Is barley tea ok?
 

I'm in Japan, where a popular drink is mugi-cha, otherwise known as barely tea. The label shows no calories, no protein, no fat, no carbs (per 100 ml serving). I have also read in a Japanese cookbook that it has a slightly laxative effect. Sounds great, right?

That being said, the Atkins site says you should not drink tea with barely in it (on induction, at least). Anybody know why? I drink about a liter of the stuff a day. Usually the Japanese food labels are precise about the ingredients- they will put the carbs count as 1.3 instead of just 1, but perhaps it's sitting at .9 per 100 ml. Just wondering if anyone has better information.

I will hate to have to leave it behind :( if it's a silent saboteur...

I just happen to have a bag of mugi-cha from Korea in my posession. This is the nutritional panel on the bag

Serving size: 25 grams
Fat: 1 gr
Carbohydrate: 19 gr
Protein: 3 gr

Now, this seems insanely high in carbs to me, so I looked up the count for raw pearl barley. I couldn't find one for unhulled barley.

For 100 gr, it's 77.72 gr carbohydrates, which means 19.43 gr for 25 grams of tea, so the count on the bag is for the barley itself, not the tea made from it.

I would think that a minimum amount of carbohydrates would wander into the liquid - as they do with coffee - but not enough to cause any damage. I would believe the label on the package that you have.



Not really, but I'll take a guess. With teas in NA that contain barley, it's usually malted barley which is quite sweet. Malted barley is the principle source of fermentable sugar in making beer.

Karen

Thanks
 

I was really going to be unhappy if I couldn't drink the stuff anymore. Appreciate it! :wave: