Overall, if you're limiting the amount of caffeine in a day, you're not adding a ton of sugar or highly processed ingredients, and you're just enjoying a refreshing iced tea recipe to change up your pace of drinking plain water to keep you hydrated, iced tea is a perfectly healthy choice.
The Harvard School of Public Health lists tea as one of the best sources of hydration, second only to water. Opting for unsweetened iced tea means you'll increase your intake of essential nutrients and compounds. This benefits your health as you avoid the nutritional disadvantages associated with sweetened iced tea.
Though moderate intake is healthy for most people, drinking too much could lead to negative side effects, such as anxiety, headaches, digestive issues, and disrupted sleep patterns. Most people can drink 3–4 cups (710–950 ml) of tea daily without adverse effects, but some may experience side effects at lower doses.
Your best bet is to look for iced teas labeled "unsweetened." These may have flavors (such as lemon) added, but they'll be calorie-free and won't contain any type of sweetener. "If you like, mix in a teaspoon of sugar or agave syrup," Keating says.
Team leader, Dr Carrie Ruxton, a Public Health Nutritionist, said tea is better for you than water because all water does is rehydrate you. Tea rehydrates you and provides antioxidants.
Tea is a low-caffeine drink, so the diuretic effect is minimal. On the whole, tea gives your body much more water than it causes your body to lose. So drinking hot tea or iced tea helps to hydrate your body overall.
“Iced tea is full of oxalic acid, which, when taken in excess, deposits in your kidneys and mucks up the work of removing waste from the blood,” says Scott Youngquist, MD, an emergency physician at University of Utah Health.
Cimperman said drinking tea has been linked to lower risks of cancer and heart disease, improved weight loss, and a stronger immune system. Meanwhile, studies point to coffee as a potential way to head off not just Parkinson's but type 2 diabetes, liver disease, and heart problems, Cimperman says.
Iced Tea – 24g (6 teaspoons) of sugar per 8 oz.
The trouble is that iced teas are marketed these days as natural and healthy, and you can easily overlook how much sugar they contain. For example, Arizona Iced Tea contains 24g of sugar per serving and Snapple Lemon Iced Tea contains 23g.
Diet drinks have no nutritional benefits. Switching to iced tea which contains polyphenol antioxidants can provide health benefits. Iced tea without sweetener (sugar or artificial sweeteners) is a delicious alternative to diet soda.
Soda obviously has zero redeeming qualities when it comes to nutritional benefits. Tea, on the other hand, has been shown to have potential benefits to multiple systems of the body, including cardiovascular and brain health, which is likely due to the antioxidant content.
Unsweetened and iced tea is beneficial for people trying to lose weight. This may even be good for obese people suffering from the problem of hypertension and other cardiovascular issues.
Fruit juices, chopped frozen fruit and fruit purees are great natural sweeteners. White grape and pomegranate juices are great with both black and green tea and make a delicious, refreshing iced tea. If you use purees or chopped fruit, strain the tea before serving to remove the solids.
What counts towards your fluid intake? Non-alcoholic fluids, including tea, coffee and fruit juice, all count towards your fluid intake. A lot of people believe, mistakenly, that tea and coffee are diuretics and dehydrate you.
Unsweetened Tea Can Help Support a Healthy Heart
Making a simple swap of unsweetened tea for sugar sweetened beverages or other beverages with little nutritional value can be one effective strategy to reduce added sugar intake. Plus, tea is one of the best sources of flavonoids in the diet.
Steeping tea in cold water has been shown to provide the same antioxidant and nutritional benefits in most cases. The exception to this is white tea. White tea has been shown to actually have increased antioxidant properties when steeped in cold water instead of hot.
Best for Overall Health: Green Tea
When it comes to tea, green tea gets the gold. “Green tea is the champ when it comes to offering health benefits,” says Czerwony. “It's the Swiss Army knife of teas.
Iced tea has 4 times more Phosphorus than Coca-Cola. While Iced tea has 36mg of Phosphorus, Coca-Cola has only 10mg.
The Eatwell Guide says we should drink 6 to 8 cups or glasses of fluid a day. Water, lower-fat milk and sugar-free drinks, including tea and coffee, all count.
Iced tea contains high concentrations of oxalate, one of the key chemicals that lead to the formation of kidney stones. This is the peak season for drinking iced tea, but a Loyola University Medical Center urologist is warning the popular drink can contribute to painful kidney stones.
Research shows that milk is one of the best beverages for hydration, even better than water or sports drinks. Researchers credit milk's natural electrolytes, carbohydrates, and protein for its effectiveness.
In all essence, unsweetened tea does count as water. Tea, although mildly diuretic, help your body get hydrated, and your body absorbs the maximum water from the beverage. According to studies, drinking four to six mugs of tea a day is as good for keeping you hydrated as a litre of water.