Nowadays, we are surrounded by pesticides, from the food we buy in the grocery stores, in the parks outside out homes, and school playgrounds.

Therefore, in order to avoid their adverse effects, you should make numerous efforts, like consuming only homegrown and organic foods, to washing the purchased foods before consumption.  Yet, these toxic pesticides seem to somehow find a way to enter our lives and endanger our health.

Apparently, a recent research found elevated levels of these dangerous chemicals in the most popular brands of tea bags, such as Twinings, Tetley, and Lipton.

Namely, there was an investigation conducted by the CBC News on the tea bags produced by popular companies worldwide, including:

• Tetley
• Lipton (Yellow Label Black Tea and Pure Green Tea)
• Twinings
• King Cole
• No Name
• Red Rose
• Signal
• Uncle Lee’s Legends of China (Jasmine Green Tea and Green Tea)

The researchers used an accredited lab to examine the amounts of pesticides on the dry tea leaves, with the same technique employed by the national Food Inspection Agency.

They found that more than a half of the examined teas included pesticide residues in illegally high amounts. Moreover, 8 out of the 10 teas tested included various chemicals as well, with one brand of tea having more than 22 different pesticide types.

Furthermore, some of the pesticides found in these teas, like monocrotophos and endosulfan, are actually in the process of getting banned in few countries, as they negatively affect the environment and represent a threat to workers that handle it.

While most of the tested teas included pesticide traces, some brands had an excessive amount of these harmful pesticides, which goes beyond the legally set limits.

Hence, you should be aware that the best tea brands are the ones that contain no pesticides. However, the following tea bags brands are the worst possible alternative, and you should avoid them at all cost:

• King Cole.- This tea brand is high in pesticides, as well as monocrotophos, which is in the process of getting banned, as it leads to irregular heartbeats, coma, and involuntary defecation.
• Uncle Lee’s Legends of China (Green Tea). –Research has identified more than 20 different types of pesticides, including endosulfan, which is also to-be-banned pesticide in many countries, as it causes various side-effects, like disorders of the nervous system, tremors, and its consumption has even lead to death in some cases.
• No Name. This tea has been found to contain more than 10 different pesticide types.

These findings have lead to a reaction from the tea producing companies. For instance, James O’ Young, vice president of Uncle Lee’s Legends of China, which is the tea brand which has been found to include most pesticides, defended his brand by claiming that al tea includes pesticides in the content. He said:

“If you drink tea, regular tea, I don’t care it’s what brand is that, the fact of life, this agricultural product does have pesticides.”

He neglected the fact that the research conducted by the CBC found that Red rose was the only brand that does not contain pesticides out of 10 tested. This shows that tea may be cultivated without pesticide residue and that his statement is just one of the many told by big corporations in order to deceive customers.

Hence, you should support those companies which produce tea free of pesticides by avoiding the ones that are filled with it, like No Name and Uncle Lee’s.

For a complete list of the different tea brands click here.

Source: theheartysoul.com
Other included sources linked in The Hearty Soul’s article:
http://www.panna.org/pesticides-big-picture/pesticides-101
http://www.fao.org/docrep/w5715e/w5715e04.htm
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/pesticide-traces-in-some-tea-exceed-allowable-limits-1.2564624
http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/blog/full-tea-test-results
http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/153376/
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