How Is Organic Coffee Decaffeinated?
There are four ways to decaffeinate coffee. Only one of them is certified organic. Here are the details.
Decaffeination Using Solvents
There are two methods for removing caffeine that use solvents. The direct solvent method soaks coffee beans in the solvent and the indirect solvent method beans are soaked in water and the caffeine rich water is treated with a solvent. The two commonly used solvents are methylene chloride and ethyl acetate. Both of these are very volatile chemicals so that whatever minute quantities persist in the final decaffeinated bean they are removed with roasting and then brewing.
Indirect Solvent Method
Coffee beans are soaked in hot water (just under the boiling point) for several hours. This removes caffeine as well as other chemicals that give coffee its flavor and aroma.
Water is drawn off to another container and the solvent is added. The solvent binds to the caffeine. Then the mixture is heated and the volatile solvent and caffeine evaporate. Then the beans are added to the remaining mixture to reabsorb the remaining chemicals restoring part of the flavor of the coffee.
Direct Solvent Method
In this case the beans are briefly steamed, about half an hour. Then they are rinsed with the solvent repeatedly for about 10 hours. The solvent is drained off and the beans are steamed one more time to remove remaining solvent.
Non-Solvent Methods
Swiss Water Method
Although this way to decaffeinate coffee was discovered in the 1930’s it took another half century to find a way to make the process cost effective. Despite the Swiss name the company is based in Vancouver, B.C. This is the process whose facility has organic certification.
Coffee beans are soaked in hot water to remove caffeine. The water passes through an large-pore activated charcoal filter. The pore size is such that larger caffeine molecules are trapped and smaller molecules (oils, antioxidants) pass through. The remaining water contains flavor elements but not caffeine.
Then the first batch of beans is discarded! New beans are then soaked with the flavor rich but caffeine free water. Osmosis takes caffeine out of the beans to until its concentration is the same in the bean and in the water. But the flavor elements are already equally concentrated in bean and water so they are not removed. The company tests their product to guarantee that their coffee is 99.95% caffeine free. Decaf coffee made with this process is always labeled as Swiss Water decaf.
CO2 Method
This high tech approach to making decaf coffee is relatively new. Coffee beans are placed in a very strong stainless steel tank. Then liquid CO2 (carbon dioxide) is introduced until the pressure in the tank is 1,000 pounds per square inch. Air pressure on the earth’s surface at sea level is 14 pounds per square inch so the coffee is subjected to a lot of pressure. The carbon dioxide selectively dissolves caffeine and leaves the other constituents behind. The CO2 is drawn off and allowed to return to a gas form releasing the caffeine which allows the re-liquefied CO2 to be used again and again.
This is an expensive process that is most economical on a very large scale. Thus it gets used for processing of huge quantities of ordinary decaf coffee for grocery stores.
Organic Coffee without Mycotoxins
Yet another fear factor has been introduced into our lives. This is the fear of mycotoxins in our coffee. Mycotoxins are produced by fungi and the current concern is that fungus on wet coffee beans produces mycotoxins that will hurt you. Recently Bullet Proof Coffee has promoted their coffee is mycotoxin free due to how the coffee is processed. They, of course, charge a premium for their coffee. How dangerous are mycotoxins? What is your risk when you drink organic or regular coffee? And can you get organic coffee without mycotoxins?
Health Effects of Mycotoxins
The National Institutes of Health provide an overview of the health effects of mycotoxins.
Scientific literature revealed a linkage between ingesting mycotoxin contaminated food and illness, especially hepatic, gastrointestinal, and carcinogenic diseases. Issues related to mycotoxin exposure.
Although there is agreement that diet is the main source of mycotoxin exposure, specific health effects and risk assessment from indoor nonagricultural exposure are limited by the paucity of scientific evidence currently available.
There are many mycotoxins but the one most often mentioned in regard to coffee is ochratoxin A (OTA). The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations discusses ochratoxin A contamination in coffee.
OTA is one of several naturally occurring toxins, known as mycotoxins, which are produced by molds that grow on crops in the field or in storage. OTA present in green coffee is not completely eliminated during the coffee roasting process.
This issue was studied and guidelines for the prevention of mold formation in coffee were developed. In general the recommendations are for healthy and sustainable agricultural practices such as cleaning up fallen fruit, avoiding overhead irrigation around flowering of the coffee plant, weeding and pruning to maintain healthy plants and not composting with substances likely to promote mold growth around coffee plants.
How coffee is harvested is also an issue. We wrote about this in regard to the small organic coffee farmer versus large commercial operations. When overripe fruit is harvested or when fallen fruit is harvested it increases the risk of mold contamination. Thus you are more likely to get organic coffee without mycotoxins from a dedicated organic grower than from a large regular coffee producer.
Moldy Coffee Tastes Worse
Coffee with bad, moldy beans tastes bad. If you are buying cheap coffee and don’t like the taste, part of the issue might be mold contamination.
What Should You Do?
Freshgroundroast.com offers their opinion on the subject of mycotoxin free coffee and they say don’t buy the B.S! They note that the many studies of the health benefits of drinking coffee do not specify what kind of coffee and certainly not which brand. Coffee is good for you over the years no matter what kind you drink and this is based on caffeine content and antioxidants.
Companies that offer “mycotoxin free coffee” say that using a wet processing method reduces or eliminates mycotoxins. The problem with this argument is that mycotoxins are ubiquitous. They are found in dark chocolate and wine, raisins and peanuts and it beer. Most grains contain trace amounts of mycotoxins as do many water supplies.
It would appear that the tiny amounts of these chemicals to which we are routinely exposed do not create a great health risk. If you want to avoid the risk of higher amounts of mycotoxins in your coffee stick with high quality organic coffee and avoid any cheap and bad tasting brew.
How Is Organic Coffee Harvested?
Organic coffee is good for you and good for the environment. From planting to harvesting to storage and transportation organic coffee is kept separate for regular coffee. That having been said the harvesting of organic coffee is similar to that of regular.
Harvesting Coffee in the Eje Cafetero of Colombia
The coffee harvest in Colombia has more in common with picking fruit in Southern California than combining soybeans in Iowa. Coffee is most commonly picked by hand. And coffee grows on slopes up of up 60 degrees. Coffee pickers go out with a bag, sometimes rappelling down a mountain side and then filling the bag with picked coffee beans on their way back. This is selective picking of coffee. When coffee berries are ripe they have a distinctive and somewhat offensive odor. Pickers remove ripe berries by hand. This method is the only way to pick coffee on slopes and is the only way to pick shade grown coffee among the trees.
Sun Grown Coffee in Brazil
The alternative on flatter land is called strip harvesting which can be manual or mechanical. This method is used on large Brazilian coffee farms which are typically not organic. Casa Brazil describes methods of coffee harvesting.
Selective harvesting is the picking of only ripe coffee fruit by hand. Unripe coffee is left on the tree for future harvesting. Overripe coffee can either be left on the tree (not recommended) or picked and kept separate from the ripe fruit (recommended). After several weeks the picker will go back and again pick only ripe fruit. This process is repeated until the producer determines that it is no longer worthwhile to harvest.
Manual Stripping
In the first method, pickers place a canvas on the ground. They then grab the branch next to the trunk with their hands and pull outward, knocking all of the fruit onto the ground. After doing this with all branches and trees for the length of the canvas, the pickers then collect the coffee in bags and take it to be weighed. Pickers are usually paid by weight or volume.
Mechanical Stripping
The second strip harvesting method is similar to the first but with some mechanical assistance. Here pickers use derricadeiras, mechanical strippers that look like Freddie Kruger’s hands attached to a weed whacker. As with the previous method, the pickers first put down a canvas. They then use the mechanical strippers to knock all of the coffee onto the canvas. The accumulated coffee is then put into bags, which are weighed at the end of the day.
For the farmer the advantage of stripping that he only needs to send the pickers through the field one time. The down side is wasting unripe coffee beans that would have been good in another week or two.
Stripping works on flat areas and works for large commercial operations that produce large volumes of regular coffee. How organic coffee is harvested is different because of the slopes where organic Arabica coffee is grown at higher altitude and because of the care organic coffee farmers put into their final product. Organic coffee commands a higher price than regular. This is because people like saving the planet so long as they are having a really good cup of coffee. If the quality goes, so do the customers, so high quality organic coffee is harvested by hand.
What Is Certified Organic Coffee?
How do you know if the coffee you are buying is really organic? You look for evidence of certification. What is certified organic coffee? In the USA the authority for organic coffee certification is the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Just what is organic coffee certification and how does organic coffee certification insure a bona fide cup of organic coffee? Organic coffee differs from regular coffee in several aspects. 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.
The USDA is the ultimate certifying authority but they delegate the actual work to other agencies because the only place where coffee is grown in the USA is Hawaii. In Latin America much of the work of certifying organic coffee is done by Bio Latina.
Bio Latina is located in Lima, Peru. The company certifies farms, ranches, and forests for sustainable practices on behalf of organizations throughout the world. Bio Latina certifies in Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Nicaragua and Venezuela as well as in Panamá, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador Ecuador and Mexico.
Bio Latina certifies on behalf of the European Union, the USDA, the Japanese Agricultural Ministry, the Canada Organic Regime, BioSuisse, the Soil Association, Global G.A. P., Starbucks Coffee, Stop Climate Change, the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and UTZ Certified.
How Is Organic Coffee Better Than Regular?
Organic coffee is good for you and good for the environment. If you care about the planet you will want to eat food grown with sustainable agriculture. This way of farming preserves the soil, avoids contamination of the water table and reduces the likelihood that you will be eating things that you do want like pesticide residue in your food. Regarding things you don’t want the Australian food authority tested regular coffee and found more than 130 unwanted contaminants. If you don’t want fungicides and herbicides or residue of synthetic fertilizers in your coffee go organic. Look for these images on the coffee that you buy.
What Are Some Organic Coffee Brands
If you have decided that healthy organic coffee is a better choice than regular you may be wondering what are some organic coffee brands? Our primary interest lies in coffee from Colombia where Arabica coffee reigns supreme. A couple of Colombian organic coffee brands that you might find on your grocer’s shelf are Juan Valdez and Oma.
Juan Valdez
This name started as a fictional character representing the Colombian coffee farmer. The Colombian National Federation of Coffee Growers has used the likeness of a coffee farmer with a mule since 1958. If you coffee has Juan Valdez on the label the coffee is 100% Colombian. More recently there has been a Juan Valdez coffee brand available in Aruba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, Spain, Kuwait and the USA as well as in Colombia. In fact you can easily find Juan Valdez coffee shops in the heart of the coffee growing region in cities like Manizales.
OMA
OMA is a German word for grandma. The company was founded by German immigrants in 1970 in Bogota, the 8 million person capital of Colombia. Oma has coffee shops all over Colombia and you can find OMA coffee in the USA as well. If you would like to try OMA coffee and cannot find it let us know and we will be glad to help you receive a shipment direct from the roaster in Bogota.
Organic Coffee Direct from the Eje Cafetero
The coffee roasters who sell organic coffee do not grow the coffee themselves. Rather they pay organic coffee farmers for their product. If you are looking to try really fresh Colombian organic coffee from the coffee growing district of central-west Colombia we are glad to help you out. We can supply coffee lovers with small orders or shipping containers full of coffee. See our coffee price list for details.
Our best and most reliable source of high quality organic coffee is the coffee growing region of Colombia, the Eje Cafetero.
Our best price is for orders of 1,800 pounds or more. Shipped in 5.5 pound bags (2.5 kilos) this comes to 360 bags of USDA certified roasted whole organic coffee beans.
We will be pleased to have coffee in large quantities shipped directly to you anywhere in the world.
As an example a recent price quote for this quantity of organic coffee, air freight to Houston is $18,861.70.
Cafe Organico, 2.5 kilo bags (5.5 pounds) – USDA Organic and other certifications:
Cost for 360 bags = $18,861.70
Cost per bag = $52.39
Cost per kilo = $20.96
Cost per pound = $9.53
Prices change with the base price of regular coffee. The largest markup for coffee is the roasting so if you want green coffee and roast your own we can help with shipments of virtually any size.
Green Coffee
Buy Organic Coffee can also help you with large shipments of green coffee from Colombia.
We would be pleased to offer quotes for a 20 foot shipping container and arrange for shipping to you.
Contact us via our Contact Us page.
If you wish to buy and then resell in the USA or elsewhere, we can also help with unique packaging for your product.
Organic Coffee for Detox
The evidence is clear that coffee is good for you. Coffee drinkers reduce their risk of getting Type II diabetes, various forms of cancer and degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Coffee drinkers have a lower risk of depression and frankly folks who drink coffee are less likely to commit suicide. But what about organic coffee for detox via the rectal route? Are coffee enemas safe for you? Do they do any good?
Coffee Enemas
MIndBodyGreen.com gives ten reasons to try a coffee enema.
- Reduces levels of toxicity by up to 600%.
- Cleans and heals the colon, improving peristalis.
- Increases energy levels, improves mental clarity and mood.
- Helps with depression, bad moods, sluggishness.
- Helps eliminate parasites and candida.
- Improves digestion, bile flow, eases bloating.
- Detoxifies the liver and helps repair the liver.
- Can help heal chronic health conditions (along with following a mainly raw plant based diet).
- Helps ease “die-off” or detox reactions during periods of fasting or juice fasting, cleansing or healing.
- Used regularly in the Gerson Institute treatment protocol for healing cancer patients naturally
Their article starts with the writer describing their personal experience in combating a yeast infection using coffee enemas. We got to wondering what sort of evidence is there to support these suggestions.
Does Colon Cleansing Eliminate Toxins?
According to the Mayo Clinic’s web site here is more info about colon detox, especially with coffee.
Colon cleansing is normally used as preparation for medical procedures such as colonoscopy. However, some alternative medicine practitioners also offer colon cleansing for other purposes, such as detoxification.
But colon cleansing – also called a colonic or a colonic irrigation – for such purposes isn’t necessary. That’s because your digestive system and bowel already eliminate waste material and bacteria from your body.
During this sort of procedure a tube is inserted in the rectum and as much as 16 gallons of water are flushed through the large intestine, the colon. Often other substances such as herbs or coffee are added.
What are the results? Although practitioners of this procedure say that it removes toxins and thereby increases your energy and improves your immune system there is no clear proof that this is the case. On the other hand there is evidence that this procedure can cause harm. Problems resulting from colon cleansing include the following:
- Cramping
- Bloating
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Death (several have been reported)
Other risks include dehydration, bowel perforation, increased incidence of infections and electrolyte changes which can be dangerous if you have heart or kidney problems.
How about Coffee by Mouth for Detox?
If you are going through a drug detox program you probably have a cup of coffee in your hand during much of the day. Having something to do, something to drink and something to occupy your mind while your body adjusts to a new non-drug state is useful and as such coffee consumption (by mouth) during detox is common.
Organic Flavored Coffee K Cups
So you like your coffee with various flavors. Can you still get organic coffee and can you get that as single serve? Here is some info on organic flavored coffee K cups. Let’s start with the folks who started single serve coffee, Keurig Green Mountain Coffee.
From subtle spices to rich desserts, we have an assortment of heartwarming flavors to enjoy in a quiet moment or in the company of friends.
Popular Varieties:
- Hazelnut
- Caramel Vanilla Cream
- Wild Mountain Blueberry®
Additional flavors include French Vanilla, Southern Pecan and Hazelnut.
How Do They Make Flavored Coffee?
The web site, How Products Are Made, discusses the flavored coffee bean.
Flavored coffee beans are coated with flavor compounds to supplement coffee beans’ natural taste. In addition, these flavors help extend the shelf life of coffee by disguising changes in flavor due to decaffeination, oxidation, or aging processes. Flavored coffees in one form or another have been used for centuries, but the gourmet coffee boom of the 1990s resulted in an increased interest in exotic flavors of coffee. With current chemical technology, the beans can be produced with almost any flavor imaginable.
First, flavored syrups were used to spike brewed coffee with a touch of a favored flavor. More recent improvements in food science have led to ways of introducing complex flavors directly onto the beans as part of a post-roasting process. When these flavored beans are used for brewing, the flavor is extracted into the resulting beverage.
Flavoring Oils
Flavoring oils are combinations of natural and synthetic flavor chemicals which are compounded by professional flavor chemists. Natural oils used in flavored coffees are extracted from a variety of sources, such as vanilla beans, cocoa beans, and various nuts and berries. Cinnamon, clove, and chicory are also used in a variety of coffee flavors. Synthetic flavor agents are chemicals which are manufactured on a commercial basis. Flavor chemists blend many such oils to achieve specific flavor combinations. While other food flavors may be composed of nine or 10 ingredients, coffee flavors may require up to 80 different compounds to achieve subtle flavors. Virtually any taste can be reproduced. Marketers have found that consumers prefer coffee flavors with sweet creamy notes. The ideal flavor should mask some of the harsh notes of the coffee yet not interfere with its aromatic characteristics.
Is There a Down Side to Flavored Coffees?
Serious Eats says there is a dark side of flavored coffee. What is it?
Flavored coffees are the bane of many coffee geeks’ existence: essentially, they’re a whole category of fragrances and flavors meant to completely obscure the taste your coffee naturally begins with.
The concept is a traditional way of making bad coffee taste better, and at times in history when only lower quality coffees were easy to access, flavored blends seemed like a luxury.
In short they are saying that while there is nothing really bad about organic flavored coffee k cups, you may be drinking a lower quality coffee and never know it. Their suggestion and ours is to start with a high quality organic Arabica coffee like one of the Colombian organic coffees and recognize the coffee taste first before adding anything, even cream or sugar.
Organic Alternatives to Coffee
If for some reason you don’t like or cannot drink coffee what are some organic alternatives to coffee? Mind Body Green has a few suggestions.
Here are five healthy coffee alternatives that will give you a morning boost without the adrenal crash.
Hot Maca
A couple of tablespoons of maca blended in a cup of warm almond milk, with a splash of raw honey and ground cinnamon is a delicious way to start the morning.
Dandelion Herbal Coffee Blend
This is the closest to coffee flavor that you’ll get. Roasted dandelion, chicory root and maca come together to give you a fairly close rendition.
Matcha Green Tea
Matcha green tea is all the rage right now. It’s been touted as a superior antioxidant, detoxifier and energy booster.
Lemon Water
Not like coffee, but waking up with a cup of warm lemon water gently wakes up your liver and kicks off your system on the right foot.
Organic, Single-Origin Coffee
Poorly sourced coffee contains mycotoxins (mold) that make your coffee less healthy.
Our take on the subject is that if you are getting too much of a buzz from your coffee it is not all that hard to cut back on the caffeine. First of all cut out the Death Wish and the rest of the world’s strongest coffees. Robusta coffee has a lot more caffeine than Arabica so stick with high quality Arabica coffee from Colombia. Consider buying directly from the source in places like Manizales, Colombia.
Manizales was founded in the mid-19th century by 14 families who moved into this mountainous region specifically to grow coffee. They are now known as the founders or Fundadores. The local upscale mall is the Fundadores and a large local grocery store is La 14 in reference to the founders. Coffee culture is everywhere and Manizales is the home of the Colombian Coffee Growers Association. There are large coffee roasting companies everywhere but our focus is on the small family operations. We visited one such company recently. Dad came from Tolima, Colombia a generation ago and founded a tilladora. This word translates as thresher in Google but is the operation for removal of the husk on the green coffee bean before roasting.
Directly from the Colombian Coffee Processor to You
If you are interested in high quality wholesale green coffee or Arabica coffee just picked, processed and roasted contact us today. And take a look at our coffee price list for select coffees from Panama as well. Cutting out the middleman is a good way to assure good quality organic coffee free from impurities and high in healthy antioxidants.
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.
Stick with organic coffee, Arabica and from Colombia.
What Are the World’s Strongest Coffees?
When we wrote about Death Wish Coffee we believed it was the strongest coffee in the world. We may have been wrong.
Mike Brown, owner of Death Wish Coffee mixes Arabica and Robusta coffee beans to make Death Wish Coffee.
Robusta coffee is properly named Coffea robusta, or Coffea canephora. This variety of coffee is a more hardy plant than the Arabica variety. It is less prone to infestations of insects or plant disease so it is also cheaper to grow. Originating from plants in the western and central sub-Sahara Robusta yields more coffee beans than an Arabica plant and Robusta coffee beans contain about 2.7% caffeine as opposed to 1.5% for Arabica. The Robusta plant can grow as high as thirty feet. It is the primary coffee grown across most of Africa from Ethiopia on the Indian Ocean to Liberia on the Atlantic and South to Angola. The most recent export of Robusta coffee beans has been to Vietnam where coffee farmers produce the second largest volume of coffee in the world after Brazil.
Caffeine in non-coffee drinks comes from Robusta coffee beans. And a Robusta Arabica mix is used in Italian espresso blends.
Move Over Death Wish
According to Fox News there is a stronger coffee just arrived from South Africa, Black Insomnia Coffee.
Black Insomnia Coffee, which made its debut in South Africa last year, packs a serious punch. According to creator Sean Kristafor, the java jams 702 milligrams of caffeine into just 12 ounces. Compare that to a Tall Starbucks Pike Place, which has about 230 milligrams.
According to the coffee company, the makers sent bags of its coffee to a Swiss-based laboratory to confirm its claims as the world’s strongest brew. Samples were then tested via liquid chromatography (the separation of a mixture by passing it in a solution) and Black Insomnia was the strongest of those reviewed with 17.5 grams of caffeine per kilogram of coffee.
By comparison, “Death Wish” coffee was evaluated as having 13.2 grams per kilogram, while WodFee (marketed as the “world’s strongest coffee blend with added caffeine”) had 13.8 grams. A dark roast from Starbucks has around 5 grams of caffeine per kilogram, approximately.
These three strongest coffees have more than twice the caffeine per cup than the coffee you are drinking today. What is the point of stronger coffee?
Flavor, Health Benefits and Staying Awake
For many people the point of drinking coffee is to wake up in the morning and stay awake at mid-day. If you are a long distance truck driver who needs to keep your rig on the highway at 3 am the world’s strongest coffee makes sense. On the other hand if you like the flavor of high quality Arabica coffee you will be missing out by adding robusta beans or straight caffeine to your brew. And most of the health benefits of coffee come from the antioxidants so simply adding more caffeine to you mug may keep you awake but will not help you prevent diseases or live longer.
Is Organic Coffee Healthy?
Organic coffee is typically made from high grade Arabica coffee beans so it has great taste and aroma. And organic coffee is great for the environment because it requires sustainable agriculture to grow it. But is organic coffee healthy for you? Organic coffee is healthy on two counts. First of all coffee has all sorts of health benefits. And second organic coffee does not have a whole lot of impurities that may be found in regular coffee. First what are the health aspects of coffee?
Healthy Organic Coffee
It has been six years since we posted an article, Healthy Organic Coffee.
Healthy organic coffee contains calcium. It contains antioxidants such as polyphenols which are also called condensed tannins and help prevent tooth decay in addition to their antioxidant activity. The antioxidant properties of a healthy cup of organic coffee include the ability to lessen age associated cellular damage, prevent new blood vessel formation in cancerous tissue, and inhibit the long term inflammation seen in atherosclerosis. Ongoing research points to uses of polyphenols as treatments for specific age related conditions. And all of this from a cup of healthy organic coffee!
In that article we mentioned the fact that coffee drinkers have a reduced risk of type II diabetes. Over the years we have added articles reporting reduced risk of cancer, depression, suicide, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and cirrhosis of the liver. Coffee drinkers have a reduced risk of dying at any age compared to their friends who avoid java. And coffee improves exercise performance as well as sex! All of those benefits come from a cup of coffee.
But why do you want organic coffee? In the same article years ago we noted the findings of the Australian Food Standards Authority.
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.
This is why organic coffee is healthier for you than regular coffee. Organic coffee certification tells you that your coffee has been produced, processed and stored according to a strict set of standards.
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.
Is organic coffee healthy? You bet it is!