Hibiscus Tea - Carb Question

cjthurman

This is my 2nd day on phase 1 of Atkins. Day 1 went well - I thought - until I looked up the nutritional value for hibiscus tea. For a year now or so, I've been drinking 1-3 glasses of hibiscus tea a day to lower my blood pressure (it works very well!). I drink the organic, loose leaf dry leaves (unsweetened). The bag I have doesn't have any nutritional values so I went searching. Many places, including myfitnesspal's database, list hibiscus tea as having 12g of CARBS PER CUP. I couldn’t believe it! And I thought I did so well yesterday!

My question is - do any of you out there drink hibiscus tea? If yes, do you know if it really does have that many carbs? (or any carbs)? I just can't believe it because it doesn't seem like it would (it's very bitter when brewed because of the no added sugar - and I don't add any sugar but I've gotten used to it). I really don't want to give it up because it has been incredibly beneficial to me....

SandyMilton

This is what Perdue University noted about the actual fruit itself...

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke_energy/Hibiscus_sabdariffa.html

Hibiscus sabdariffa L.

Chemistry
Per 100 g, the fruit contains 49 calories, 84.5% H2O, 1.9 g protein, 0.1 g fat, 12.3 g total carbohydrate, 2.3 g fiber, 1.2 g ash, 1.72 mg Ca, 57 mg P, 2.9 mg Fe, 300 mg b-carotene equivalent, and 14 mg ascorbic acid. Per 100 g, the leaf is reported to contain 43 calories, 85.6% H2O, 3.3 g protein,0.3 g fat, 9.2 g total carbohydrate, 1.6 g fiber, <snip>

Now on another site, it mentions the above reference but also stated in the article:

Hibiscus tea is low-calorie. At 49 calories, 100 g of dried hibiscus is nearly 4 oz., which makes a large pitcher of tea. <snip>

GiGiBeans

Hibiscus is rumored to prevent carb absorption. Never tested it's effect personally, I'm more a mint tea fan myself.

mensasu

I drink a lot of celestial seasonings tea and hibiscus is one of the ingredients in their tea bags, but according to their website all the ones I drink have 0 calories and 0 carbs. I don't think they can show that if its not true, so I don't understand the 12 carbs per cup.

LPCoder

Here is a website with the nutritional information for Hibiscus

http://www.nutritionvalue.org/Hibiscus_tea_nutritional_value.html

mensasu

and here is the celestial seasonings version - I know there are more ingredients than hibiscus but still don't understand why its zero
http://www.celestialseasonings.com/products/herbal-teas/wild-berry-zinger

cjthurman

It's a little confusing because some things I see say 12g per cup and others say zero and even other say 23g! (I think the 23g must be for the sweetened). I think if it says zero, it can have anything under 1g - which is fine. I just don't want to be drinking 12g or more per my standard 16oz a day.

praxisproject

I have Celestial Seasonings fruit teas (unsweetened) which are mostly hibiscus. I do wonder though, whether the high count is for eating the actual stuff, rather than using it to make tea.

Check the ingredients. Even stuff that looks okay can be soaked in sugar, some flavoured coffee beans are made that way.

cjthurman

Mine definitely is just the dried leaves - no extra sugar included. If you type in "unsweetened hibiscus tea" into the myfitnesspal database of foods, you'll get something back that says 12g of carbs for a cup. I decided that since I know it is healthy for me, I'm going to keep drinking it unless it causes me to stall on weight loss, but I really would like to know why there are such discrepancies in information regarding this herbal tea. Very odd.

SandyMilton

You should be fine unless you're using 100g of dried tea

The nutritional data I provided up top show two different set of stats - one for the fruit, the other for the leaves.

Both are for 100g which is I think a little over 3.5 ounces - that's a lotta dried tea!

Unless you make your tea super strong, I think you're good. If it was me..... I'd give myself a comfortable cushion and estimate about 25% of that figure for my count. But that's just me and I could be oh so wrong (since I do make mine a tad strong lol)