Whitney Webb – Several leading tea brands in the US and Canada have tested positive for levels of pesticides so high that they significantly exceed the legal limit.
For many people, tea is the ultimate healthy drink of choice. Herbal teas have been enjoyed around the world for thousands of years for their pleasant taste and aroma, as well as for their healing properties. However, some tea brands, including many of the best-selling teas in the US, may not be as healthy as they’d like you to believe. Many of the herbs used in teas are allowed to have significantly higher pesticide levels than fruits and vegetables, sometimes 100% more. This may mean that your tea-drinking habit may be giving you health problems instead of helping them.
CBC News of Canada, using an accredited lab, tested some of the most popular tea brands in North America and elsewhere for pesticide residues. What they found was astounding. More than half of the teas tested had pesticide residues above the legal limit, and 8 out of 10 teas also contained multiple pesticides. The brands tested were: Lipton, Tetley, Twinings, Red Rose, No Name, Uncle Lee’s Legends of China, King Cole, and Signal. Of that list, only Red Rose brand tea was completely pesticide-free. Uncle Lee’s contained over 22 different types of pesticides, such as endosulfan.
