does tea = water?

hello

i drink tons and tons of tea. like 5 cups a day! i am an addict. im not looking to get flamed cuz this isn't the best thing for me i know :p but tea is warm and im sensitive to cold. and its yummy! so because im usually sipping nice warm tea i don't drink as much water as i should don't get me wrong, when it's warm water is all i drink.  so does the tea contribute to my 8 glasses of water a day? or should i just suck it up and freeze? :D

p.s. the tea is almost always non caffenated herbal teas. sometimes green or black tea, but im not supposed to drink them. *shhh*

Not REEALLY because Tea contains Caffeine.

You should be drinking pure water.  It's good for you :)

But.... herbal tea, on a weight watchers type of diet (though I'd google it to make sure but I remember from way back when I belonged to such a program), has no caffeine & MAY be counted towards your tally.

Caffeine does the opposite - it's dehydrating.

OK, yes. Ms. Poohb is correct. Decaffeinated tea is OK :)

Yay!

Do I get a prize?

*puts the calorie count medal of friendship around poohb's neck*

Actually, poohb. I DO Have a prize for you :)

I'll share with you the Recipe for Moosewood Matzo Ball Soup (not now. the recipe's at home :) ). I suspect you'd appreciate it :) And it's healthier than most other Matzo Ball Soup :)

Though, it's got no Chicken :)

Tea and Caffeine, hmmm

• Tea, iced 47 (mgs of caffeine)
  
• Tea, brewed, imported brands (avg.) 60
  
• Tea, brewed, U.S. brands (avg.) 40
  
• Tea, instant 30
  
• Tea, green 15

I think this has been posted before, it seems to point toward you being able to count tea as water intake.

In a recent review article, ?Caffeine, Body Fluid-Electrolyte Balance, and Exercise Performance,? published in the June 2002 issue of the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, researcher Lawrence E. Armstrong, a professor of exercise and environmental physiology at the University of Connecticut, found that caffeine is not the dehydrating demon some people believe. In fact, he concluded that caffeine is no more a diuretic than water.

Armstrong?s analysis of the scientific literature that was focused on moderate amounts of caffeine (equivalent to one to four cups of coffee a day) indicates:

• When consuming a caffeinated beverage, the body retains some of the fluid.
  
• Moderate caffeine consumption causes a mild diuresis very similar to that of water (water, when consumed in large volume, increases urine output).
  
• A person who regularly consumes caffeine has a higher tolerance to the diuretic effect.
  
• There is no evidence that consumption of caffeinated beverages causes a fluid-electrolyte imbalance that is detrimental to health or exercise performance.
  

All beverages contribute water. It's just if you are really dehydrated when you should drink only pure water.

You say yes

I say no

You say why

I say I don't know....

can you not just drink the water AND the tea as well?

I've always read that for every cup of coffee, tea or soda you drink, you should drink an extra cup of water.

wowie! thanks for the quick replys!!

as is sit here drinking my peach tea *schlurp* i think i will do what nomoreexcuses says - just in case.  but thank you all so much!

Eek, with 5 cups of tea, thats 5 cups of water, you may just go over your limit with water. :S

I have a related question to the topic - Is it bad to drink too much h2o?  I usually drink around 10 - 15 pints of water per day...

I also thought that dehydration myth had been debunked, and that you can indeed count the tea/coffe consumption towards your fluid intake.

Yes, the myth has, the study is around here somewhere.

I read a study not too long ago that it really depends on how often you drink coffee/tea.  If your body is adjusted to the caffeine intake then drinking coffee/tea provides the same fluids as drinking water plus there are a great number of anti-oxidents in both drinks, coffee being Americans number once source of anti-oxidents today.  Really though I would still drink water but just do not think that you need to be sipping a glass of water with each glass of coffee to maintain health.

It also depends on other things specific to you, like whether or not you have arthritis and whether or not you take any medications...

It's not THAT hard to drink water....is it??? 

just drink it!  =)  you'll like it!  Hey Mikey....

I count herbal teas as drinking water... I also enjoy the warm tea ('specially in the winter).  But I don't count caffeinated beverages as water.  It's a pretty even split between cold water with lemon and hot tea...so I get water in both forms...but it's still water. 

One other thing re herbal teas, I drink a variety of herbal teas since that way I'm pretty confident that I'm not consumming too much of one herb or another. 

I have been doing a lot of research on this topic, and I want to announce that drinking caffeine does not dehydrate you.  It's a myth.  There's a lot of scientific documentation that suggests that even the much maligned coffee does increase hydration, not decrease it.  Here's an exerpt from an expert in the area, CMM medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen (interviewed by Kyra Phillips):

PHILLIPS: All right, does caffeine make you dehydrated?

COHEN: This to me was the most surprising one. The answer here, that is false. Caffeine does not dehydrate you. We have all heard that. It turns out that it is something of an urban myth. What they did is they gave people caffeinated beverages and gave them other kinds of beverages, and caffeinated beverages did not dehydrate them when taken in normal levels. When they gave people tons and tons of these, then could it dehydrate them. Of course, if you're going for a hike in 100 degree weather, you don't want to be drinking just caffeinated beverages; you want to mix it up. But it is not actually going to dehydrate you if you are just drinking a couple of caffeinated beverages.

PHILLIPS: Elizabeth Cohen, I guess I might have to start coffee again.

COHEN: Kyra, if it has made you feel better, if you feel better, then should you stay off of it. You are just one of those people who maybe shouldn't be drinking caffeine.

Here's the link:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0208/2 7/lol.04.html

So I say, if you like it, drink up!  If you feel better without it, avoid it.

But how do we know that this isn't just propaganda to sell more coffee and tea?  If caffeine is so great, why don't you want it on a 100 degree day?   :p

I will tell you this.  I have bad arthritis in my left ankle from an old injury and when I quit drinking caffeine (used to drink iced tea) my ankle stopped hurting as much. 

Was I dehydrated?  I don't know, but I'll stick with the water and less ankle pain.

I also stopped having night sweats and racing heartbeat at night when I quit caffeine.  You can keep aaaaaaaalllllll the caffeine for yourselves and we'll both be happy.

Not to discount e/o else's comments, but when all is said and done, the answer to littlefroggie's question about whether or not she may count her herbal decaf teas as water seems to be yes. 

And HK - I didn't see this till now... I want that Matzo Ball soup recipe!  Where?  Where is it?