Is Honest Tea Bad For You?
Short answer
Honest Tea is not great for you. It is marketed as a USDA-certified organic beverage, but that doesn’t make it healthy. Honest Tea contains a staggering 18 grams of sugar per serving, and it also comes up short on antioxidants.
Harmful to your health. Although benefits may be associated, the bad most likely outweighs the good. Moderation is very important.
View Full Grading System
Category 'A'
Very healthy and numerous health benefits. Side effects are rare. Things rated an 'A+' are typically necessary for survival (for example, water).
Very healthy and numerous health benefits. A few harmful qualities may be associated, but only under certain circumstances such as an allergic reaction.
Very healthy and numerous health benefits. Harmful qualities may be associated, but aren't usually serious.
It is important to note that even the best things in life can become bad in immoderate amounts. So, although something may be rated an 'A+', overconsumption/overdoing can bring unwanted effects.
Category 'B'
Very beneficial to your health. Things rated a 'B+' may have a few harmful qualities to pay attention to.
Overall beneficial to your health. Things rated a 'B' may have some harmful qualities to pay attention to.
More beneficial to your health than not. However, harmful qualities are most likely associated and shouldn't be overlooked.
The main difference between category 'A' and category 'B' is the harmful qualities typically present in 'B' items. Serious side effects are usually uncommon, but are still possible and should be taken note of.
Category 'C'
Both beneficial and harmful qualities associated. Things rated a 'C+' are typically a bit more on the beneficial side. Still, moderation is important.
A fairly even ratio of beneficial and harmful qualities. Moderation is important. Very general topics that can lean towards both sides of the spectrum will be placed here as well. Rice, for example, can be good or bad depending on the type.
More harmful than beneficial. Side effects are common, especially when consumed/done excessively. Moderation is very important.
Category 'C' usually denotes to both good and bad qualities. When it comes to this category, it is important to keep this word in mind: moderation.
Category 'D'
Harmful to your health. Although benefits may be associated, the bad most likely outweighs the good. Moderation is very important.
Harmful to your health. A few benefits may be associated, but the bad outweighs the good. Moderation is extremely important.
Harmful to your health. Very few, if any, benefits are present. Things in this category should be avoided as much as possible.
Category 'D' is typically for things that are more harmful than beneficial. While consuming/doing something unhealthy once in a blue moon shouldn't hurt, we definitely recommend eliminating 'D' items as a regular part of your routine/diet.
Category 'F'
Category 'F' is for things that fail to bring anything beneficial to the table, and are very harmful to your health. We recommend completely avoiding anything in this category. Long-term side effects of 'F' items are usually very serious.
Category 'N'
'N' stands for neutral. Things placed into this category are generally (a) neither good nor bad for you, or (b) lack the necessary evidence to reach any conclusions.
Long answer
Honest Tea was founded in 1998 out of Bethedesa, Maryland. The company was conceived by Seth Goldman, an alumni of both Harvard and Yale. Inspired by his graduate business classes, Goldman set out to introduce a bottled beverage that was healthy, organic and based around fair trade principles.
Less than a decade after it was founded, Honest Tea was already generating an impressive $13.5 million in revenue. The drink surged in popularity—at one point, the New York Times even reported that Honest Tea was President Barack Obama’s favorite beverage. Coca-Cola took notice, purchasing the company for millions of dollars.
Honest Tea is undeniably successful—but is it really all that good for you? Let’s take a look at the label: the honey green tea variety has an incredible 19 grams of sugar per bottle. Of course, that contains honey... but even the classic green tea kind weighs in at around nine grams of sugar. That’s still less than say, a bottle of Coke (39 grams of sugar—and that’s just for a 12-ounce can), but it remains quite high for a beverage.
The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends limiting your daily sugar consumption: 37.5 grams per day for men and 25 grams for women. Regularly consuming more sugar than that can lead to obesity, which causes other serious health problems. And while drinking one Honest Tea every now and then probably won’t make you morbidly obese, a combination of sugary beverages and other poor diet choices will take their toll over time.
Even if you’re willing to overlook the high amount of sugar in Honest Tea, it’s a little harder to turn a blind eye to the fact that it offers almost none of the advantages of ordinary tea. When processed and bottled, Honest Tea loses most of its polyphenols. These are antioxidants which occur naturally in tea. Polyphenols help your body fight cell-damaging free radicals, which can cause cancer, Alzheimer’s and other serious diseases.
In 2010, the American Chemical Society published a study which revealed that your ordinary cup of tea offers up to 150 milligrams of beneficial polyphenols. The number was significantly lower in bottled tea, which only provides somewhere in the ballpark of 3 to 81 milligrams. And unfortunately, polyphenols levels are not printed on the ingredients label of Honest Tea (or any tea, for that matter)... So it’s difficult to know how much you’re getting.
Our recommendation: skip Honest Tea. Try an organic and GMO-free brand like Choice. You’ll get greater health benefits—and significantly less sugar—brewing a cup of ordinary green or black tea.
Possible long-term side effects
- obesity
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hypertension
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heart disease
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diabetes
Ingredients to be aware of
Benefits
- certified organic
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ethically manufactured
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