Popular Aussie scientist Dr Karl Kruszelnicki has lifted the lid on what’s inside your average teabag and why the ‘disgusting’ matter is actually a good thing.
In a TikTok video, the 76-year-old explained that there is plenty of insect matter left behind in the teabags we use but they’re certainly not dangerous to our health.
‘As you can tell I absolutely love tea,’ he said, posing in front of a number of different brands and varieties.
‘Did you know that when you analyse a typical teabag you can find the DNA of 400 different types of insects?’
In a TikTok video , the 76-year-old explained that there is plenty of insect matter left behind in the teabags we use but they’re certainly not dangerous to our health
The insect DNA that one can find is called environmental DNA or eDNA and it’s left behind when an insect goes and bites on, for example, a tea leaf.
‘This DNA is usually fairly fragile and easily destroyed by ultraviolet rays or washed away by the rain,’ Dr Karl continued.
‘But it does survive when conditions are dark and dry as inside a teabag. Now what does this mean? Well firstly there has been a push for people to move away from eating meat and eating insects and maybe we tea drinkers are apart of that push.
‘Secondly tea fields are a hive of biodiversity.’
His followers were intrigued by the information but many said they weren’t willing to give up their weekly steak for a bit of an insect.
‘This is blowing my mind! Fascinating,’ one woman said.
One fan asked whether it was true that some green teas shipped from China contain lead in them, to which Dr Karl sadly had to confirm
One fan asked whether it was true that some green teas shipped from China contain lead in them, to which Dr Karl sadly had to confirm.
‘Yes some green tea from China was found to have high levels of lead in it,’ he said.
Henrik Krehenwinkel, an ecological geneticist at Trier University, led a team of scientists that discovered how insects interact with plant matter like tea leaves, the Smithsonian Magazine reported.
‘They bought teas and herbs from a grocery store and tested the dried and packaged leaves for minute remnants of DNA,’ it read.
‘The team found traces of more than 1200 different arthropod species from their analysis of just four plants: chamomile, mint, tea and parsley.
‘This method can be applied to any dried plants, making it a potentially invaluable tool for monitoring endangered insect species and tracking the spread of crop pests.’
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