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"HERBAL TEA UPDATE: HIBISCUS"
In my comparison of the antioxidant content of 282 beverages last year, Hibiscus tea came out number one,
so my family switched from drinking matcha green tea to the Hibiscus fruit punch recipe I shared in that video.
We have since switched from using teabags to just bulk dried Hibiscus flowers which we soak,
and then just blenderize into the tea so we don't throw anything away.
But just because something has antioxidant power in a test tube doesn't mean it has antioxidants flower power in the body –
maybe the phytonutrients aren't even absorbed.
They were found to be bioavailable in rodents, but I haven't had a pet hamster since I was a kid.
So we didn't know about humans - until now.
"Consumption of a Hibiscus aqueous extract (in other words tea) and it's impact on systemic antioxidant potential in healthy human subjects."
If you take people and have them just drink water basically for 10 hours, this is what happens to their antioxidant level in their bloodstream.
Your antioxidants get slowly used up throughout the day fighting off all of those free radicals, unless you replenish your antioxidant stores.
Now, it's hard to get people to fast for 10 hours, so in addition to water they gave the study subjects something they knew wouldn't mess up their antioxidant measurements,
white bread and cheese.
So, this is what happens when you eat water, white bread, and Gouda all day.
What if instead at the beginning of the experiment you give people a single cup of Hibiscus tea?
Within an hour you see a nice spike in the antioxidant level in your bloodstream,
but then the effect disappears, unless you sip Hibiscus throughout the day
or eat something other than Wonder Bread cheese sandwiches.