Black Gold Coffee the Untold Story

What noise?

Wait what is that noise? A car horn in the jungle…. Shit that’s the alarm! Turn it off ! Feet move and turn it off. Alarm off then bathroom then hit the coffee maker. Many of us  start the day with a cup of coffee, not feeling truly awake until we get our java fix. Coffee is not just the morning pick me up, it can be both good and bad for your health, it has a social aspect and it will help get you through the day. It is also big business the total number of daily U.S. coffee drinkers is around 100 million, the total amount of money spent importing coffee to the U.S. per year is $4 billion dollars. The total amount of coffee the average coffee drinker consumes in a day is about 3.1 9 ounce cups, with about 65% of the people drinking it in the morning.  Wake up get that K cup, cup of Sanka or the pot of joe rolling, we are looking at other black gold.

 I was at presentation for a 30 day body transformation a friend of mine was giving, part of the transformation is a Detox. In the Detox you are allowed no caffeine, definitely no coffee. A gentlemen from the audience was interested but he could not cope without his coffee, he was drinking about two pots a day. I was shocked two pots is a staggering amount of coffee and over an extended period of time it can have a deleterious affect on many systems in the body. This kicked the wheels into motion that maybe we need to look at the healthy benefits and drawbacks of drinking coffee.What exactly is coffee? Coffee is a brewed beverage made from the roasted seeds of a shrub classified Coffea, which has two distinct types of beans Coffea Arabica and Coffea Canephora. Coffea Arabica is descended from the original coffee trees in Ethiopia, they produce a fine, mild aromatic coffee. This makes up about 70% of the worlds coffee production and often fetch the highest prices. They are costly to cultivate and the trees are more disease prone than robusta and require additional attention. The beans are flatter and more elongated than robusta with less caffeine. Coffea Canephora or Robusta is grown primarily in Central and Western Africa, as well as Southeast Asia and Brazil. The robusta bean is slightly smaller and rounder than the arabica bean. The robusta tree is heartier, more disease and

parasite resistant, this makes it easier and cheaper to cultivate. Compared with arabica, robusta beans produce a coffee which has a distinctive taste and about 50-60% more caffeine. Robusta is used in blends and in instant coffees.

The origin of coffee is under some speculation one has the Yemenite Sufi mystic Ghothul akbar Nooruddin Abu al-Hasa al-Shadili, was traveling through Ethiopia. He observed birds with an unusual vitality he discovered they were eating berries, he tried them and experienced the same vitality. The other legend attribute the discovery to Sheik Abou’l Hasan Schadheli’s disciple, Omar. According to an ancient transcript Omar who was known to heal people with prayer, was exiled from Mocha to a desert cave near Ousad. He was  starving when he ate berries off of a shrub he found them bitter he roasted but they became hard. He boiled them, drank the liquid finding a miracle drug he was asked to return and made a saint. We also have the legend of Kaldi a goat herder who noticed his goats becoming so spirited they were unable to sleep. He reported this to the abbot of the local monastery  who made a drink with the berries, and noticed he could remain in prayer for hours without rest. The abbot shared this with the other monks word began to spread moving to the Arabian Peninsula then the rest of the world. The Arabs were the first to cultivate and trade coffee, by the fifteenth century coffee was being grown in the Yemeni district of Arabia. By the sixteenth century it was known as Persia, Egypt, Syria and Turkey. This was the dawn of the first coffee houses, become centers of culture where people

would watch performers, listen to music, play chess and discuss the news of the day. They had been referred to as the “Schools of the Wise.”. Coffee made its way to Europe by the seventeenth century, and its popularity was spreading across the continent. The clergy initially condemned coffee, the controversy reached the Vatican causing Pope Clement VIII to intervene. He tasted it, liked it and  gave coffee the papal approval . By the mid-seventeenth century, there were over 300 coffee houses in London; people of similar interest’s merchants, shippers, brokers, and artists frequented them. Many business grew out of these specialty coffee houses, Lloyds of London, for example came into existence at the Edward Lloyd’s Coffee House.  It reached the New World in the mid-1600’s brought to New Amsterdam, the majority of the people preferred tea. Until the Boston Tea party, when America would switch its allegiance. Given the demands for coffee the need for supply rose. The Arabs tried to keep their monopoly of cultivation, the Dutch were able to cultivate coffee on the island of Java currently Indonesia. They expanded to the islands of Sumatra and Celebes. Francsiso De Mello Palheta who was sent by the emperor to French Guiana to obtain coffee seedlings brought coffee to Brazil. The French were not willing to share and Palheta was unsuccessful. The French Governors wife truck by his charm and good looks  presented him with a bouquet of flowers that had coffee seeds in the bottom. Its safe to say that coffee has spread worldwide being cultivated in Columbia, Kona, Ethiopia, Brazil and Southeast Asia

What are the healthy benefits to coffee? In 2005 Dr. Frank Hu, MD. MPH., PhD nutrition and  an  epidemiology professor at the Harvard School of Public Health reviewed 9 studies on coffee and type 2 diabetes. They found that more that people those who said they drank more than six or seven cups daily were 35% less likely to have type 2 diabetes than people who drank less than two cups per day. The people who drank 4-6 cups per day had a 28% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. An Australian study recently noted that they found a 7% drop in the odds of having type 2 diabetes for every additional cup of coffee drunk daily. Dr. Hu believes what keeps the diabetes at bay is a combination of the antioxidants in coffee, the minerals magnesium and chromium. The minerals help the body use insulin which controls blood sugar. The body loses its ability to  use insulin and regulate blood sugar with diabetes. It is believed that coffees potential effect in type 2 diabetes may help in reducing heart disease and stroke. Coffee has been linked to lower risks for heart rhythm disturbances in men and women, and a lower risk for strokes in women. In a study of 130,000 Kaiser Permanente plan members who drank 1-3 cups of coffee per day were 20% less likely to be hospitalized for abnormal heart rhythms than non drinkers. A 2009 study of nurses enrolled in the long term Nurses Health Study showed a 20% lower risk of stroke in those who reported drinking two or more cups of coffee daily compared to women who drank less coffee or none at all. The benefits in regards to Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Diseases the data has been consistent: higher consumption of coffee is associated with decreased Parkinson’s.  Dr. Hu notes the result is due to the caffeine but it is unclear how it works. A 2009 study from Finland and Sweden showed that out of 1,400 people followed for 10 years, who drank 3-5 cups of coffee daily we 65% less likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer’s disease compared to non-drinkers.  Now the drawbacks of coffee, decaffeinated coffee has long thought by researchers to increase cholesterol and an increase in heart disease.  People who went from regular coffee to decaffeinated coffee were found to have increased their levels of low-density lipo-protein, the so-called bad cholesterol at an average of 7%. A Stanford University study of 188 healthy middle-aged coffee drinkers had the volunteers drink 3-6 cups of coffee per day of one of three groups. The volunteers had their cholesterol levels checked, noting the levels remained the same when they drank regular coffee or gave it up. However, it rose 7% when they switched to decaf. The caffeine in coffee triggers the pituitary gland to secrete a hormone that triggers the glands to produce adrenalin. Once the adrenalin high wears off you feel fatigue, irritable, can have headaches, and feel confused. Caffeine puts us in a fight or flight state, if you remain in this caffeinated state for a prolonged period you can enter adrenal fatigue. Over the years, it will take more and more coffee to get the same result, some people can drink up to half a dozen or more cups and barely stay awake. That is adrenal depletion. One of the other hazards of coffee is the toxins depending on where you get your coffee. Is the coffee fair trade? Is it sprayed? What kind of roast is it? Most of us are drinking coffee that were sprayed with pesticides; unfortunately, it is one of the most sprayed products out there. What is worse is it has no protection, so you ingest the chemicals in the spray as well. The other toxic element in coffee is the by-product of the dark roasts acrylamide, which is a carcinogen aside from being very toxic. Acrylamide is a naturally occurring by-product of the cooking process that forms naturally in a wide variety of foods when they are heated or cooked. Acrylamide has been present in the human diet since we began cooking with fire; in 2002 a group of Swedish scientists presented research that detected acrylamide in some baked and fried foods. Fair trade or organic coffee with a light roast is preferred to a sprayed brand. Coffee in moderation would be fine, given the antioxidants and other reported health benefits. Tomorrow we will be looking the phenomenon of adventure racing, revealing the top six races. As always please read and share this blog.