Fruit, Vegetables and Tea?

There was an interesting advert on the London tube in the last few months extolling the virtues of drinking lots of tea, which appeared to be claiming some very significant health benefits from so doing. The most eye catching of these adverts was titled "5 portions of fruit & veg plus 4 cups of tea, it all adds up to a healthy diet".



I think it is important to be careful with what you believe when you see adverts claiming certain benefits, and particularly I think you have to think very carefully about the wording used to see what is actually being claimed, versus what is being implied, verses what the advertiser is hoping will be inferred. In this case the small print is quite long winded and I think very cleverly worded (unfortunately too small to read in the version above, but this was printed on a 6 feet tall poster on the tube):

"Fruit and Vegetables are a good source of antioxidants and the Government recommends that we should eat 5 portions or more a day. But did you know that tea is too? We recommend 4 cups a day to contribute to a diet rich in antioxidants which could help to protect your body against the damaging effects of free radicals".

There are a number of reasons to be sceptical about this.

• It doesn't actually say why the government recommends eating 5 portions of fruit a day, just that fruit and veg contain antioxidants and the government recommends eating it - there is no link between the two.
• It is stated that tea and fruit and veg have something in common - that is antioxidants, but it is not claimed that this is the property that makes fruit and veg so healthy.
• The supposed benefits of antioxidants are actually not proven - only that it "could" protect you from the damaging effects of free radicals.
• The damage caused by free radicals is again not defined
  
• While it is the government that recommends fruit and veg, it is only "We" that recommends 4 cups of tea. In this case you should know that "We" is actually the United Kingdom Tea Council -
  

"We represent the world's major tea producing and exporting countries and the UK tea packing, and distribution companies".

Clearly, an organisation that has a vested interest in encouraging people to drink more tea.

The inference drawn by most people from this advert is that tea is good for you. However, the actual wording is such that it avoids making this claim, presumably because there is no evidence that supports such a statement. We can make this presumption on the basis that if tea really was great for your health, that fact would be the subject of this advert. As it is however, we are presented with a very cleverly worded attempt at linking tea with the benefits of eating fruit and veg, which when read more closely, in fact says very little, except that tea manufacturers would like us to drink more tea.