I don't drink coffee or soda however I love unsweetened ice tea. I never liked sweet tea so I don't have to worry about extra calories from sugar, and tea (whether it's green, white, black, whatever) has lots of great antioxidants, the only thing that I wonder about is the caffeine. I have been unable to find decaffeinated and unsweetened. I suppose I could brew my own but honestly I'm all about convenience and would love to just be able to buy a jug of it! On some days I may drink 20-30 oz. and right now I don't drink it every day, but more like 2-4 times a week...but if I did start drinking it every day would the caffeine have any affect (negative or positive) on my weight loss? I've always been sort of immune to the effects of caffeine anyway it seems, I've never felt jittery or that caffeine high, I can have a big 'ole glass of caffeine and head off to bed and go right to sleep and it's never succeeded in waking me up anyway so maybe I'm just worrying about nothing.

Caffeine has a mild positive effect on weight loss because it slightly speeds up the metabolism. I say go for it!

I can see why this was moved to the food forum, probably a better place for it...but why the vegetarian/vegan forum?

thanks for the response kilketay!

Also think it's a bit strange that it got moved to the veg forum?

I personally prefer some caffeine in my day. I have read there's evidence that the decaffeination process used in tea and coffee can leave carcinogenic elements in the final product, so I don't drink those. If I want something without caffeine I'll brew some naturally caffeine free herbal tea (which isn't actually tea at all).

It may have been an error that it was moved to Vegan--I'll check with the admins.

Jay

I need it. I went off caffeine and artificial sweetners entirely for about a year (I got a lot of advice from people telling me one or the other was probably making my fibromyalgia symptoms worse). It didn't really help, and when I was still having a lot of fatigue, my doctor suggested I try caffeinated beverages before using the provigil he prescribed for really bad days. I asked about artificial sweeteners, and he said since I'd been off them for a year, I would notice right away if I had any bad effects from them (like headaches, etc). I didn't so I've been drinking caffeinated teas and sodas as I like.

Green Tea (unsweetned) with a little squeezed orange in it is my favorite!

I, too, benefit from caffine. I don't drink it in the morning, but about midday is when I feel I really need the kick in the butt! It also gives me energy for my evening workout.

I've actually heard from my trainer that caffine can stall? your weight-loss? Now...I don't know how much of that is true, because I'm losing weight pretty steadily and I drink it! I say...if you're not seeing any problems with it...go for it! It keeps you hydrated especially through these hot months.

That can't possibly be true. I drink between 4 and 6 cups of coffee a day and I've never had a problem losing weight. Possibly other problems (um, caffeine dependency, anyone?) but it has never hurt my weight loss.

Sounds fishy to me too, as many weight loss products add caffeine supposedly to boost metabolism and/or reduce appetite (as a mild stimulant, this seems at least more plausible than the theory that it would slow weight loss).

I believe that caffeinated tea has less and 50% of the caffeine in a cup of coffee, it's on the Lipton boxes somewhere....I like the new pyramid teabags of white tea and black...I also don't sweeten, but brew it myself and you could pack it in a disposable water-type bottle....it's a little more work, but you know what went into it if you make it.

I googled "caffeine in tea" and it seems there are widely differing opinions on the amount of caffeine in tea, but everyone does seem to agree that is less than the caffeine in coffee. Black tea has the most caffeine; white tea has the least (with the exception of Bush tea, which isn't really tea and is naturally caffeine free). I have long wished that food and beverage manufacturers were required to list caffeine on the nutritional label (honestly, why isn't this required).

I'm of the same opinion as everyone else--I don't think the caffeine will have any effect on your weight loss. I've read a couple articles lately reporting on recent research that caffeine can actually have positive impacts on your health (reducing the risk of heart disease and diabetes, among other things). So I say, if you like unsweetened tea, go for it!

I think the reason that the caffeine content in tea is so debated, is that the caffeine in tea is a lot more variable than for coffee. Also for both caffeine content is going to depend a lot on how strong you steep/brew your beverage. I wonder if that's one of the reasons that caffeine content isn't listed. I would wonder if it can be made consistent from batch to batch (because of variations in the batches of tea leaves or coffee beans). If not, they would have to test each batch and change the label each time.