Green tea is one of my favorite drinks.
Despite that, I’ve never consumed green tea as a drink or food that cures bad breath problems. Maybe, drinking green tea was one of the reasons I never had ones?!
I remember the feeling of the cleanliness in my mouth after sipping a cup of green tea. No dry mouth. No sugary taste. Only tasteless saliva flowing through the mouth.
Nothing special, I thought.
I didn’t pay any attention to this. I was talking to people freely without feeling that my breath makes others feel uncomfortable when talking to them.
One day, I found some studies that claimed that there are some positive effects green tea on bad breath and it made me curious.
What kind of green tea benefits help to cure bad breath?
I did my own research about green tea properties and bad breath.
Here is what I found.
The benefits of green tea for bad breath
1. Antioxidants
Did you know that green tea, black tea, and coffee, all contain antioxidants and caffeine?
The difference is the % of antioxidants contained in each of them.
For example.
Green tea contains the highest number of antioxidants but the lowest number of caffeine.
Black tea has fewer antioxidants, but more caffeine than green tea has.
Coffee has the least % of antioxidants but is richest in caffeine.
Among teas, green tea is the richest in nutrients like polyphenols, catechins, or epigallocatechin 3-gallate (EGCG). These healthy nutrients are all antioxidants.
But what do antioxidants do to your body?
Dr. Mike explains it in an easy to understand a non-medical language in this video.
He says that antioxidants prevent free radical damage to your body and explain it by making a good analogy.
Your body is damaged by free radicals like the faucets in your house get rusty. The rust is a direct result of the free radical damage to the body.
How do antioxidants in green tea help cure your bad breath?
Research shows that the antioxidants in green tea kill the sulfur compound bacteria and blocks their ability to reproduce.
This means that the fewer sulfur compound bacteria you’ll have in your mouth, the fewer chances you’ll develop gum disease, tooth decay, caries, plaque, and bad breath.
2. Reduces the appetite
I noticed that drinking green tea reduces appetite. Maybe, that’s the reason, why so many weight loss programs include green tea in their diet.
While the loss of appetite has nothing to do with bad breath, drinking green tea reduces the cravings for sugary drinks and unhealthy food.
These foods taste good but, at the same time, they are a great source for bacteria growth in your mouth. This type of food contain a lot of sugar, which lets odor-causing bacteria to thrive.
So, by drinking green tea, you may easier control the consumption of foods that contain lots of sugar. And this benefit prevents bad breath in the mouth.
How much green tea is too much
Normally, I drink 1 or 2 per day. The maximum is 3 cups of green tea per day. And I drink green tea to enjoy it rather than curing my bad breath.
However, you may find other sources suggesting to drink up to 7 or 10 cups of green tea per day to gain the maximum benefits from its healthy nutrients.
But I like to think that too much good stuff may have negative effects.
For example, there is a reason why the saying goes like this “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”. Notice that the saying doesn’t say to eat 10 apples a day. In that case, eating 10 or more apples may increase the acidic level in your stomach and you’ll definitely need a doctor then.
The key is in moderation.
Conclusion
Drinking green tea won’t cure your breath right away, but adding it to your diet can help you get rid of bad breath in a natural way.
Drinking green tea would definitely not hurt your breath.