Scientists Grow Decaffeinated Coffee Plants

An anonymous reader writes "According to a CBC News story, researchers have genetically modified coffee seedlings to produce up to 70 per cent less caffeine." The Japanese researchers quoted in the article say "..demand for decaffeinated coffee is growing worldwide. Caffeine can trigger palpitations, increase blood pressure and disrupt sleep in sensitive people", and so "..used a tool called RNA interference to genetically engineer the one-year-old plants." Seems like these boffins may be competing against the University Of Hawaii researchers we mentioned last year to take away your buzz.

Comments

very bad idea

[mirko]

Caffeine can trigger palpitations, increase blood pressure and disrupt sleep in sensitive people

I don't think this is a good idea to get "sensitive people" used to the taste of stuff which is not good for them.

This is like Coke Light : though it has no sugar inside it still tastes exageratedly sweet and this would be a better idea to get the "users" curious about differently tasted products.

I am afraid, at the end of the story, everything will taste the same and recipe will consist of posologies. :/

Dangers of GM food

[Eric Ass Raymond]

Caffeine can trigger palpitations, increase blood pressure and disrupt sleep in sensitive people

So we must protect the fools who, in spite of the symptoms, insist on drinking coffee. Not only do we have to do that, but we'll just have to do it by letting loose modifed genomes with no idea of how this will change the ecosystem?

GM food has not been proved safe in long term cultivation and it will not help to relieve hunger in 3rd world countries. Hunger is a political problem, not an agricultural problem. The production capacity of the Earth would feed the current and future population very well if the distribution of food were done fairly.

proof the world is going barmy

[ajs318]

Surely the kind of person who thinks caffeine will kill them, is hardly likely to touch a genetically modified plant? Never mind that maize, wheat, barley et al are all genetically modified grass, and cabbages, Brussels sprouts, broccoli and swedes are all genetically modified turnips. OK, in those cases the GM was done the slow way, but evolution is still technically genetic modification.

If ever anyone needed concrete evidence that the world is going stark, raving bonkers, this is surely it. First it was Lucozade Light {for the benefit of foreigners, Lucozade is a high-calorie drink with glucose for an instant energy boost. Table sugar is sucrose, which the body has to hydrolyse into glucose and fructose.} The whole point of Lucozade is to provide quickly-assimilated calories. If you need fewer calories then just drink less; if you still need fluid then dilute it with water.

Not so long ago we ate loads of fried food, fat and sugar, we smoked woodbines, we drank beer and whisky all the time and we didn't die! We weren't all pasty-faced, nesh asthmatics either. Nowadays it is "trendy" to be a health freak, so people latch onto any convenient buzz-words without thinking properly what they mean. Then they drive their cars from the bedroom to the bathroom to the gym, where they pay good money to sit on a fake bike and pedal nowhere. I bet some young mother somewhere is probably bringing up a baby exclusively on soya milk because she thinks breast milk is bad for you.

Last year, in a Tesco supermarket, I found Organic Milk -- available in skimmed and semi-skimmed varieties, but not full cream. So, you go organic to get nothing artificial added, then they go and take something natural away. {it's not that long ago I remember drinking unpasteurised milk - a test of faith in the immune system :) but a worthwhile one}.

What next, decaffeinated Red Bull? For crying out loud, if you don't like the thought of caffeine, then don't drink coffee! Or drink tea, which contains something that stops your body absorbing caffeine.

Somebody needs to patent a home coffee decaffeinator - and maybe a home milk skimmer/semi-skimmer - to sell to the trendy brigade. Or, failing that, a way of distributing a clue .....

Forget functionality, I want taste!

[Kvan]

Why is it that all the new crops I hear about are all about functionality? It's decaf this, Roundup-ready that, when the number one priority for food products should be taste.

I hope their new bean has a unique and interesting taste; if so, I'll definitely be buying it--caffeine or not. But these guys shouldn't be focusing on caffeine, they should be trying to produce a coffee bean that can be grown easily in many regions, yet tastes as good as Jamaica Blue Mountain. They should be making coffees that taste more like chocolate, or like orange or like a thousand other things.

Re:Dilbert

[Eccles]

...or (C) Scott Adams was the anonymous reader who submitted the story.