Matcha is a type of Japanese green tea made from tea leaves that are grounded up into fine powder. In general, 2g of matcha would be around 5 calories. This usually is able to make 1 cup of matcha to drink. Therefore, matcha will not break your intermittent fast because the calories are low enough to not make an impact on your fast. However, this only applies to straight matcha and water because adding other ingredients such as milk or sugar will add calories and therefore break your fast.
What is Matcha?
Matcha is made from green tea leaves that are grown in the shade. They are covered to prevent direct sunlight to help slow down their growth and increase their chlorophyll levels. After they are dried, they are stone milled into fine powder.
Matcha is served during the Japanese tea ceremony. This tradition has developed into a transformative and spiritual practice in which it helps convey the beliefs of respect, tranquility and harmony. Usually, ceremonial grade matcha is used in the Japanese tea ceremony, this is the highest quality of matcha and is prepared in both a thick or thin matcha tea.
Pure matcha contains no sugar or any other ingredients. On average, 2 grams of matcha would be 5 calories, 1g of protein, 1g of carbohydrate and 1g of dietary fibre. If you are not familiar with matcha, you might feel like the matcha tea is bitter.
Matcha is high in catechin, this is a plant compound that is found in tea that is considered as a natural antioxidants. In particular, matcha is a powerhouse because drinking matcha also means that you consume the tea leaves and allows for you to absorb all the nutrients from the leaves. In fact, one study suggest that matcha has around 137 times more catechin than other types of green tea.
Matcha is high in the catechin called epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), this catechin is believed to have cancer fighting effects on your body. Studies have also suggested that there might be a correlation between drinking matcha to reducing type 2 diabetes, heart disease and even losing weight.
Matcha powder is very versatile. While it is often known to be drank as a tea, it is also used in many different ways. One of the most common thing that pops up to your mind is matcha latte, a mixture of matcha, hot water and milk. It is also used often in desserts, you can easily find matcha cakes, matcha ice cream, matcha pudding and many more. Recently, it has also been popular to use matcha in your skincare.
Matcha and Intermittent Fasting
When you are in your feasting stage, it is clear that you can eat and drink whatever you want. This means that you can drink your matcha with just water or even add milk into it to make a matcha latte. In addition, you can eat all the delicious foods that are made with matcha.
While you are in your fasting stage, you are allowed to drink matcha with just water. This means that it is straight matcha without any additions such as milk or sweeteners. But you should keep in mind that 2g of matcha powder would be around 5 calories. Therefore, it is best you do not drink too many cups of matcha tea in your fasting stage. Because the amount of calories is low, it is negligible enough to not have an impact on your fast.
Although matcha is not suppose to impact your fasting stage during intermittent fasting, I would advise you to try it out and see how you feel. Get a feel for it and see if it has any negative or positive impacts on your fast. If you feel like it hinders your fast, you might want to consider trying out regular green tea or another type of tea.
If your goal of intermittent fasting is to lose weight, drinking matcha might help. There has been studies showing that green tea has the ability to enhance your weight loss. The catechins in matcha is able to help boost your metabolism and might even help break down your fat molecules more. Although, this effect seems to be quite modest and might require you to drink around 6 to 10 cups of green tea a day to get the amount of catechins needed to take effect.
All in all, matcha is definitely a great drink to consume while you are fasting. Just make sure that you buy pure matcha with no additives or sweeteners and drink it with just water. It is a good way to flavor your drink if you get tired of drinking just water or black coffee.
Give it a try and let me know how it went for you. Did you like it?