Body Ecology Diet
Green Tea Extract Concentrates Review

I enjoyed reading Donna Gates' Body Ecology Diet program, but how natural is her green tea extract concentrates?

This product has been discontinued by the manufacturer.

It may not be for everyone, but this program has won praises and plaudits worldwide:

"The BED diet has saved my life! At the age of 51, I now have a clean and clear inner eco system. The diet has been exciting and difficult at the same time. But the results are the prize."

"I feel and look 35, as Donna promised. I always believed we are what we eat, but never to the degree of the principles of the BED diet, thank you Donna."

Jill, Waukesha, WI

What Is It?

The Body Ecology Diet (BED, for short) is not just a brand that happens to sell a few natural products. This is a complete system designed by an alternative therapist who has "done it all" before.

Natural health expert Donna Gates wrote ‘The Body Ecology Diet’ when conventional medicine failed her, compelling her to try to heal her own candida-related health problems.

The cultured food diet is a "back to basic" approach designed to help the good bacteria in your body flourish. It treats digestive ailments, and has considerable success in dealing with candidiasis and other immune system disorders.

Here is how they explain it:

The straightforward necessities we provide are all geared to one fundamental law of nature: the fact that our digestive systems are intimately linked to our immune, endocrine, circulatory and central nervous systems.

Profoundly affecting all these interlocking systems is an amazing world of benevolent bacteria: the microscopic "good guys" that must be present in your intestines for you to be healthy.

The Body Ecology system comprises three simple dietary transitions that can have a profound impact on how you feel:

The addition of cultured foods to your diet
Changing the quality of fats and oils you consume
Drastically reducing your intake of carbohydrates and sugars

Green Tea Extract

One 2-ounce bottle of Body Ecology Green Tea Concentrates contains 1,800 drops of green tea extract. To make your cup of tea, mix 20 drops of the liquid concentrates with 8 ounces of water.

One cup of tea is said to contain 100 milligrams of polyphenols.

The liquid concentrate is said to be "naturally caffeine free". They haven't explained why it is natural. This is rather odd, because we all know that green tea is naturally caffeinated, not naturally caffeine free.

My guess is that the green tea extract has been decaffeinated using a chemical solvent (such as ethyl acetate), which happens to also exist in nature.

This may have allowed them to call the product "naturally caffeine free". So the fact the label says that it is "natural" can be misleading.

Chemical solvent such as ethyl acetate routinely destroys a high proportion of the EGCG content of green tea during the decaffeination process.

The article below explained why it is a good idea to avoid "naturally" decaffeinated green tea.

Decaffeinated Green Tea

Advantages

Made from Japanese green tea
Fluoride below detectable level
No heavy metals
Liquid drops superior to tablets or capsules

Disadvantages

Polyphenol content has not been standardised, and so may contain only a low level of EGCG, the most potent green tea antioxidant.
Not herbicide free

Recommendations

Although it is comforting to know that Body Ecology Diet has a product that contains little or no fluoride and heavy metals, they have not revealed how much EGCG the liquid concentrates contain.

This is important, because typical tea extraction process tends to destroy most of the EGCG content. Quoting only the polyphenol content level is meaningless because it is the EGCG that counts.

Approximately 50% of tea polyphenols are EGCG. Personally, I only recommend products that have been standardised to this level of EGCG, so that consumers are not being misled.

If you are thinking of buying this product to lose weight, the fact that it is caffeine free won't help either, as scientific study has found that EGCG and caffeine synergise to boost metabolism and fat burning.

No matter how much I love the concepts behind Body Ecology Diet, I would recommend that you pass on their green tea concentrates.

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