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unsweetened iced tea?


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Sorry if this is a repeat - the forums won't let me search for the word "tea" beacuse it's only 3 characters! Anyway, I'm new to this (one week into my Whole30) and I've been drinking a lot of my own home-brewed unsweetened decaf iced tea as an alternative to just having water. That's Whole30 compliant, right?

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Tea has soy too??? :o I need to check my boxes tonight!

Yeah that's how I felt!! A lot of teas have them. You can get some clean herbal teas. Soy is in a LOT of stuff. I wanted to get some olive oil cooking spray from TJs yesterday but it has soy lecithin in it, so I just put a little oil in the pan and brush it around :)

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Another problem with packaged iced teas is how the teas are made. Packaged teas are typically brewed in large batches than spray dried...meaning, they are blown by hot gases until most of the liquid (largely water) evaporates and a powder of the tea remains. This process creates an unfavorable change in how the tea tastes.

An artificial additive called maltodextrin is often added to the tea powder. Maltodextrin is essentially a set of simple sugars made from processing the heck out of corn starch. It serves two purposes...one is to provide just enough sweetness to the palate to balance off any acrid taste that was accrued by the spray drying of tea. The second is to facilitate mixing the tea in cold water. Maltodextrin sucks up water in to its molecules like a sponge, literally, which helps the tea blend in water.

The maltodextrin additives provide a particular issue for diabetics as it is absorbed like glucose. And because food manufacturers are essentially allowed by the FDA to tell little white lies about calorie and carb content, it is included in teas (and other products) that may say zero calorie or zero carb on the label. Certainly, there are not a lot of carbs in the unsweetened iced tea -- it is, after all, supposed to taste like unsweetened tea -- they are nonetheless there. They create a glycemic index where there doesn't have to be one.

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Does anyone have suggestion on a whole30 compliant iced tea to brew at home? I also just noticed today my unsweet tea I usually drink has caramel color in it. From what I have googled I am guessing this is a no-no for whole30. I am glad I haven't had any since I started. (Only on day 2). 

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I use the Lipton Cold Brew bags...well, I use them in the summer. I haven't had it in a while; it's too cold out!!

Anyway. The box says the ingredients are Orange Pekoe and Pekoe cut black tea. No caramel or soy or anything.

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The caramel color does make it not ok for Whole30.

There are many compliant options, you'll just need to go read labels on ones that sound interesting to you.

I just recently found Celestial Seasonings Watermelon Lime Zinger, a caffeine-free herbal tea, that I've been enjoying as an iced tea. 

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