Coffee and Tea for Overall Health

Americans love their coffee, which now averages 3.1 cups a day for the consumer. As it turns out, your morning cup of Joe may soon be considered a health food. Though tea is thought to be the all-time antioxidant leader, new research from the University of Scranton reveals that coffee is actually the frontrunner. When scientists tested the polyphenol antioxidant content of a variety of coffees and teas, coffee came out on top.

Levels didn’t vary much between brewed and instant coffee, and decaf didn’t fall far behind caffeinated. Most surprising, coffee was found to be five times better at preventing oxidation than vitamin C! As for tea, green tea leaves contained more antioxidants than instant and bottled green tea, and instant black tea fared better than black leaf tea. That’s not to say tea isn’t great. It contains another class of antioxidants called catechins, which provide numerous health benefits. Unfortunately, catechins are somewhat unstable, but according to the National Institutes of Health, squeezing a little lemon juice in your tea allows 80 percent of tea’s catechins to be absorbed by the body.