a host of worthy molecules in green tea called polyphenols, the best and most plentiful of which is epigallocatechin gallate or EGCG.  A pubmed.gov search for EGCG and cancer returns 1,299 articles on research studies wherein EGCG messes with the dastardly growth, reproduction, and metastasis of prostate, breast (including the triple negative scary kind), glioma, and colon cancers and T-cell leukemia.  And that’s just from the first page of results!  Clinical evidence suggests it has chemopreventive properties as well with respect to preventing or reversing the cellular changes that lead to malignancy.  Diabetic animals—both rats and humans—display improved cholesterol levels and glucose control when green tea is added to their diets, and some even lose weight in amounts that may or may not be significant depending on which study results you consult.  HDL-cholesterol (the good kind) rises while total cholesterol and LDL levels fall.


Well I’m sold on Matcha, and I’m ordering some for a friend recently diagnosed with breast cancer.  I probably won’t try green tea cupcakes because, honestly, I prefer the good old brown-from-chocolate variety.