Does Yerba Mate taste nasty and can it give you cancer?

[rakovsky]

They probably do: http://www.livescience.com/55130-how-hot-beverages-increase-cancer-risk.html .

That article was saying that coffee and tea can cause cancer by being hot and scarring the throat.

The article I cited on Yerba Mate says that Y.M. has special chemicals, PAHs in an especially high density to cause cancer. If you drink it hot and drink it with the chemicals, it sounds like a double whammy.

 

[rakovsky]

instead of trying to learn what "polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons" are, and which one has more content, coffee, tea or mate...

The PAHs are hydrocarbons like benzopyrene that cause cancer. They get in from smoking the leaves like in tobacco smoke.
Mate has more than coffee.

Dawsey and his colleagues later found, when assaying samples of brands of yerba mate, that mate had large quantities of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), including benzopyrene, a known carcinogen. The carcinogens weren’t found in the yerba mate plant itself, but as a result of contamination from a drying process that usually involved smoking the leaves and stems over an open fire. (PAH compounds are also found in tobacco smoke, charred meats, and, to a lesser degree, in coffee.)

https://www.outsideonline.com/1963166/should-you-swap-your-coffee-yerba-mate

 

[jonesdave116]

Can you get a flake with it?

 

[rakovsky]

Can you get a flake with it?

You mean do tiny flakes of the yerba plant go through the strainer in the teaball or the bombilla straw?

Yes.

 

[MikeG]

No, rakovsky, a Flake is a brand of chocolate in the shape of a short stick usually stuck into an ice-cream.

 

[rakovsky]

No, rakovsky, a Flake is a brand of chocolate in the shape of a short stick usually stuck into an ice-cream.

Thanks.
Well then the answer to his question is "No", Flake chocolate doesn't go into it.
Cadbury sells Flakes on the UK and Australian markets, whereas Yerba Mate is rooted in the Latin American market, and also I am in the US.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Can you get a flake with it?

No, only with this

 

[aleCcowaN]

The PAHs are hydrocarbons like benzopyrene that cause cancer. They get in from smoking the leaves like in tobacco smoke.
Mate has more than coffee.

https://www.outsideonline.com/1963166/should-you-swap-your-coffee-yerba-mate

Completely false and you knew it.

Provide the comparison between mate and coffee regarding benzopyrene and other PAHs.

(You still have no idea what PAHs are)

 

[Trebuchet]

Same thing with using a bombilla or a cup. A bombilla is a gourd is an organic jar. You might as well have a glass bombilla for practical purposes. And if you use a glass one, you might as well use a tea cup. I can make it in a tea cup and drink it through a bombilla straw and it will all be the same.

My recollection is that the bombilla is not the gourd, but the traditional metal straw with a filter on the end.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Exactly

https://www.google.com.ar/search?q=...CCgB&biw=800&bih=481#tbm=isch&q=bombilla+mate

But we're in "mate fiction" mode...

 

[aleCcowaN]

Besides, the sole idea that a mate cebado (the one you drink from a gourd with a bombilla) and a mate cocido (the one you drink from a cup) are the same in flavour is crazy.

 

[marplots]

Besides, the sole idea that a mate cebado (the one you drink from a gourd with a bombilla) and a mate cocido (the one you drink from a cup) are the same in flavour is crazy.

That's probably just the US palate. Without the ability to make fine discriminations and gradations of tastes, we are left impoverished in both sensibilities and descriptive language. Hence our use of the same word to describe both versions. "Nasty."


ETA: With practice and training, it is probably possible to get US folks to tell the difference between the two and reliably identify the drinks as "terrible" vs. simply "foul."

 

[Red Baron Farms]

That's probably just the US palate. Without the ability to make fine discriminations and gradations of tastes, we are left impoverished in both sensibilities and descriptive language. Hence our use of the same word to describe both versions. "Nasty."


ETA: With practice and training, it is probably possible to get US folks to tell the difference between the two and reliably identify the drinks as "terrible" vs. simply "foul."

Very easy to tell where your opinion lies. But keep in mind there are probably just as many people that think the same about coffee and/or tea.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Hey! I can tell the difference between normal coffee and simile coffee in the United States.

I was 20 day in the United States and I drank four cups of coffee in the whole trip (I would have taken some 80 to 100 if here, or in Brazil, or in France, or in Italy). I even spent 6 dollars in 1993 to buy a 8-ounce or so packet of high quality coffee there, I tasted it and I gave it away. It tasted synthetic vanillin, like all coffee in the United States.

So, you can have an opinion and also know the difference, marplots, can't you?

 

[rakovsky]

Besides, the sole idea that a mate cebado (the one you drink from a gourd with a bombilla) and a mate cocido (the one you drink from a cup) are the same in flavour is crazy.

Turns out Mate cocido is milder:

Mate Cocido
It is traditionally prepared by boiling yerba mate in water, then strained and served in cups. It is a bitter tasting beverage, similar to mate but milder,
...
The elaboration of mate cocido in tea-bags is almost the same than regular yerba mate, with the difference that in the grinding the dust and sticks are removed, sorting and processing only the leaves

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_cocido

But anyway, it looks like I am not having Mate Cocido because of the underlined part. You see, I bought a bag of regular Yerba Mate, which has the dust and sticks in it.

I can tell why Mate Cocido would have a different, milder taste - it doesn't have the dust and sticks.

But I don't know why Yerba Mate with Bombilla and Yerba Mate in a metal tea strainer would have significantly different taste. It's the same ingredients, prepared the same way - soaking the leaves in boiled water in a vessel (cup or gourd). I mean, do the gourd's walls affect the flavor more than glass or ceramic? That doesn't make much sense.

If I drink it out of the gourd/cup with a bombilla straw or strain the water, is that going to make much difference? That would not make sense either. Easy thought experiment: If you drink some liquid (coke, Coffee, Tea, Beer, etc.) through a straw or drink it directly, is there going to be a serious difference?

 

[rakovsky]

Hey! I can tell the difference between normal coffee and simile coffee in the United States.

Well, the bag I have is Cruz de Malta with Spanish writing on most of it, and "Produced in Argentina" at the bottom.
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/513qNWyRyuL.jpg

It's not like I am buying low grade American brand Yerba Mate.


Dunkin Donuts coffee tastes vanilla. Grocery stores have different brands so you can get more Latino style and flavor. Lots of coffee houses too even in small towns.

 

[marplots]

Very easy to tell where your opinion lies. But keep in mind there are probably just as many people that think the same about coffee and/or tea.

But those people are not my people. Not good people like you and I. Those people are the sort of people who end up in prison, making pruno out of orange drink and toilet water.

 

[rakovsky]

Completely false and you knew it.

What are you talking about?
You are not inside my head.

You say I don't know what the PAHs are, and yet somehow you know whether I know that PAHs are in Yerba Mate leaves.

Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2008 May;17(5):1262-8. doi: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-08-0025.

High levels of carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in mate drinks.
Kamangar F1, Schantz MM, Abnet CC, Fagundes RB, Dawsey SM.

The concentrations of 21 individual PAHs were measured in dry leaves of eight commercial brands of yerba mate and in infusions made with hot (80 degrees C) or cold (5 degrees C) water.
...

RESULTS:

The total concentrations of the 21 PAHs in different brands of yerba mate ranged from 536 to 2,906 ng/g dry leaves. Benzo[a]pyrene concentrations ranged from 8.03 to 53.3 ng/g dry leaves. For the mate infusions prepared using hot water and brand 1, 37% (1,092 of 2,906 ng) of the total measured PAHs and 50% (25.1 of 50 ng) of the benzo[a]pyrene content were released into the 12 infusions. Similar results were obtained for other hot and cold infusions.

CONCLUSION:

Very high concentrations of carcinogenic PAHs were found in yerba mate leaves and in hot and cold mate infusions. Our results support the hypothesis that the carcinogenicity of mate may be related to its PAH content.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18483349

 

[marplots]

So, you can have an opinion and also know the difference, marplots, can't you?

In coffees? No. Apparently, I don't have any taste buds capable of detecting cancer.

 

[rakovsky]

Provide the comparison between mate and coffee regarding benzopyrene and other PAHs.

OK.

Is yerba mate harmful and carcinogenic?

====================================================
PAH concentration in yerba mate, green tea and black tea (ng/g dry leaves).


PAH Ymatemax Ymateavg Ymatemin Green tea Green tea Black tea

Benzopyrene 50.0 37.1 8.0 — 3.1 5.9

http://yerbamateinfo.com/cancer.html

Lots of PAHs are listed, but only Benzopyrene is listed as definitely cancerous.

So the Benzopyrene is 6 times higher in average Yerba Mate than Black tea.

Smoking one cigarette can yield an intake of 20–40 ng of benzo (a) pyrene [Phillips 1996; O’Neill et al. 1997].
Smoking one pack of unfiltered cigarettes per day yields 0.7 µg/day benzo(a)pyrene exposure. Smoking a pack of filtered cigarettes per day yields 0.4 µg/day [Sullivan and Krieger 2001].
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/csem.asp?csem=13&po=6

So a cup of Yerba Mate[37 ng] is like having one or two cigarettes [20-40 ng].

Carcinogenic PAHs, expressed as B[a]Peq ranged from 0.008 to 0.060 microg/l. The results indicate that coffee contributes with very insignificant quantities to the daily human intake of carcinogenic PAHs.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19271317

One study showed more PAHs in coffee, but what is needed is a study on the Benzopyrene in the coffee, since most PAHs are not cancerous.

When examining a population in Campinas, SP, Brazil and the coffee and Mate they consumed, PAHs were found in all products and ranged from 10.12 μg/kg for coffee to 0.70 μg/kg for Mate (Rojo de Camargo and others 2002).
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...c=117999958.1.1471651200056&__hsfp=1773666937

It has been proven that Mate contains PAH substances
that are qualified as carcinogenic, however, the levels of most are relatively low besides one of these subtances, the Benzo(a)pyrene (BaP), that is considered the most harmful element of the PAH's in erva-mate...

http://metamate.cc/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Cancer-Research-Report.pdf


Check it out: Yerba M. has 5 times the Benzopyrene of Coffee when the Yerba is roasted, and 12 times when it's Green:
Coffee and Health, By Gérard Debry, p. 105
https://books.google.com/books?id=u...EISTAG#v=onepage&q=coffee benzopyrene&f=false



Here is what my preferred answer would be in this thread, aleCcowaN:
1. I am preparing the Yerba Mate wrongly, and so preparing it differently will give it a nice, smooth, quite drinkable taste.

2. Yerba Mate does not triple one's likelihood of getting esophoghal cancer.
eg. I rarely smoke or use tobacco products because I want to avoid cancer, even though I like smoking. Pipes, Cuban & Dominican cigars, American Spirit cigarettes & Pipe tobacco. I got my own cigar box with a tiny humidifying sponge.