I will admit to frequenting Gloria Jean’s from time to time. I have read about the support of the Mercy Mission and the philosophy and ethos of the Mercy Mission and the like, but still enjoy a Crême Brulée chiller every so often or a latte or a Chai.

This morning, on my way to my waxing appointment I stopped off for a Chai. They were relatively busy. When my name was called, there were marshmallows floating in my drink.

“Um, er, you did call Fiona?”

“Sure did, enjoy your drink!”

“Um, but I ordered a Chai…”

“Oh, I am sorry.” Then she yelled “Can we please have a large Chai on Skim, NOW!”

So I go back to waiting and a very skinny lady sidles up to me.

“You know you shouldn’t drink Chai when you are pregnant. There are all sorts of spices in it that cause miscarriage.”

“Really?” I said, “I’ll keep that in mind if ever I find myself pregnant.”

“Oh, sorry, I’m limiting myself to one cup of real coffee a day and having decaf for the rest of the time, don’t think the little coffee bean inside will complain then.” And she patted her very very slender tummy.

Now Bec Cartright-Hewitt-Home-and-Away-Tennis-Wife-and-Mother-Extraordinaire looks more pregnant on the front of a woman’s magazine this week than this lady. And no, I didn’t buy the magazine, I saw it as I queued to pay for my groceries last night. Next to the one that proclaimed she’s sacrificing more motherhood for her husband. Whatever!

So a few points to ponder… I googled ‘Chai tea safe pregnancy’ and was hit with a number of Yahoo! Answers pages. Knowing some of the people who frequent those pages (Hi @andrewsayer and @yonderboy!) I decided that perhaps it wouldn’t offer the most accurate information. I did find this which is somewhat interesting and looks semi-reputable, and this which basically says that green tea helps prevent folic acid absorption which in turn leads to birth defects, although they try and say that it is the green tea causing birth defects. Sigh! Medical science at its best.

So as I sit at my desk, barefoot, but not pregnant (Hi Mum again!) I remember my early days of pregnancy. Of course I was a food and drink nazi and didn’t touch any caffeine (some people reading this will remember trying to work out how much caffeine is in milo- Hi Suzie!) I don’t think I ever stood in a coffee shop though and proselytised about the negative effects of tea with spices. Especially to someone who may look mildly pregnant, but is in fact, just overweight! Oh and somewhere there is irony about pro-life and stuff, but I’ll let you find it for yourself as the link between Chai and miscarriage is pretty tenuous.

Tags: caffeine, chai, pregnancy, tea, weird and/or interesting

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 at 1:10 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.