Iced Tea: This is the best choice according to the nutritionist

Packaged iced tea is full of sugar and low in tea. Better to prepare it at home or, at least, choose it by reading the labels carefully

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In the summer when it is very hot to cool down a bit, in addition to drinking lots of water, we often also consume iced tea. The problem is that many products on the market are rich in added sugar and, on the contrary, there is often little or no tea leaves. But is it possible to choose a higher quality tea even if it is packaged? We asked a nutritionist.

There is no doubt that sipping an iced tea, in some moments, is a good way to deal with too much heat and the resulting malaise. However, if we do not have the opportunity to prepare it at home starting from tea bags or leaves, and by dosing the quantity of sugar (or not using it at all), the risk of finding ourselves in front of an unhealthy drink is very high.

For some advice on how to choose a packaged iced tea, we asked Ornella Di Geronimo, Specialist in Food Science, for help. Here's what she told us:

With the arrival of heat, the consumption of bottled tea increases: fresh, tasty, thirst-quenching. But will this drink really contain all the benefits of leaf tea? And how to choose it? In this case, a great help is given by nutritional labels. First of all, I would like to remind you that a fundamental rule applies to all commercial products: the fewer ingredients, the better! Obviously this also applies to bottled teas in which unfortunately there is little or no tea leaves, as these are mostly tea 'flavored' drinks.

What does iced tea contain?

Let's better analyze the ingredients that we can find on the label: water, tea, sugar or sweeteners, citric acid, ascorbic acid, flavors and often even dyes. The main ingredient should be tea often made from an infusion or extract. Better the first, more similar to leaf tea as a method of preparation. In any case, its percentage in these drinks is very low. The second component is water, the characteristics of the water used to obtain these teas are often not reported. We can then find a series of ingredients that serve to modify the characteristics of the tea: aromas that modify its taste, preferably natural; citric acid which in addition to being a preservative serves to regulate its acidity and give that lemon-like flavor; ascorbic acid which acts as an antioxidant by blocking its degradation and enhancing the taste of tea; dyes, such as E150d, which serve to darken the drink and not give the impression that it is too light, but which is potentially carcinogenic. Also, have you ever noticed that bottled tea is very tasty? It does not have the bitter taste of homemade tea. This is because it is deprived of polyphenols, responsible for the bitter and astringent taste. But if we drink tea for its benefits, given precisely by polyphenols, what sense is there in choosing a drink in which the concentrations of these substances are reduced? Another point to keep an eye on: they are drinks rich in sugars or in any case rich in sweeteners ... to be avoided or consumed in very small quantities.