Green tea is known to have numerous health benefits, among which are protection against cancer or heart disease, improved brain function, and fat loss. But it seems there’s another health benefit we can add under its belt—it can lower your chances of catching the highly contagious norovirus when you eat contaminated food.
Yes, norovirus. Not coronavirus.
Research from Ohio State University shows that when green tea extract is added to edible film used in prepared food, it created a safe-to-eat barrier that killed norovirus and two other types of bacteria.
Edible film is normally used in products that require holding contents together such as in drug capsules, or if it needs to separate ingredients to keep it fresh like between a pie crust and the filling.
Norovirus is known to cause the onset of severe vomiting and diarrhea. It is highly contagious and commonly spread through contaminated food or water.
The study, published in the International Journal of Food Science, shows how the antiviral properties of the green tea extract can kill norovirus cells, when the extract was added to a chitosan-based liquid solution and dried film.
Chitosan is a sugar that can be found in the exoskeleton of shellfish, and is widely used as a safe and available compound for edible film production. While chitosan might have antimicrobial properties, it does not have the ability to kill the norovirus.
Aside from killing the norovirus, the green tea extract was also found to lower E. coli K12 and listeria innocua, surrogates for bacteria that also cause foodborne illness.
It’s still a long way before green tea extract in edible film makes its way to our local supermarkets, but researchers are already working on the next steps to make this happen.
Green tea is certainly the gift that keeps on giving.
