I was addicted to chemical sweeteners for over a decade. The hardest thing I ever had to do was to give up equal and diet sodas. I consider it a big accomplishment for me so please don't knock it. One day you may realize what those chemicals do to your body and try to quit and I wish you the best of luck when that happens.

I love tea & drink a lot of it,but don't use any artifical sweetners because of migranes.Bigelows Constant Comment is a fav.Green tea...to me...has no flavor, so I use one green tea bag & one of CC together.I count tea as part of my water.....works for me.

I drink coffee...love it..it really helps me...Truvia has MSG in it so don't be alarmed if the scale slows--MSG really makes me puffy. It is just fluid retention though. Good for you to figure out that tough time--I have a bad problem during that same exact time frame!

Wannabe,

I think you are SPOT ON with the sweetner comment. I am still addicted to the sweetners despite my efforts to get off them. There is definitely much more to health than a number on a scale.

Nobody is "knocking" anything and not to hijack a thread, but I applaud you for beating an addiction, most cases of people being fat (I am not going to sugar coat it we're fat ) deal on some level with addiction so anyone that has dropped a significant amount of weight deals with an addiction on a daily basis, what that has to do with your reply to what I posted I can't figure out as my reply was directly related to your comment. Also any study that shows that, in my opinion is most likely bias opinions from someone that has something to gain by the results because if I can drop more than 200 pounds and use a "sweetener" on a daily basis while doing so sort of shoots all kinds of holes in those studies.

and as far as "when that happens" goes, I am not worried about that what I WAS worried about was dieing young and above 500 pounds, which I have remedied by eating healthy and moving more over the last 2 years.

sorry for the slight hijack, I just felt the need to respond

As Ever
Me

Bottz--I agree.

My adoptive mom is morbidly obese--probably super category. When I was helping her (and she was receptive) I felt the same as you. ONE BATTLE AT A TIME! I was more worried about her dying (and am still worried) from obesity than risk factors that may or may not be associated with sweetners.

For myself I was just ready for the weight to GO! I have tried other sweetners, more natural things, whatever but seem to gravitate to Splenda every time. I really hope to conquer it at some point.

Can anyone tell me if chai is considered a herbal tea? I really like it, and I've been drinking a lot lately with light vanilla soymilk.

It depends. Chai actually just means tea, although it's commonly used to mean spiced tea. Normally, that would mean real tea (black tea). However, there are companies that put out herbal "teas" flavored with the spices of "chai." So you have to look at the ingredients.

My favorites are lemon, chamomile, and peppermint.

herbal teas are good for you, especially green and white teas.

I've drank Sweet Tea all my life (for those that don't know, thats regular black tea with sugar in it) and am trying to curb that habit by drinking herbal tea with honey in it to sweeten it.

Just wanted to make sure every knows green and white teas are not herbal teas. They are true teas, and are not caffeine-free.

I too have been using an evening hot-tea "ritual" to substitute for evening snacks, especially since one of my new eating behaviors is to NOT eat after 7 pm. I bought some new mugs, great tasting green and white teas to add to my collection of herbal teas, and a Capresso Water Kettle for a rapid boiling. (Works great for my morning French press coffee too.)

I don't use sweeteners because I find they stimulate my "sweet receptors" - although there isn't any evidence to show that is true in general. Also, just like ex-smokers start discovering how good food tastes once they quit cigarettes, eliminating sweetening anything has let me experience the delightful taste of food as nature intended.

My turn to chime in: I agree that in general a hot tea beverage is a great thing to avoid snacking. I personally had to cut back on tea drinking, because I usually snacked with it, having cookies with my afternoon tea.
Both black and green teas have antioxidants so have benefits. SInce cutting back caffeine I can only have decaf in the afternoons, and not even that in the evening.
Herbal teas (I prefer the term tisane, to differentiate) only have caffeine if its added or the herbs have it, but beware, lots of specialty teas like "blackberry" etc may be black tea with flavouring, and have lots of caffeine so read labels carefully.
I also wonder if some of the fruit teas (especially herbals) are really calorie free? Are they getting flavour from dried fruit in the mix? If so, they could be natural sugars coming out and affecting you. Not sure on this.
I don't think, unless you drink a ton of black teas you will yellow your teeth tho, I have no major problem and have been drinking several cups of black tea a day since age 10.
hmm
maybe we should organize a virtual tea party!
no cream cakes please tho

What you would typically consider a "chai" is *technically* a tea, as it's made with herbs/spices and not beans. The additions of [soy]milk and sugar negate most of the benefits of drinking tea, though.

As someone else pointed out, "chai," itself, just means "tea" in most Indian languages. "Masala chai" is the beverage we consider "chai," although it's significantly different from real masala chai. We ordered some at an Indian restaurant, and it was simply a mix of (from what I could taste) cardamom, cinnamon and, I think, masala spices. No sugar, milk or anything else.

((Sorry to chime in so much. Tea is field of personal expertise. If you could only see my kitchen...))

Try getting some good loose leaf tea instead of decaf teas. If you like green, start with a variety called "Dragon Pearl" (sometimes called "pearled" or "balled" jasmine). It's got an oddly sweet taste. And, even though it's naturally caffeinated, you can brew the leaves four to six times. Most of the caffeine comes out in the first brewing.

Most fruit teas don't have fruit pieces in them. Blood Orange Black teas, for example, have blood orange peel, not orange pieces. Most lemon teas have lemon grass, lemon balm or lemon peel. Good blackberry/raspberry teas will use the leaves.

I've seen a few teas (usually of unfortunately low quality) that have dried fruit pieces, but those have so many "extras" ("natural flavors" and other unnamed ingredients) that they've stopped being tea and become more of a dried, uncarbonated soda. My daughter just bought a bag of "strawberry" tea, which comes with leaves presoaked in strawberry juice then redried. ><