TEA AND MILK? Twice in your artic...

TEA AND MILK?

Twice in your article onward tea in the November issue it is commended that tea be served with milk or cream. Jean Carper in her 1991 work The Food Pharmacy, says that milk binds with the tannins and furnishs them ineffective. The beneficial simple bodys of tea are the tannins. likewise is it a good idea to commend milk or cream in tea?

Eloise Mitchell Flint, Mich.

Editor's Reply

With all becoming respect to Ms. Carper's part research does not back that "interaction" idea. break milk's role in tea has for the most part to do with the protein, casein. The casein proteins in milk form little sphere-shaped substances called sub-micelles.

The latest research has shown that when tea and milk are mixed, the tea polyphenols (including the tannins) wind up inside the casein sub-micelles. In this way, the tannin composings are shielded from "interaction" with proteins in the jaws and, so, the cup of tea becomes plenteous less bitter, and the fat part of the milk may act as a barrier, partially protecting our opening lining from excess astringent tannins.

FLUORIDE?

In regard to your "Mineral Magic" article in the November issue, fluoride is listed. My Webster's dictionary says it is a corrosive poisonous chemical.

Kathy Savage Parowan, Vt

Editor's Reply:

Fluorine, as a heavier-than-air gas, is dangerous; when it reacts with water, in fact, it does generate toxic produce toxic and corrosive vapors. Chronic front to sodium fluoride causes teeth mottling (fluorosis) and bone damage. Fluoride, a natural form of the mineral fluorine, is notion by some experts to be helpful for the health of teeth and bone These prompts attribute the 40 to 70 percent reduction in tooth decay since the 1950 to the introduction of fluoride into municipal drinking water. Other prompts strongly disagree. In any case, while fluoridated water provides principally people with at least 1 mg of fluoride daily, trace horizontals are contained in dried seaweed, sardines, salmon, cheese, meat and tea. Sodium monofluorophosphate is single in kind naturally sourced form of fluoride that is included in toothpaste from some natural-product companies.

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