How Is Coffee Good for You?

A morning cup of coffee is great for waking up and starting the day. But otherwise how is coffee good for you? It turns out that coffee has a lot of health benefits. The benefits of drinking coffee range from living longer to reducing the risks of various diseases. According to The New York Times the more coffee you drink the better off you are. And this is true to a point.

Even The New York Times is jumping on the coffee band wagon with an article about coffee’s benefits. Here is a snippet of what they have to say.

Just last year, a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies looking at long-term consumption of coffee and the risk of cardiovascular disease was published. The researchers found 36 studies involving more than 1,270,000 participants. The combined data showed that those who consumed a moderate amount of coffee, about three to five cups a day, were at the lowest risk for problems. Those who consumed five or more cups a day had no higher risk than those who consumed none.

The author goes on to report research showing lower risk of cancer, depression, suicide, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and Type II diabetes. In fact, recent studies show a reduced risk of death from all causes! So the benefits of drinking coffee include getting to drink it for more years!

Maximizing the Benefits of Drinking Coffee

CBS News reports on how to maximize the health benefits of coffee.

But heavy java drinkers beware: consuming coffee does come with diminishing returns. “There’s a U-shaped relationship, meaning if you have less than one or two cups a day, the benefits are weaker, but it also drops off if you have more than five or six cups a day,” Phillips said.

The point is that drinking three to five cups of coffee a days is good for you in many ways. Drinking a lot more is not any better and may even be associated with fewer benefits. Moderation in all things is required for the best benefits of drinking coffee.

Where Does Organic Coffee Fit into the Picture?

Think of healthy organic coffee as the cleanest and healthiest of the lot.

Organic coffee is typically Arabica coffee, the best tasting and most aromatic of al coffees. And organic coffee is commonly grown on small family farms where you are assured of the best quality beans and processing. Certified organic coffee is free of as many as 130 impurities that can be found in regular coffee.

The soil in which organic coffee is grown must have been verified as free from prohibited substances for at least three years. In addition there must be distinct boundaries between land on which organic coffee is grown and land where pesticides, herbicides, and prohibited chemical fertilizers are used. This guarantees that drift of substances sprayed or otherwise applied on adjacent land will not contaminate the organic plot of land. Organic coffee certification includes the adherence to a specific and verifiable plan for all practices and procedures from planting to crop maintenance, to harvest, de-husking, bagging, transport, roasting, packaging, and final transport. Along the way procedures must be in place at every step to insure that there is no contamination of the healthy organic coffee produced in pristine soil with regular coffee produced on soil exposed to herbicides, pesticides, and organic fertilizers.

As the experts say up to six cups of coffee a day provide increasing health benefits and the more organic coffee you drink the more free your coffee is of pesticides, herbicides and other unwanted ingredients.




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