Ultra Green Tea Diet

Green tea costs pennies a cup if you brew it yourself, and as much as $2, as of October 2010, if you buy a bottle of green tea at a convenience store. But you get fewer benefits in higher priced brews because processing kills the fat-burning antioxidants in green tea, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. The Ultra Green Tea Diet plan provides three packets of green tea powder and dietary advice. Herbal diets don't undergo Food and Drug Administration review so you should always talk with your doctor before beginning the diet.

Automated Shipping

The Ultra Green Tea Diet is available through an automated shipping program. As of October 2010, you are billed about $80 a month for 90 packets of green tea powder, which is available in three flavors: Orange Cream, Berry Cream and Strawberry Cream. And, unless you specifically opt out, you will also be enrolled in a monthly program to help you monitor your weight loss and provide dieting tips. If you cancel the plan within 14 days of enrollment, you are entitled to a refund of the first month's fees.

The product label for Ultra Lean Green tea lists four ingredients in addition to green tea: Citrimax, a potential appetite suppressant derived from garcinia fruit; Advantra Z, a commercial blend of bitter orange and other ingredients found in numerous weight loss supplements; an amino acid blend; and a mineral blend. The label does not specify how much of any of these ingredients are contained in a powder packet.

Precautions

Green tea contains caffeine, which can adversely affect some people. It is otherwise considered safe. Pregnant women should limit their caffeine intake to no more than 100 mg per day, according to the British Medical Journal, because higher doses of caffeine have been linked to low birth weight babies. Pregnant and nursing women and persons with dementia or diabetes mellitus should not take garcinia, according to Advanced Scientific Health. Bitter orange can cause accelerated heart rates and high blood pressure, according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Weighing Benefits

It is impossible to judge the effectiveness of Ultra Lean Green Tea without knowing specifics about its contents. The usefulness of green tea in weight loss depends on the number of catechins it contains. In a study by U.S. researcher Kevin Maki, for instance, participants who consumed 660 mg of catechins daily lost nearly twice as much weight as those who consumed 22 mg of catechins daily, according to a report published in the February 2009 edition of the Journal of Nutrition.

Cost

You would need to drink about 5 cups of green tea brewed from loose leaves to attain 660 mg of catechins. You would need to drink 55 cups of bottled green tea or more than 300 cups of green tea prepared from a ready-to-drink mix, according to the USDA. As of October 2010, the price of Ultra Green Lean Tea averages just over $1 per serving. Loose leaf tea costs $30 to $60 per pound, according to the University of California, San Diego Cancer Center. If you used 2 g a day, you'd spend 6 to 12 cents per cup. Tea bags start at $2.50 for 12 bags, according to the UCSD Cancer Center, which offers green tea as a complementary treatment for some of its patients.