Kind: captions
Language: en
hello everyone and welcome to day three
here at uh the uh health and tea uh
event with dr lee and then i'm michael
harney and you are elise harney and uh
we are with harney and sons tea
and it was your husband and dr lee that
were such good friends right mom
not that i'm a bad friend of dr lee but
no my husband and dr lee and it's been a
great privilege
to know dr lee from the beginning of his
crusade
to use food to help us beat disease
it's um it is it is it is you know and
um you know we were uh
my mother had his book and with the book
eat to beat disease
how did you how did you organize it i
had all paper clips on all the ends of
the chapters where it tells you what
foods to look for and not you know to be
sure you have
everything and depending on what you're
considering
that but the thing that i do want to say
which i think is very important
uh because of this covid we have become
so
much more aware
for years we just have to get smart
enough to
listen to mother nature to listen to
mother nature and i
just wanted to point out here i don't
know the good doctor knows this but this
i was looking for my copy and then i
read it up here and it's the advanced
copy so i've been proud to be associated
from before it was printed with the eat
to beat diseases
uh so dr lee uh thank you for inviting
us here
well it's a real pleasure um to be here
uh among friends
and i have to say it's been a plea it's
been a pleasure and an honor for me
um to
not only
have come to know harney t's for so many
years
and known elise uh and john on a
personal level uh but to really see
the family
uh and all your activities surrounding
tea continue to thrive i mean you know
if there's one
tea
uh group that cannot be put down by a
pandemic that's going to be harney and
sun tea so i i'm uh i'm really excited
for us to be able to do this together
you know i i normally talk about eating
to beat disease and today i think we're
talking about drinking to beat disease
because
tea is something that is
even more natural to consume than eating
food because it's just we got to stay
hydrated
absolutely that's what they say tea is
water is the mother uh of tea and so
that's very good you know um the the
thing i like about it also is that uh
you know you're gonna talk about we're
gonna talk about the various teas and
their their uh
benefits uh which you're gonna talk
about but uh the thing that i like about
it is that turns out most times the teas
that that
are considered the most healthy by you
are uh the ones which are the best
tasting so
nature as my mother was saying uh has
sort of combined the two of good taste
and and uh probable health benefits uh
there so um i'm i'm excited about the
five ways and as you say you know can't
drink enough tea so i turn over to you a
little bit dr lee
yeah well um so
you know i'm a medical doctor and a
scientist
and i have been
involved for many years trying to
develop better
treatments through biotech biotechnology
for diseases like cancer
complications of diabetes and even
vision loss blindness and we've been
remarkably successful um in fact there's
now 41
fda approved treatments that we've been
deeply involved with and it's a real
privilege and a sort of a badge of honor
to
have contributed to new medical
treatments but
what got me into food was the fact that
i realized that we were treating
diseases
um after they had the horse was out of
the barn and i thought there was an
opportunity a great opportunity to be
able to prevent disease in the first
place
and when you're talking about prevention
you really can't
talk about drugs or medicines they're
expensive
they have side effects they need a
prescription
and you know they're it's not as
accessible worldwide
and but what you can talk about is food
food and beverage i'm using food sort of
in a in a sort of a big
frame
term
and
what's wonderful
in my work is that
many foods more than 200 foods but i
think first among equals i discovered
through my own research is tea and what
does tea do
tea helps our bodies
hard-wired self-defenses
resist disease so our when we're born
when we are formed in our mom's wombs
the day we're born our health defense
systems hardwired are fighting to uh for
our health they help us resist disease
and the question isn't you know why do
we get a disease
it's actually
why don't we get disease more often and
the reason and answer to that question
is because our health defenses are are
really really
raring to go
what are those health defenses
angiogenesis our circulation our blood
vessels our stem cells regeneration
our microbiome our healthy gut bacteria
our dna which also protects us from the
environment and our immune system these
are the five health defense systems that
we are born with
and
if we have
environmental
assaults from ultraviolet radiation
sunburn
fumes pollution
all these things that we're seeing radon
uh
all these things that can affect our
health
chemicals that we inadvertently eat um
they actually take down our health
defenses and what we're looking for
and this is really where tea comes in
are
foods that we love we enjoy that really
mean something to us because they bring
us joy and pleasure and satisfaction
that elevate our bodies health defense
systems and tea
is first among equals i always have a
cup with me when i try to go on so
it's not a clear cup but it's
something i have literally at my side
well there uh there are lots of things
you know the uh original way tea was uh
was drunk back in the days was as a was
as a
it was not medicinal but it was it fell
into the emperor's cup and they thought
it protected them
and and i guess you'd call it medicinal
uh protective medicinal and so it has a
many thousand year history from uh from
china on uh with that so uh and there's
been lots of studies as you know right
especially the green teas
absolutely i mean you know
tea comes from a plant and we know that
plant-based foods are good for our
health that's now
almost universally recognized and
the leaf of the tea which is what we
steep and you're going to show us this
uh mike nobody does it better than you
but from a sort of researcher's
perspective there are thousands
of natural chemicals we call them
bioactives because they act they they
interact with our biology
and um some of the compounds that are
natural chemicals are like catechins
gallic acid uh feminine and theoflavins
and they all wind up in a cup of tea
when you brew it um and um some of the
amazing things that have been shown by
research
is that
drinking tea
actually can uh help prevent our cells
from aging so it's even has a i'm sure
the emperor didn't have the science but
appreciated that anti-aging properties
of tea prevents our telomeres from
shortening so we stay
our cells stay younger slow down
cellular aging
there's a polyphenol everybody talks
about polyphenols
i like to be specific so the polyphenol
that tea that has been best studied in
tea is called pgcg
epigallo catechin gallate egcg
and green tea has a lot of it because
it's closest to what comes off the tea
plant um and and then everything from
that all teas come from that downstream
in terms of how they're prepared
but green tea has you know as much as 16
times the eg cg then some of the more
processed or handled uh teas and one of
the my favorite things to talk about
egcg is that i did research on this with
the national cancer institute
is if you take t
and you put it into the same system
that is growing blood vessels that would
feed a cancer cancers are harmless so
they can't get a blood supply and if you
put t in that system the blood vessels
that would feed a tumor
cannot grow takes it right takes them
right apart prevents new ones from
growing
and you know and so people
say well that's really amazing was it
hot tea or cold tea well in the research
lab we've got to use cold tea
we use cold tea um and so um
obviously you would put a pour hot tea
into a into a dish you'd cook everything
um so this goes to show
uh that the hot tea which is where it
started and then we had to chill the tea
in the refrigerator in a glass
pitcher
we turned the hot tea into iced tea and
the next day when it was cold we then
tested it in the lab so this shows that
this anti-angiogenic cancer starving
property
of tea that get egcg
is present in both the hot tea and
preserved through you know from the
steeping but also preserved in the
refrigeration and cooling and still
works when it's cold so i i think that
the good news there is a hot tea
iced tea
it all works it actually helps our
circulation it's been shown in the lab
to help fight cancer growth other
studies have shown lowers blood pressure
helps your blood cholesterol helps your
immune system it's got antioxidants and
anti-inflammatory properties and the
thing that one of the things that you
know i always say is
you know show me the
the evidence well there's been clinical
studies involving people showing that
drinking two to three cups of green tea
a day is associated with more than a 40
reduction
in the risk of developing colon cancer
so another reason to really
embrace cancer in the family
well that's a good reason for for
everyone to and enjoy it you know it's
just a it's uh and by the way
it makes total sense right we're we're
pouring something into our intestines
that's going to make its trip all the
way through us and so it's protecting
our gut as well
well you know it's amazing dr lee is
that egcg that you were talking about
that that's a prized thing so that's
what drives the price of tea up because
that adds the great flavors and then as
the season grows on goes on it the egcgs
are converted into other chemicals which
um are other molecules which are are
good but uh you know that's what makes
the great teas uh taste good is the eg
cgs
yeah i know that's great so you get a
whole bunch of
these interesting teas in front of us
well you mentioned green tea here so i
thought i'd make some green tea so
people can see because i know loose tea
is the best way to do it and
it then cuts down packaging so this i'm
going to put two
spoons in here this is a perfect
teaspoon you may understand why is it
called a teaspoon because we use it with
tea
could i use less than boiling water 175
thank you
and so it's pretty easy to drink loose
tea isn't it mom well tell them about
the less than boiling water oh we have
to for green tea we use less than
boiling water
because yes that's 175 degrees
and uh that's why i have my mother is to
help me out when i make myself not for
as long as steeping period right three
minutes and 100 yes less heat less time
mom than than boiling water and five
minutes which is what we recommend for
that so thank you very much
so um
i then have the timer as we said and we
got it for three minutes
oh you have a time or two so we have two
timers excellent so then it's pretty
easy to drink uh loose tea
do you drink loose tea then doctor
you know i drink tea anyway i can't get
it but i grew up drinking loose leaf tea
and i kind of like loose tea loose leaf
tea because
i know when the tea is going to settle
to the bottom
i don't have to worry about you know it
floating around but i can also control
the strength of the tea that way and so
it gives me control
oh i was just going to say and sometimes
i like a really strong cup of tea and
sometimes i like a a lighter a cup of
tea and that's why the having tea leaves
you know the loose leaf tea is great on
the other hand you know if you have a
tea in a bag or a sachet
um you can also just pull the bag or
sachet out
the one little tip that i'll tell you
from the health and polyphenol
perspective is if you're using tea
that's
in its own
bag
or sachet you want to dunk that tea
periodically while it's steeping because
that action will actually allow the
natural healthy chemicals the egcg to
come out into the water better
good point good point
uh while we're bringing this did you
want to talk about the oolongs at all
what's the benefits for those
well you know so
oolong tea a lot of people don't realize
has a lot of the same healthful property
of green tea and so whatever you're
hearing about green tea may have a
little stronger
potency or effect but i want people to
remember
oolong is a is a different flavor
along the continuum of green tea and
many people will be familiar with oolong
tea because it's the kind of tea that
often you get served in a chinese
restaurant now the free tea you get is
usually not a high quality tea but it's
you know perfectly drinkable but there
are some very special kinds of oolong
tea which is a little more brown in
color um but it's got a nice rounded
flavor to it i mean you know
you are you are really the t meister and
all i wanted to be able to communicate
is that don't be afraid of oolong it is
um got a lot of the research that shows
it's also good um as green tea it's just
got a different it's a different style
of the tea but what do you know you know
a lot more about the ins and outs of the
tea
absolutely so yeah it's a semi-oxidized
tea so green tea you know they fix it
green where they use just like with the
say asparagus where
it's either steamed or it's put in a fry
um and sauteed if you will uh but oolong
is a slightly damaged so it's like those
um you might say it's like a apple that
you've cut and it's just started to turn
there's my timer
uh
see that was pretty easy right uh it's
just started to turn so the oolongs are
are semi-oxidized and as you say it's a
whole continuum where you got the
lighter ones this is a
alison is from taiwan and this happens
to be from taiwan too and this would be
one that one might find in a chinese
restaurant the formosa oolong now we
always include that in the earl grey
which is uh the most popular flavored
tea
that's out there so that's a
tea that has a little bit of bergamot in
it so that citrus is supposed to be good
for you too isn't it yeah absolutely
well you know the earl grey is really
near and dear to my research heart
because
thanks to harney and sons our we had
done this collaboration at my nonprofit
organization the angiogenesis foundation
where we
studied the anti-angiogenic
cancer starving properties of tea and we
had all assumed that you know the things
that people have said that japanese tea
would be the strongest and then maybe
the chinese green tea and nobody ever
thought that um earl grey would have any
power at all in fact the reason that i
was part of the design of this
experiment was research we chose earl
grey because we thought it was going to
flunk the test and little did we know
that the earl grey came won the gold in
the competition it actually blew away
um both japanese and chinese
green teas and it may be the bergamot
uh that's part of it it was so amazing
but then to beat the earl grey we had
mixed japanese sencha and chinese
jasmine tea and then bam that then you
know um
that then
took took the lead and won the race so
again you know we discovered something
with the help of harney and sons about
tea itself using um just regular tea
putting things together and then using
the power of research to help us
understand something that's so delicious
that we'd like to drink now we even have
more appreciation of it
right well you know i learned from an
old german tea master that he said only
buy tea that makes you smile
and and some of that is because it has
more of the natural uh components more
of the sugars because when you think
about tea we're drinking the sun because
the
sun's energy comes down to the leaves
and then it's translated into
sugars for the tea plant you know it
doesn't do uh it doesn't grow tea just
for you and me dr lee and my mom but it
it's done it for itself and uh so we
only buy teas that make us smile so
that's uh that's i think one thing even
the year old gray has got a a lovely a
lovely uh base of teas with it well you
know the the interesting thing is that
the um
the the
reigning thought was that black teas
dark teas are highly oxidized and that
oxidation process would naturally
destroy useful chemicals but obviously
that's not the case and obviously you
can also add a flavor to the tea like
with bergamot which you know is part of
the tradition of earl grey um what's the
history of earl grey why who's earl and
why is it great oh great it turns out
the original earl grey was a british uh
general that was during the
revolutionary war
uh came over and um
did so many good things that king george
iii made him hereditary earl so um the
good things you and i may not think
we're so good today but uh back then the
the king was very happy with his work so
he became earl grey the second earl grey
was a prime minister under uh queen
victoria and
uh so people like to uh pay homage to
him and so they uh named the tea after
the prime minister
oh that's it that's a yeah that's a
great story you know like i love those
little nuggets that help us understand
the background to what um to what we're
doing by the way i i meant to ask you
this um
the teaspoon that you are using is that
where
truly where the name teaspoon came from
they used it to stir tea or to mix tea
well now you may have taken me outside
my uh my uh your historical story
my father would say yes
right what would you
john's told me yes
well then he must oh yes
it must be but it's easy to make loose
teeth so we have like you can get this
we have or we have the permanent tea
filter here
it's hard to open it but the box once
you open it is a this could go right
into your mug
and then we also have these paper things
which you just put a spoon or two of tea
in there
and uh you would put that in your mug
you make your own tea bag you make your
own tea bag oh then you put it in your
mug so that we have different things
away this is great
so there's different ways to make loose
tea
and uh that's we just wanted to show
people in the states often avoid making
loose tea and i i love that
where do you get your own tea
bag envelopes where does that where do
you get that
oh that's a it's a german company that
makes also the uh this permanent filter
here
i i love the idea that you know there
are
you know the t
is t
but there are different ways that you
can actually brew it and steep it and
that that tea bag thing i bet you've
never done that i'd love to make sure
you get a chance to do it oh yeah i
would love to do that it's a great idea
no it's it's so easy
and then you just dump that in the in
the thing
excellent
excellent biodegradable of course of
course
oh harney harney.com we'll have a yes
you'll be able to get the teas uh as
part of the
the follow-up later on
yeah well look i mean i
uh you know i i'm
just the researcher here
and the doctor trying to tell
um share with you guys and the viewers
that you know um
you don't have to just have one
little thing of tea that you haven't uh
tried in years sitting in your
pantry but look at what
john and elise are surrounded by this
sort of um this the
whole series of different types of teas
sealing the floor um they all come from
the same plant but they have slightly
different tastes
and it's kind of like you know the
connoisseurship of wine is that you know
to the uninitiated exactly
to the uninitiated all red wine tastes
the same um but when if you're if you
start to drink it more you start to
realize how refined and different each
wine is same thing as tea
same thing would be for cheese you know
people that don't you know it's all the
same no no they're very distinctive and
i think that speaks to this
you know the heritage and ancient art of
tea drinking to match the you know the
ancient revered agriculture of growing
tea
so this is you know something that i
know has been
at the heart of harney and sons you guys
not only provide the highest quality of
teas but you're actively
part of the whole process of making sure
from the grower
to you know the people that have it put
in their cup that it's something that
you're you have you have a hand in sort
of the entire process and you're
familiar with the whole thing of what's
actually going on and that's important
to somebody like me who cares about the
quality of the teeth that i drink
absolutely
well dr lee is there more questions do
you think that that i should answer or
we should answer about t
you know the only thing i wanted to
um
i thought maybe i would ask you a
question and you can ask it back to me
and i'll give you i guarantee i'll give
you a different answer but the question
i'm going to ask you that you'll ask
back to me is
how much
tea do you think somebody should drink
oh that's right that's right i'm ready
for that one too okay
so dr lee
how much tea should someone drink of
a day
i asked you first what what's your
answer how much oh well i asked you oh
you asked me okay well i
think that we should drink three to four
of these
wow
that's a that's an alice in wonderland
cup
it's uh it's uh alice it's it's a lot to
drink luckily there's a hole in it so
it's less to drink well i want to say
how much do you drink i
don't eat a lot of tea but i drink a
different tea at different times of the
day really i think that's part of the
joy of it
that um
i can have essentia or i can have
a dragon pearl in the morning
and then i can switch to something
maybe a little flavored or an oolong
i always love the oolongs when i go for
lunch
and then during the afternoon
and they've um fooled around with some
different flavors what does your
daughter drink
in the morning she drinks um
wedding weddings see i'm here for
something wedding tea absolutely yes yes
and of course that's a white tea the
paris
which it was for michael's wife brigitte
the pledgies
right
that is one of our most popular teas but
that's a black flavored right yes uh-huh
yeah but it's got real gray in it too so
i know it's so interesting you know that
the earl grey fits into
some of those blends yes that's true but
and then of course though i do finish
the evening with chamomile
which is good for you right
yes chamomile is very good for you it
actually truly does calm
the mind and the body and the soul and
it also has some good properties for
your gut health so then when you're
sleeping at night it's taking care of
your healthy gut bacteria as well um i
can only um
think that your
love of tea
uh elise
contributes to
um that type of
healthy
aging and beauty that you've actually
been able to have after all these years
you look exactly the same to me as when
i first met you so it's
wonderful that you know you can be
any age you could be a teenager you
could be i mean like you know young kids
are starting to really
come on to tea as well um and i think
that this is um something that can tea
is something you can drink your whole
life and that's the other wonderful
thing
yes that's true
well i think that
before our connection with you
we certainly enjoyed tea
being introduced to it by stanley mason
all of that i mean we really did enjoy
tea but it was only after we started
working with you
that i realized the health benefits of
tea
so all i can say is i'm still here and
thank you
well
you know and thank goodness for that um
but you know so
i i love the fact that you talked about
the different times of the day
let me tell you let me share a little
bit about the um the different types of
diseases that tea has been shown through
research to be protective of and how
much you need to drink and so we talked
about the fact that for colon cancer
research has shown that drinking two to
three cups of green tea
uh causes a a substantial reduction of
about 47 percent
um cardiovascular disease um you know
heart disease which
again cardiovascular is all the blood
vessels in our body stroke brain heart
attack four cups of tea a day which i
easily drink four cups of tea a day um
has been shown to substantially lower
the risk of heart disease same amount
dose for lowering the risk of lupus
which is an autoimmune inflammatory
disease
calming the immune system down to the
right size and you know some of the
things that really surprised me
by lowering inflammation without
compromising our immunity against
bacteria and viruses
you know about four to five cups a day
has been shown to be beneficial to
protect against multiple sclerosis which
is an autoimmune disease and rheumatoid
arthritis as well so these are the
common diseases but look we're actually
in a new era right like this is
uh you know about a year and a half ago
the entire world changed when we had
this pandemic kind of spring out of
nowhere and catch almost all of us
unawares and i can tell you one of the
first things i was involved with was
research looking at diet and health
and so a very early study
going back to the
spring
of the pandemic examined 900 people
in china
uh
i think in near the wuhan area where all
this started and they were tracking
people
um head to toe blood tests saliva
everything else these are not sick
people
well healthy people 900 healthy people
as the pandan was breaking out and they
measured all these different factors
they looked at their stool for their
microbiome they counted they looked at
what healthy gut bacteria they looked at
um blood tests to see
what kind of cytokines or body chemicals
were being produced
and of course they looked at whether or
not people got coveted or not and
something that i caught instantly caught
my eye was that
people who the differences between
people who got coveted and didn't get
covet in this one study
um was linked to
whether or not they had a
natural chemical that the body makes
called interferon gamma
so people who had more interfere on
gamma
didn't get coveted and people who had
more interference gamma
had a very different kind of gut
bacteria
um uh they they had very specific um uh
uh one bacteria called ruminococcus okay
um all i can tell you is that the people
who didn't get covet had this and the
people who did get covet didn't have
that bacteria and then they asked people
what they ate
and they were looking at you know all
the what did they eat what did they eat
and drink and guess what popped up the
people who had the rheumatococcus the
good healthy gut bacteria that had the
interference gamma that wound up not
getting covered in wuhan china where all
this started were people who drank
green tea
and black tea about two cups a day
and so again you know this is um
something that told me
it's time to do more research even more
research into the benefits the
protective benefits of tea i'm not
saying by any means that tea is a
substitute for
other protective measures
you can't ignore it
that's right
the fact of the matter is that you can't
ignore science you can't ignore
research and and what research does is
it gives us the
reason to do
more studies and to and further enjoy
what it is that we um uh already enjoy
and i think when it comes
when it comes to tea it's a no-brainer
that we should study it more we should
drink it more we should enjoy it more
and that's what you're all about here is
are there any any other
any other things that you want to show
with all that wonderful stuff in front
of you
well we talked about how to make tea we
talked about the different types of tea
we didn't show any white tea mother but
we did mention it in wedding right and
that has uh that's the baby of the tea
plant so oftentimes that has a very
concentrated selection of of things that
one would find the precursors of uh of
tea and uh the egcgs are are better in
the spring tea as i mentioned but
they're still uh as they convert into
thea rubicon's
uh you know they and theo flavins uh
it's they they then serve a different
purpose they have a different way of
working their magic but uh however you
like tea as you say four cups is not a
bad way to go through life and as long
as it's good tea that makes you smile
i think that's pretty good
exactly it's a snap
excellent well dr lee this is better to
see you it is uh even from a distance
but one day we'll see you in real life
but um
it's uh it's been great and uh we are so
happy to be associated with you and uh
exactly over the years very privileged
yes it's a great prayer great for you
well thank you
thank you the feeling is mutual
i enjoy sharing my passion uh uh for
tea as medicine but also tea as pleasure
and it is something that i speak very
authentically about because it's been
part of my life and i will continue to
drink
horny tease because i enjoy it so much
great we raise our cup to you thank you