Wow. They studies a whole 16 people for this one. Impressive.

16 people isnt even a shitstain of a study.

I call bogus unless they study 5000-10000.

There have been other studies saying the same thing. If you want the full benefits of tea, coffee, cocoa or any other antioxidant-rich foods, you shouldn't consume dairy products at the same time.

What's next? Tea is unhealthy if you add sugar to it?

Man... it's a good thing I add cream instead of milk.

I know I'm new here but how is this a "consumer" issue and not something for a potential Gawker food blog?

I consume a lot of tea.

First my dentist tells me not to put sugar in my tea, then the internet tells me not to add milk. Someone is out to ruin my life. (Yes, all of my happiness is based on tea. You wanna make something of it?)

:: sniff :: Tea is not really tea when it is polluted with milk or cream. Tea may be served with sugar and/or lemon, or simply in all its unadorned amber glory. The end.

I think you'll be better off if you just do things in moderation and ignore studies and over anxious doctors. Just my take.

The royal "we" is getting old.

You're preaching to the choir, SloppyChris... Looks like its here to stay. :)

People consume tea, therefore it is a consumer issue. :P

I'm curious though, What happens if you drink tea then drink milk after? does that cancel it out as well? we have lots of milk and tea in my household.

why isn't there a gawker food blog?!? I demand snarky food stories!!

and I drink my tea black, maybe with some lemon. I am told by my British compatriots I am a heathen, a heretic, a rabble. And so be it.

I'll just suck on tea leaves now. Kind of like 'chew'.

For the record: We love the royal we. We have co-opted the practice on our own blog.

I heard wine is good for us. Can we substitute wine in our tea instead of milk?

Falconfire - you do not need 5,000 to 10,000 people for a scientifically reliable study.

Granted, 16 seems low. Without actually reading the experimental results, I can't say if this was a valid study or not.

@SloppyChris

Get over it, "we" won't hurt you.

As for the topic at hand, I am with ElizabethD on this. All you filthy milk/tea people should be ashamed of yourselves.

To further dwarf's point: if there are an unknown number of coins in a bag, and you randomly remove and then replace one, 16 times, if you get a penny every time, odds are you can say the bag is predominantly pennies. You don't need to do it 500 times. Now, I'm sure their data isn't this clean, but you get the point.

Well, WE require a sample group of at least eleventy bajillion to support conclusions we don't want to hear.

Oh, and we proponents of the Royal We have you loners way outnumbered.

The sample size IS a bit low. In the statistics and research methods classes I took in college, we learned that 30 was the smallest sample size that could still represent a population. Bigger sample sizes are better, of course, but 30 was usually enough to cover most human anomalies.

16? I'm mistrustful of the results.

Wait, do you guys not like my food posts? ::sniff::

Milk in tea? Gross.

For you blood donors out there: Did you know that tea reduces your iron levels? Last time I tried to donate they wouldn't let me because my iron was too low. One of the first things she asked was if I drink a lot of tea - sure enough, I have at least a cup every morning instead of coffee. It's no big deal (especially for guys who have higher iron levels) but if you tend to be on the low end of the iron scale, just cut the tea out for a week or two before you donate blood.

According to the article tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world. So maybe the royal "we" is actually appropriate here. Not that it actually bothers me; I have larger concerns.

When does the Gawker food blog come online? What is Denton waiting for?

The sample size is low, only on women, and measured for one criteria- dilation of the arteries. Not only that, this doesn't even begin to address anything approaching long-term benefits. So they go on to say that this completely "Cancels" ALL the health benefits of EVERY kind of tea? that's a bit like standing in the sand trap on a golf course, deducing that you must be in the Sahara.

Then they go on to make what is at best incompletely supported claim:

"If you want to drink tea to have the beneficial health effects you have to drink it without milk."

You'd think something like that would require a little bit more study, and perhaps more of a cause then "casein cancels out the good stuff"

"So they go on to say that this completely "Cancels" ALL the health benefits of EVERY kind of tea? that's a bit like standing in the sand trap on a golf course, deducing that you must be in the Sahara."
The scientific journal submission likely addressed all your concerns, but journalism ain't science. And blog posts ain't journalism.

Who cares, as long as they don't tell me that I can't smoke...

what the!? i recently ditched coffee for tastier and cheaper black tea with honey and cream. bah!

still better for me than coffee i imagine.

Asian tea rocks! green tea, jasmine tea, oolong tea, black tea, etc...Milk? in tea? heresy! and none of those prissy lemons & sugar either. Proper Chinese tea has none of those! :D

ummm...also I'm suspicious of the sample size & methodology of the study. But I don't take studies in newspapers at face value anyway. In a college class, we compared actual studies to the newspaper reporting of them, and they were almost always at least somewhat wrong. Sometimes minor, sometimes major, and always with some differences in implications, caveats, etc. Newspapers just usually don't report science that well.

I drink a lot of tea. In a pint mug with 2 teabags, sometimes 1 of green tea, perhaps 4 times a day, minimal sugar. Without milk it tastes rather antioxidanty to me - that bitter metallic taste/sensation you get when you drink cranberry etc. I wouldn't want to leave the milk out at all.

I'd like to think i'm pretty neutral on this. (I drink only decaffinated gren tea straight up) And I'll acknowledge that there is a great deal of media spin on this, but the fact of the matter is, any findings from this study are certainly subject to further inquiry before proclaiming that milk and tea don't mix.

What about soy milk? It doesn't taste the same, but I think it does the job.

But it's still alright if I have 4-12 shots of espresso a day, right?

Right?

...aw.

That sucks, will have to drink unhealthy tea

Did you know that tea reduces your iron levels?

It's a good thing I don't like tea.

Honestly, how can you drink something that smells like perfume? Coffee, at least, doesn't smell like a non-food product even if it doesn't taste good.

I have read information from tea suppliers(Like Lipton) that black tea contains phosphates and small amount of milk addition ties up phosphates with calcium. They still don't recommend drowning the black tea in milk. Green tea is not included in this group as I recall.