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Coffee Requires Cancer Warning, California Judge Rules (cnbc.com)
Scientists haven't rendered a verdict on whether coffee is good or bad for you but a California judge has. He says coffee sellers in the state should have to post cancer warnings. From a report: The culprit is a chemical produced in the bean roasting process that is a known carcinogen and has been at the heart of an eight-year legal struggle between a tiny nonprofit group and Big Coffee. The Council for Education and Research on Toxics wanted the coffee industry to remove acrylamide from its processing -- like potato chip makers did when it sued them years ago -- or disclose the danger in ominous warning signs or labels. The industry, led by Starbucks, said the level of the chemical in coffee isn't harmful and any risks are outweighed by benefits. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle said Wednesday that the coffee makers hadn't presented the proper grounds at trial to prevail.
the coffee makers hadn't presented the proper grounds
So what do they do with all their waste product?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Proper grounds. I see what you did there.
When everything has to have a warning label the labels start being ignored. Maybe it's time to just start saying everything in California causes cancer and call it a day?
When are they putting a label on the Welcome to Los Angeles sign on the freeway. Plenty of nasties in that air.
everything is a carcinogen in california...
Putting too many warning labels has the habit of making people numb to actual dangers and warning labels.
And why's that? Because the more coffee is roasted, the more carcinogen it has. And why Starbucks? Before heavily roasting coffee is a way to give ordinary cheap beans a stronger flavor.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
The National Toxicology Program’s Report on Carcinogens considers acrylamide to be reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen, based on studies in laboratory animals given acrylamide in drinking water. However, toxicology studies have shown that humans and rodents not only absorb acrylamide at different rates, they metabolize it differently as well.
Studies of workplace exposure have shown that high levels of occupational acrylamide exposure (which occurs through inhalation) cause neurological damage, for example, among workers using acrylamide polymers to clarify water in coal preparation plants. However, studies of occupational exposure have not suggested increased risks of cancer
The State of California is a recognized carcinogen. Also, Slashdot seems to dislike my idea of a two-paragraph link. Regardless, I was able to make it show as a referenced quote, which is neat, and here's a clickable link.
I really wish we could stop with foods being either "good" or "bad" for you. My guess is even if you actually get the science to say if something is good or bad, the chances are that it's really only very marginally good or bad for you at reasonable/non-OCD intake levels, not so good or bad that it will swing the health of a normal person.
Even foods/beverages that are demonstrably good or bad for you aren't either in very small amounts. Sugar isn't good for you, but if I ate a glazed donut once a year? It's not going to change anything.
I'm sure there's some marginal value in looking at high-volume consumption foods like coffee, but at this point people have been drinking it for a couple of centuries and tons of it over the last century and we don't have a plague of people dying from coffee poisoning.
Other than the obvious lack of utility for "good' and "bad" labels, all it does is encourage people to over-consume "good" foods, needlessly avoid "bad" foods, all magnified by a marketing tsunami of food companies touting their products as beneficial.
Indeed, this is idiotic.
There is ample evidence showing that coffee is surprisingly good for you. Saying it has to be labelled a "carcinogen" is doing nothing to help anybody's health, but is contributing to people ignoring warning labels, which is not a good thing. California's laws are stupid and counterproductive.
http://time.com/4116129/coffee-longer-life/
http://www.webmd.com/alzheimer...
https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/this-is-your-brain-on-coffee/
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/11/16/456191657/drink-to-your-health-study-links-daily-coffee-habit-to-longevity
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Oxygen is a known carcinogen. I have it on good authority that bottled water manufacturers knowingly include oxygen in their water with no care for the impact on the citizens of our state.
I agree! When I lived in the L.A. area, a newspaper article said that there were over 120 poisons in the air in the area where I lived.
Recently I was looking at an computer item on Newegg. There was a California notice that it was poisonous. How should I understand that???
Here is a example I just found: Combination Wrench, 5-7/8", 9mm,Chrome Vanadium Steel, Westward, 36A224 . How can a steel wrench be poisonous?
The California notice:
"WARNING: This product can expose you to chemicals including one or more listed chemicals which are known to the State of California to cause cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm. For more information, go to www.P65Warnings.ca.gov"
Why isn't there some explanation of the poison???
It seems to me that California has been poorly managed since Grey Davis was governor. But, I moved away more than 30 years ago.
Don't we need really fat 'cancer' labels on cars then - and I mean every car, even the electric ones (tires)? :-(
No wait, they got an even fatter lobby.
I have no idea why anybody would even litigate this. I have yet to see a single thing there that doesn't have this warning.
Causes Cancer in California!
Please?
After a while people just shrug and say "so what? *Everything* causes cancer."
Cigarettes cause cancer? So what? Everything causes cancer.
If I were a coffee maker I would make a whole batch of coffee named "Cancer Coffee" with giant "Cancer!!!" warning labels making up the whole packaging. That would stand out and everyone would admire the absurdity of the whole thing.
Or better yet, a coffee with the judges scowling face on the label, called "JUDGEMENT DAY COFFEE".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"the coffee makers hadn't presented the proper grounds at trial to prevail."
Maybe it was instant.
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
... then so does toast.
Acrylamide isn't an additive. Trace quantities of acrylamide are a byproduct of the Maillard (browning) reaction in certain foods. If you think about it, toasted bread isn't that different from roasted coffee; it's dry heat applied to seed proteins and sugars. People have been consuming it pretty much as long as they've been cooking things other than meat.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
as potentially lowering some cancers risks? https://www.webmd.com/cancer/n... Thing is, apart from known classified poisons, nothing is either completely black or white. And in retrospective, it looks like almost any man-made food processing has potentially deleterious effects on human health, cooking/heating being the most common. Then again, cooking and otherwise transforming food is part of what made us evolve into humans.
Coffee, including decaffeinated types, among other cacao compounds is linked to cancer as they contain theobromine. Additionally, caffeine is metabolised in the liver into 12% theobromine, 4% theophylline, and 84% paraxanthine. "Theobromine is known to induce gene mutations in lower eukaryotes and bacteria. In 1991 and 1997, research by the International Agency for Research on Cancer had shown that genetic mutations occurred in higher eukaryotic cells, specifically cultured mammalian cells." So, even if the coffee, along with other cacao compounds, was cooked at a low enough temperature to not produce acrylamide it still has carcinogenic potential.
All coffee companies will put the warning on all their products. Fucking idiocy.
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
I'm kind of curious, are doors in California required to have warnings along the lines of "Warning: outside contains sunlight, which is known to the state of California to cause cancer."?
Pound! Bang! Bin! Bash! is this a shell script or a Batman comic?
They should put warning labels on research as well. It has been proven that scientific research causes cancer in rats.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
If everything is critical, nothing is. If everything is important, nothing is. If everything is a carcinogen, nothing is.
Unless you put a qualifier next to it, it's meaningless because it voids any importance the label could originally have had. There is a difference in how likely it's gonna kill you, and this has to be stressed. Yes, working as a liquidator for Chernobyl, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee are all likely going to cause cancer in you. But one is quite certainly going to kill you quite soon, one is likely to kill you somewhere in the future and one is ... well, we don't know but might kill you ... at some point in time.
And unless we establish some kind of way to differentiate between them, such labels will lose all meaning they might have had. If I can't avoid doing or eating something that is labeled as "causes cancer", why bother trying to avoid any of them?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Trouble is that the only good food is kale. And kale is inedible.
Does make an OK packing material if properly dried
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
to cause cancer in laboratory animals"
The industry, led by Starbucks, said the level of the chemical in coffee isn't harmful and any risks are outweighed by benefits.
The risk is taken by the consumer. The benefits are taken by the industry / Starbucks.
This sounds to be in line with previous court judgements. Yes your coffee is hot. Put a sign on it.
Perhaps they should put "Crush danger" on sacks of it. If a big enough bag is dropped on someone from a sufficient height it may injure. After all, how many such bagfulls of this need to be drunk in order to significantly increase the chance of cancer?
Which kills the most people prematurely per year in the USA - coffee cancer, obesity, air pollution or motor vehicle accidents? Which causes the most across the rest of the planet? Lets deal with all of the dangers buts lets set some priorities, Deal with the ones that cause the most damage first.
For comparison of importance, which has caused the most questionable election results - illegal immigrants, fraudulent voters, jerrymandering or termites?. We can probably deal with the termites later.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
It's a decomposition product of the roasting bean. They don't pour it in there like some kind of solvent. It's formed when cooking above 120C. Potato chips could probably avoid generating it by cooking at 119C and burn less chips in the process. I think potatoes are fried to remove the water and they lowered the temperature by vacuum frying. Coffee needs to decompose in order to be roasted where potato chips are considered burnt when this happens.
https://www.coffeecrossroads.c...
because coffee contains water.
every food processing bears risks. If you cook, it can not be avoided that some unhealthy ingredients are produced. There are pros and cons to every food philosophy. As others have pointed out, the evidence prevails that coffee is beneficial for cancer prevention and has other benefits.
I really wish we could stop with foods being either "good" or "bad" for you. My guess is even if you actually get the science to say if something is good or bad, the chances are that it's really only very marginally good or bad for you at reasonable/non-OCD intake levels, not so good or bad that it will swing the health of a normal person.
It's actually more complicated than that since a food will have effects that are both good and bad. Coffee being a good example, as people mentioned coffee has a lot health benefits, but it also has health issues and risks, one of which may be a very slight increase in your probability of cancer.
The same thing happens with drugs, only moreso. Any useful drug is having an effect on your body, anytime you have an effect you're probably going to have a side effect as well. That's why drug warnings are so common, that's also why I'm so skeptical if natural health remedies. If the natural drug is effective enough to do something good then it's also effective enough to do something bad.
I stole this Sig
So what was the reaction when Trump wanted to move toward giving meal kits to the poor instead of letting buy whatever they want? Rawwwwwr!
The issue is the "meal kits" were not nutritionally sufficient. They also proposed that the meal kits should contain cheap, obesity-enhancing processed foods. After all, it's the obesity-enhancing formulations that make them cheap.
Also, farmers and other agribusiness were the primary objectors. They'd like to sell their product. Frequently without having to bribe government officials.
Finally, I gotta love the hypocrisy of screaming "nannyism" while supporting a program that explicitly tells people "eat this".
It's about time we pull out of the ancient tradition of letting shyster politicians make our decisions for us.
"You can request the "Hazardous Material Data Sheet" from the manufacturer."
I think every online listing should be required to have a link to the Hazardous Material Data Sheet. Otherwise, it is too time-consuming to learn about the hazard.
Very funny parent comment, because very well written.
You don't see them going to great lengths with their own line of coffeemakers now, do you?
That's because they all died from cancer.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Just how much coffee do you have to drink before this becomes a significant threat? Because I'm guessing it's going to be right up there with the nonsense about sodium benzoate in sodas some years back, where you would have to drink 300 cokes in a day to exceed the FDA's guidelines on sodium benzoate.
At which point, you'd have far worse problems than the sodium benzoate in the sodas.
I mean, okay, if _one_ cup of coffee a day significantly increased your chances of certain cancers, I think we'd have noticed that by now. So, I'm betting for acrylamide to be a major factor in you getting cancer from drinking coffee, you'd have to drink at least a few dozen cups a day.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
The whole point of a free market is that the best decision point for risks vs. benefits is the individual, with specific knowledge of his or her own situation.
I'm sure there are plenty of people out there where the benefits look dubious, not having any of the risk factors in the first place that those "benefits" are mooted to reduce, while having a family history of cancer in precisely those organs most closely associated with acrylamide animal models.
The only free market I believe in is the one where decision makers—including the ever-more beleaguered individual—are empowered with specific information and associated choice gradients they can realistically exploit. A free market for me is a giant network of autonomous choice gradients populated by informed, self-interested choosers. Half of capitalism talks a big story about free markets, while doing everything in the power of their Dr Strangelovesque second arm to squelch choice gradients, to dominate choice gradients with macroscopic binary decision points, to suppress the flow of pertinent information, or to cloud the flow of pertinent information if it can't killed at source.
I watched The Kite Runner last night. Great in the small stuff, weak in the large stuff (central-casting bullet spray that gets sleepy-footed and near-sighted in the third act, helping the audience ignore the small detail that the protagonist has gone batshit INSANE in his peril management skills), but a worthy film for all that.
MINOR spoiler alert. At a key point, there's a line "Where's your shame?"
Okay, free-market fat cats, my turn: Where's your shame?
The benefits (in the large) outweigh the risks (in the large).
"In the large" is hammer and sickle territory. WTF has that got to do with decentralized, individual, free-market choice?
Nice. No expedient socialism here. Just business as usual, with the crisp, wind-blown flag of capitalist ideology self-interest concealing your missing pants.
It's not a problem with warnings themselves, but of weighing the level of risk. The labels don't give one any sense of risk degree. Perhaps we need a rating system, similar to movie ratings or Dept. of Homeland Security's "Homeland Security Advisory System" rating colors (which have since been altered in confusing ways).
By the way, the warnings are required by Proposition 65, which was voted into CA law. It's not meddling gov't, but meddling voters.
Let's make it better instead of throwing it out.
Table-ized A.I.
I could find a hundred other sources saying the same thing. Those just happened to be the ones at the top of my list.
Sorry somebody downmodded you as troll: I think they saw that you were gratuitously slamming news sources, and didn't realize you were in fact actually on topic, since you were commenting on the sources I linked.
With that said, however, your comment on the sources was edging toward troll, or possibly simply prejudice. It doesn't make a whit of difference that the New York Times is "part of the big-4 media monopoly"; their Tuesday Science Section continues to be one of the best sources for science and health information. Sorry you don't like them because they don't fit your personal bias, but you very much need to understand that it is you, and not them, who has the bias.
And, by the way, if there are four of them, it's not a monopoly.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Existence in the State of California, maybe hazardous to your health. There maybe a link between existence in California being a cancer causing carcinogen and cancer.
;)
Just my 2 cents
may cause harm to your health and possibly even life. Use with appropriate does of caution. You have been warned.
We should get warning labels for this.
Trouble is that the only good food is kale. And kale is inedible.
You know if you add a flavoured grease like coconut oil or some salted butter to the pan when you cook kale it makes it easier to scrape into the trash.
That link does not seem valid.
I'm kind of curious, are doors in California required to have warnings along the lines of "Warning: outside contains sunlight, which is known to the state of California to cause cancer."?
Prop 65 is only about chemicals, but you never know where a new California proposition will take you...
Of course some sun-block lotions have been required to slap on this warning...
WARNING: This product contains benzophenone, a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer.
https://oag.ca.gov/system/file...
A smarter judge would simply require everything to have a cancer warning and be done with it. Life is a cancer risk, and we should nanny state proper. This half assed shit needs to be stopped.
And, by the way, if there are four of them, it's not a monopoly.
They collectively are
Nope. That's not what a monopoly is. The word "mono" means one; "monopoly" means "one seller."
If there are four, it's not one.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
You know if you add a flavoured grease like coconut oil or some salted butter to the pan
Frying in Crisco and adding a bit of sodium saccharine make it quite tasty. Also, adding a bit of bacon (or just bacon fat) does wonders.
I am reminded of the tale of "stone soup".
I have no idea why anybody would even litigate this.
From the CNBC story, referring to Prop 65: "It allows private citizens, advocacy groups and attorneys to sue on behalf of the state and collect a portion of civil penalties for failure to provide warnings."
That's why.
Funny thing, they've found a much higher correlation between obesity and cancer than between coffee and cancer.
Sorry, but the State of California KNOWS what causes cancer. It's not just a positive correlation to them.
Thanks for the explanation. I was mystified. Is that really the reason for the California state poison notice?
There is chromium and vanadium in the earth, also. Should there be big signs in California like this:
EARTH is a planet known to the state of California to cause cancer.
Or: Since sunlight can cause skin cancer, should California have big signs that say:
The UNIVERSE is known to the state of California to cause cancer.
the coffee makers hadn't presented the proper grounds... ..badum tshhhhh....
Yet another incompetent twat, utterly devoid of common sense, is sitting on the bench and ruling on cases in California.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
https://www.healwithfood.org/a...
https://www.fda.gov/Food/Foodb...
PPB of acrylamide
Brewed coffee: 5-10
Gerber Tender Harvest Organic Sweet Potatoes: 121
Arby's french fries: 252
Lamb Weston Inland Valley Fajita Fries (baked): 1325
Pepperidge Farm Dark Pump Pumpernickel (not toasted): 34
Pepperidge Farm Dark Pump Pumpernickel (toasted): 364 <-- better not use your toaster
General Mills Cheerios: 266
Blue Diamond Roasted Salted Almonds: 236
Hershey's Cocoa: 909
Nabisco Chocolate Teddy Grahams: 199
Starbucks Coffee Colombia (brewed): 7
Starbucks Coffee Lite Note (brewed): 11
Keebler Rumbly Grahams Cinnamon: 334
Holy crap, see how much toasting your bread adds?! California should place warning on toasters. Turns your food into a cancer causing poison. But really, Gerber baby food has 12-24x more.
Bullshit. The answer isn't GMO. The answer is in lowering the roasting or frying temperature.
The GE solution is already proven to work. The later does not fully work, and there often aren't any clear indications that it has. Furthermore, as a consumer, there isn't a very good way to determine just how cooked coffee is. Just for an idea, the current recommendation for toast is that you can eat light brown parts of the toast, but not the dark brown. To make matters worse, even if you control for temperature, you probably don't have the right equipment to make it heat uniformly in your home kitchen.
If the judge paid attention in science class, they'd know that they aren't qualified to be making that kind of ruling. Leave it to real scientists to get to the research and lobby the government.
Acrylamide and Cancer Risk
I meant I have no idea why the coffee makers would try to avoid putting the warning! They should have just folded immediately.
So eventually the label will be meaningless.