Drink More Coffee

No less an authority than the Dietary Guideline Advisory Panel says that you should drink more coffee. The Washington Post reports on why Americans should drink more coffee.

Not only can people stop worrying about whether drinking coffee is bad for them, according to the panel, they might even want to consider drinking a bit more.

The panel cited minimal health risks associated with drinking between three and five cups per day. It also said that consuming as many as five cups of coffee each day (400 mg) is tied to several health benefits, including a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

The recommended level is three to five cups a day but the average American coffee consumption is one cup a day. The elite dietary panel says that you should drink more coffee. We also have a couple of suggestions regarding what kind of coffee you drink.

Grind Just before Brewing

Whole bean coffee lasts longer than ground coffee. So buy roasted coffee beans and grind just enough just before brewing. Not only is flavor preserved but regular and organic coffee antioxidants, the chemicals that make coffee healthy, last longer inside a whole bean. The Post also notes that most Americans drink bad coffee, namely ground coffee that sits on the shelf forever and has lost much of its flavor and health value.

People in this country, on the whole, are actually drinking worse coffee today than they have in the past. And the reason appears to be that they value cheapness over quality – and convenience over everything. “A lot of people in America would take a sip of single origin high-end coffee and not appreciate the taste,” said Howard Telford, an industry analyst at market research firm Euromonitor.

“Price is important because if you can’t afford it, you can’t buy it, but convenience is the one thing that’s really changing trends these days.” Indeed, the bulk of this country runs not on single-drip artisanal coffee, but standard, pre-ground coffee, which, by most coffee snobs’ measures, is one of coffee’s most inferior forms.

So, skip the convenient, cheap, ground, bad coffee and grind your whole bean coffee just before brewing. And, by the way, make it organic.

Why Organic Coffee

The point of drinking healthy organic coffee is that it is good for you and good for the environment.

Healthy organic coffee has been around for a long, long time. Unfortunately in the modern era the use of pesticides and herbicides has entered the picture in growing many crops, including otherwise healthy organic coffee. Although non-organic contaminants do not necessarily reduce the beneficial health effects of a healthy cup of organic coffee the non-organic contaminants cause problems of their own.

A study by the Australian Food Standards Authority revealed that as many as 133 contaminants may be in a cup of commercially available coffee. These contaminants include metals such as aluminum and zinc, pesticide residues, ochratoxin A, acrylamide, furan, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Some polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are found to cause cancer. Furans have been associated with skin disorders, liver problems, certain kinds of cancers, impairment to the reproductive, endocrine, and immune system, as well as effects on embryonic development.

So, drink more coffee and reduce your risk of Type II diabetes, various forms of cancer, multiple sclerosis, depression, Alzheimer’s disease and more. And drink healthy organic coffee and avoid the impurities too often found in regular coffee.




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