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Coffee is a "Health Drink"
WoodenRobot writes "Not that it would stop an Italian or a techie from drinking the stuff, but Chiara Trombetti, of the Humanitas Gavazzeni institute of Bergamo has reported that coffee, especially espresso, is good for you and provides numerous health benefits. All the more reason to tuck into a cup o' Joe - but no more than 3 or 4 cups a day."
It's just as good as getting a hi-colonic (sp?) so keep on drinking those 4 cups a day and keep your colon clean as a whistle!
I'm shooting for 10 cups a day, maybe I can be the first self propelled man into space.
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Daily use prevents caffeine withdraw.
Just had my first double. Thanks, Krups!
...does this mean I should start? ;) I've never liked the stuff, and I manage to live without caffeine for the most part. (I don't drink soda, either.)
Personally, I find that tea is the way to go, so I hope they have a study that shows it's healthy too.
libertarianswag.com
Yes i read about it in a news magazine, that regular coffee drinkers are not so often in the group of persons who will suffer of the Alzheimer's disease when they are old.
Spelling mistakes: My is english spoken not tongue of mother.
I had been using coffee, as well as water, as my preferred headache cure for quite a while.
However, caffiene withdrawl also creates headaches, and the article is a little on the vague side to suggest otherwise.
Most of the other news (antioxidants, tannin, good for the liver, and asthma relief) are pretty awesome, though. Again, I'd rather see this in more details - and I can't find any English links referring to dietician Chiara Trombetti.
Definitely good news for nerds and latte addicts everywhere.
-m.
The only health benifits I can see at my office would be for my co-workers.
Since it's their health that's in jeopardy if I dont get my coffee.
Ok - then what about caffiene soap? Will it make my arteries extra squeaky clean?
"Coffee is a health drink" my ass.
I eat my coffee with a fork.
The article says, "It can relieve headaches." Isn't that just plain obvious. Especially considering that the most common headache relieved by coffee is in fact caused by caffeine withdrawl.
Besides that, this article is obviously lacking in supporting information. What did this "scientific" study involve? Was this simply a look at the components of coffee: antioxidants, tannin, etc? Or was it a double blind study that looked at the long term effects of 4 cups a day?
Are you Corn Fed?
Coffee (preferably espresso) is vital to my health. Of course, I'm thinking more along the lines of preventing a subdural hematoma caused by my forehead slamming onto my desk. Coffee is a great preventative for that.
Ignorance is the root of all evil.
I've found that post-migrane consumption of coffee helps me out a lot. Perhaps this is an excuse to start drinking the stuff like water.
This is not the sig you're looking for.
Don't forget that the longer coffee beans are roasted, any coffee brewed from them will have less caffeine. Of course, darker roasted coffee tends to be more bitter and possibly more acidic (especially true of steam-brewed coffees, such as espresso). But, the tiny bit of acid and tannins in coffee is probably nothing compared to the damage done by caffeine (hey, I'm an addict - I live with it).
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Keep in mind that an Italian saying coffee is good for you -- even with the disclaimer that she personally hates it -- only goes so far.
I like it too, and I consume loads here in Italy -- but she has a vested interest in saying that espresso is the best of all types to drink.
Why? Because you really have to try hard to find 'long coffee' or caffe' americano here. It's almost impossible. I remember a year ago watching a French girl flip her lid at some poor barista because he couldn't understand that she wanted the 'long coffee' instead of the syrupy stuff. And she was shouting at him in English, which was most amusing. She'd have had more success using French...
Also, no other nationality fetishises food to the extent the Italians do. I'll leave it there.
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Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
I read the article and it's just too damn short. "It COULD do this and it COULD do that". "It has anti-oxidants and that's good". Well duh. It also has caffeine which some health nuts say is good for you (raises metabolism, messes with your appetite, gives you energy to work out) and it can be bad for you (making you dependent on it, screwin' with your metabolism, etc). Coffee also supposedly messes with your cortisol levels (which is partly responsible for giving the fat gathering around the waist area).
My point is, you'll see reports say it's healthy, you'll see reports say it's bad for you. I've seen more detailed reports saying it's bad and just a few "well it could be good for you" reports saying it's good.
Shall we discuss if wine is good or bad for us now?
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Same thing as the Atkins Diet - Animal Rights groups didn't like The Atkins Diet - protein = meat - so they put out a bogus study that Atkins died because of Atkins.
Same thing happen with beer/alchohol - one week a study will come out that says beer is bad, next week "binge drinking" is epidemic or drunk driving is on the rise.
When stories are reported like this it should be a requirement for the journalist to cite the sources and the backgrounds of those sources should be published in the footnotes so "true thinkers" can easily pick up on propoganda.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Generalisations are GENERALLY right. There are ALWAYS exceptions.
I used to work in a cafe, and I learnt quick when an american asks for an espresso he wants a small shot of coffee. When an italian asked for an espresso he wanted the first teaspoon of water out of the machine, which was black as night and as strong as tar.
My GENERAL experience with Italians and coffee is that they like it strong enough to strip paint. Just like GENERALLY Irish prefer tea, or nerds prefer jolt.
Seriously...if I make coffee or smell it, I can feel the dogs scratchin' at the door and I gotta let them out quick. It's amazing the power of coffee. Anyone else just SMELL the stuff and feel the need to take the browns to the super bowl?
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
So if you want to have the same results in the US, you can easily drink 3 times the amount mentioned in the Italian report.
"Honey, I feel a certain distance between us..." "Really? A 31ms ping ain't that bad..."
(Initial text of the article:)
Coffee-breaks sabotage employees' abilities
18:41 13 February 04 NewScientist.com news service Taking a coffee break at work may actually sabotage employees' ability to do their jobs and undermine teamwork instead of boosting it, suggests new research. Dosing up on caffeine is particularly unhelpful to men, disrupting their emotions and hampering their ability to do certain tasks, suggests a report by psychologists Lindsay St Claire and Peter Rogers at Bristol University in the UK. Many people take coffee breaks at work believing this will reduce their feelings of stress. But theories about the effects of caffeine are conflicting. Some studies suggest caffeine can worsen anxiety and trigger stress, while others show it boosts confidence, alertness and sociability, making certain tasks easier. But this latest report, released by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council on Friday, backs the view that coffee exacerbates stress, especially in men, and makes people less co-operative when working in teams. "Our research findings suggest that the commonplace tea or coffee break might backfire in business situations, particularly where men are concerned," says St Claire. "Far from reducing stress, it might actually make things worse."
Intelligent Design: because MATH is HARD.
That's because Starbucks is the McDonald's of coffee, and you don't go to McDonald's for its fine cuisine! Go to your nearest independant place near a college campus for better coffee.
Chris
Very true. You might find Coffee Health Myths Explained and Google Cache version of a government study interesting. I guess when it comes to socially-accepted "drugs", there's always a lot of FUD involved.
Red face, palpitations, slight paranoia and bizarrely, extreme short-sightedness (I normally have 20-20 vision). Wore off after 3-4 hours but it was scary as hell.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Some things are healthy for the body, some things are healthy for the mind, and what's good for the body is not necessarily good for the mind and vice-versa.
For instance, during my finals at university getting blindingly drunk at the weekends was probably very bad for my body, but it really helped my mind. It got rid of the stress and I felt fresh again going back to my study. I'm not joking, I think it really helped.
It's like some people can't function properly unless they've had a coffee or a ciggie. May not be healthy for their body, but it helps their mind function.
Civet Coffeee--made from coffe beans that have been partially digested and excreted by the Civet (of SARS fame). Read more here. Freaky.
A publicly traded company exists solely to make profits for shareholders.
Oh, it should go without saying that grinding the beans just before you use them is the only way to get exiting coffee. Pre-ground might be convenient, but it loses flavor fast. Also, Starbucks is great for convenience, but I think the quality of their coffee beans has slipped. It's still way better than McDonalds, but you can get a way better cup at home with a little effort.
Hope that helps everyone on the road to exciting coffee!
In an unprecedented move today, an international body of scientists declared in a press conference the findings of their latest array of studies. The scientists surprisingly came to a conclusion that they had finally managed to not find anything that is in any way detrimental to your health and stated that people should just live the way they like and not care about potential consequences to their health.
The results of the study have raised some rare disagreements amongst the community of scientists, but the consensus seems to be that all our health and nutrition related problems are over. The board of directors at the tobacco-giant Philip Morris, as well as CEOs of multinational food and beverage corporations such as Pepsi and McDonalds heralded the results as groundbreaking.
When interviewed after the press conference, one of the scientists involved in the study revealed that he had some misgivings about drawing such near-sighted and overtly optimistic conclusions, but also stressed that the benefits of letting people finally do what the fuck they want and slowly kill themselves in the process were much preferred to the endless bickering and whining about whether something is good for you or not. The scientists concluded his statement by saying that: "Every one of us has to leave this world at some point or other", but that "the fat pig over there munching Cheetos is gonna be one of the first ones to go".
Several other scientists were quoted as not giving a fuck about it either.
Identifying Starbucks as the pinnacle of coffee is like identifying Michael Jackson as the model of proper child care.
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I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
Just reading your post is enough to have to send the Seals on a night mission, with only the moon for illumination. Or stock the pond with brown trout. Or dunk the Oompa Loompas at the Chocolate factory. Or make like the Cadbury bunny. Or start construction on my underwater theme park. Or bring the kids to the water slide. Or play the tuba backwards. Or eat a Snickers in reverse. Or deliver packages for UP-ass. Or give the pipes something to think about. Or take Billy Ruben to church. Or work my part-time job at Fanny Farmer. Or recreate Pangea. Or...ok thanks, I'm done.
Cocaine is healthy in its natural form (chewed leaf or leaves used as a tea). It took "intelligent" white man to reduce it to a hydrochloride salt and ruin it. In its natural form it is very nutritious (the highest amount of calcium in any plant known, for starters) and does not cause problems because the high isn't a rapid up after snorting it and a rapid down after it wears off, leaving you craving more. Chewed or used as a tea it comes on slow, lasts all day, and wears off by night.
It's a silly thing to argue about, but I have a lot of esteem for Starbucks. The quality of the espresso and coffee you get at a locally-owned place depends pretty heavily on things like how rigorously the baristas are trained, the quality and freshness of the beans, and so on. All these factors depend ultimately on a combination of how good a manager the owner is and how much he knows/cares about coffee (which is, btw, a far more subtle art than most people realize). Starbucks is in the business of coffee and has been for years and years. They know what they're doing. That doesn't necessarily mean that they are doing it well, because they could be doing a crappy job intentionally for business reasons, but my experience has been that Starbucks is consistently decent. It's certainly possible to get better coffee at a locally owned joint (When I was still in a college town, I always went to the locally owned places over the Starbucks, partially out of principle, but mostly because they were just as good), but it isn't absolutely going to happen. In fact, the worst "latte" I've ever had was at a locally owned place, probably because the lady running the machine had no freaking idea what she was doing.
I love coffee, and espresso is awesome! I drink like 12 big cups of espresso everyday and it's super super super super superrrrrrr....um...what was I saying? WHO CARES! Another sip!
I'm typing this on my treadmill right now while playing my guitar and espresso and coffee and espresso makes this happennnnning for meeeeee.
It givesss me so mucch time to work on thingz tooo since I don't have to worrry about sleeep anymore. I haven't slept since 1983 and looke at me! Alert! Perceptive! Razor sharp!
Have to go, working on my cure for cancer and have a roast in the oven while painting a self-portrait!
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
Seriously folks, can the news possibly get any better for us Nerds?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
That's actually the proper way to brew any tea. When the tea is confined in a bag or mesh container, the leaves can't "bloom" properly and you won't get a really good cup because some of the compounds won't be released. Also, black teas need to be brewed with water that is still boiling as it is poured over the leaves for proper brewing; green, white, red, and oolongs can be a little cooler i.e. 190-200 degrees F. For a really good cup of tea, invest in a Yixing teapot and use it every day. The porous unglazed clay absorbs the flavor of the tea and over time begins to bring out subtle nuances of the tea, assuming you're using high quality stuff.
Oh and teas can have just as much caffeine as coffee but because of its peculiarities, the form of caffeine in tea is absorbed more slowly and produces a gentler, but more lasting effect. Or so the information available suggests; as someone totally unaffected by caffeine, I wouldn't know. And tea almost certainly has more caffeine than your precious espresso (I like those too). Why? The longer roasting time for dark coffee beans destroys a significant amount of the caffeine in said beans and the short extraction time for espresso doesn't allow a great deal of the caffeine present to be extracted.
Yeah, I'm a geek.
It's amazing how much "mature wisdom" resembles being too tired. - Robert Anson Heinlein
The "tea is different!" confusion generally comes up because caffeine can also be called theine -- it's the same chemical, though. Tea's got a lot of healthy stuff in it, but its stimulant properties work exactly the same way as coffee's -- via caffeine. The only significant difference is the average dosage.
... i found Caffeine FAQ which discusses some of the myths typical of any discussion about coffee.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Dr Trombetti says she hates the stuff herself - but points to a welter of scientific evidence to back her case.
Hmmm... a "welter" is a "chaotic, jumbled mess" according to webster. Personally I've always preferred my scientific evidence presented in an orderly fashion. Even more, I like double-blind random scientific studies, but they're not even hinted at in this article.
Coffee contains tannin and antioxidants, which are good for the heart and arteries, she says. It can relieve headaches. It is good for the liver - and can help prevent cirrhosis and gallstones. And the caffeine in coffee can reduce the risk of asthma attacks - and help improve circulation within the heart.
I'm sorry to break it to "doctor" Trombetti but these are claims, not evidence. See above comment regarding the absence of scientific studies.
There is no denying that coffee is not for everyone. If you drink too much it can increase nervousness, and cause rapid heartbeat and trembling hands.
Ah, here's the interjected token fact to try to induce readers into a feeling that facts are being recited throughout. Sorry, no sale.
Fact: Coffee may be good for you, it may be bad for you. Fact: Scientifically speaking, this article does nothing to change the preponderance of evidence supporting the latter.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
"Some Tea's are higher in caffeine than coffee, so you may not be as caffeine-free as you thought."
While it's certainly possible to create a cup of tea and a cup of coffee, with the cup of tea having more caffeine than the cup of coffee, that's not how it works in actual daily life.
Check the Caffeine FAQ
From one list, for 7 oz servings:
Drip coffee = 115-175 mg of caffeine
Espresso = 100
Brewed coffee = 85-135
Instant coffee = 64-100
Brewed tea = 40-60
Instant tea = 30
Iced tea = 41 (i.e., 70 for 12 oz)
Other lists from other sources are there, and they are similar.
Green tea is even lower than black tea. From Stash Tea, we have:
5 oz cup of coffee = 80 mg
One bag of black tea = 40
One bag of green tea = 20
Health wise, green tea r00lz! But black tea is good for variety, and gives benefits as well.
Of course, the amount you actually get depends on how long you brew the tea. I tend to prefer tea brewed for a much briefer time than many people: I like around 2 minutes, and shudder a bit when 5 bits is recommended, let alone when I see people leave the bag in the cup for 10 minutes or more. Yech. When you brew too long, you are adding mostly acid and yucky taste.
how coffee effects different people differently.
It makes you want to do all that, and all it make me want to do is take a crap.