What are the non-essential nutrients?

What happens to tea when you mix it with hot water and does putting sugar into tea cancel out the nutrients?

• I was wondering, since putting vegetables into boiling water will destroy the nutrients in the vege, won't it be the same for tea leaves? Particularly green tea. And if we put sugar into green tea, will that also destroy the nutrients contained in the tea?

• Answer:

  Sugar does not "cancel out" nutrients...in general, sugar is not the most chemically reactive substance...it tends to not hugely impact other ingredients in foods. Other things, like proteins, minerals, and other substances tend to be more likely to bind to things. Like the other person said, all sugar does is add empty calories. Heat does break down many nutrients, but if you do not cook something too long, even if you boil it, it can still have plenty of nutritional value. Tea is not even boiled; when you steep tea, you generally pour water (which in the case of black tea, is usually at near-boiling temperature) over it, but the water quickly cools, and is never truly at the boiling point. With green tea, the ideal brewing temperature is lower, so it's even less of an issue; you can read more about brewing temperatures and methods here: http://ratetea.net/topic/brewing-tea/6/ Plus, regardless of whether or not the water is destroying nutrients, that's how tea is made...it typically doesn't taste good unless you use hot water. And most of the studies on the health benefits of tea have analyzed drinking actual tea, stepped with hot water--and they've found and verified some health benefits. You can read about these here on this other page I also run: http://ratetea.net/topic/health-benefits-of-tea/8/ -- So if anything is breaking down, there is still a lot left. Also, many of the beneficial chemicals are better extracted if you use hot water. Heat is complex: it causes some chemicals to break down, but it also causes others to dissolve more readily. Many chemicals (including caffeine, and most of the antioxidants in tea) can handle hot temperatures just fine without breaking down. For example, caffeine starts breaking down at high temperatures (this is why dark roast coffee can actually contain less caffeine than light roast) but it does not break down appreciably at the temperature of boiling water. Hope this answers your question!