Health Effects of Drinking Coffee
Every month of so there seem to be more positive health effects of drinking coffee. We have always known that drinking healthy organic coffee is good for you because of its lack of impurities and high quality. But in recent years medical research has demonstrated that health effects of drinking coffee include a reduced risk of Type II diabetes, lower cancer risk, less depression, a reduced risk of suicide, fewer gall stones, and even a lower incidence of Alzheimer’s disease. What follows is a short list of the health effects of drinking coffee.
Drink Coffee and Get Less Cancer
The primary reason that coffee consumption seems to reduce the risk of various cancers is that coffee contains antioxidants. Regular and organic coffee antioxidants are molecules that inhibits the cell damage and cell death in human cells caused by oxidative breakdown of other molecules in the cell. Oxidation is a factor in sickness and aging. Antioxidants help prevent the damage caused by excessive oxidation and to a degree inhibit the aging process. When an oxidative reaction brought on by disease gets going it produces free radicals that start chain reactions which in turn cause cell and tissue damage. The human body has or uses antioxidants to control this situation.
Here is a list of cancers that appear to have a lower incidence on coffee drinkers:
Diabetes Incidences Is Reduced in Coffee Drinkers
Drinking four cups of coffee a day appears to reduce the chances of getting Type II Diabetes by about a half. Research has shown that drinking coffee increases levels of sex hormone-binding globulin which in turn appears to reduce the incidence of diabetes
Depression and the Incidence of Suicide Are Both Helped by Drinking Coffee
Everyone knows that a morning cup of coffee is a good way to wake up and that a good mid-day pick-me-up is coffee. Now research shows that one of the health effects of drinking coffee is that it reduces the risk of depression b y about a fifth. Another of the health effects of drinking coffee is a reduced reduced risk of suicide in steady coffee drinkers. Drinking from two to four cups of coffee a day is associated with a fifty percent lower risk of suicide when compared to those who were not coffee drinkers.
Degenerative Brain Diseases Avoided by Drinking Coffee
For those who are concerned about the debilitating neurologic disease, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, help is not only on the way but help has always been there in the form a few cups of coffee each day. Researchers have discovered a reduced incidence of Parkinson’s disease and hope for those prone to Alzheimer’s in drinking coffee. Research has shown than drinking a cup of coffee a day is related to a lower incidence of Alzheimer’s than with non-coffee drinkers. More recent work shows that the reduction in the incidence of Alzheimer’s goes up with the number of cups of coffee that a person drinks each day.
Good Reasons to Drink Organic Coffee
There are lots of good reasons to drink coffee. It wakes you up in the morning, smells good, and has a good taste. And there are numerous health benefits. Our five good reasons to drink organic coffee include the fact that drinking coffee is good for you. And our five good reasons to drink organic coffee have to do with the benefits that come from drinking healthy organic coffee instead of regular coffee.
Coffee Is Good for You
The first of our five good reasons to drink organic coffee overlap with the reasons to drink regular coffee.
One: Coffee reduces the incidence of depression and the incidence of suicide with long term consumption of two or more cups a day. It also appears to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease .
Two: Regular consumption of four cups of coffee a day over the years leads to a substantially reduced incidence of Type II Diabetes . Drinking 4 or more cups of coffee a day, with caffeine, reduces Type II diabetes incidence by 56%, more than half. Considering that the incidence of this disease in the USA is over twenty million drinking coffee can have a major public health effect!
Three: Drinking coffee every day has the effect of reducing various forms of cancer including cancer of the prostate , colon , and endometrium . The common factor in all of these cases appears to be the antioxidants found in coffee. Although there are antioxidants in regular coffee as well as organic coffee antioxidants we prefer organic which leads us to four and five or our five good reasons to drink (organic) coffee.
Four: Less is better when it comes to impurities and pollution. There as many as 150 different impurities that one can find in regular coffee. These same substances are not found in organic coffee or are found only in vanishingly small amounts. Drink organic coffee and you can be assured that the ground on which the coffee was grown has not been subjected to application of synthetic fertilizers, insecticides, or herbicides for at least three years. In all likelihood shade grown organic coffee comes from areas that have never been subjected to these substances.
Five: Organic coffee is not only better for you. It is better for the coffee grower and it is better for the environment. Organic coffee certification tells you that the soil in which the 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. When you consider our five good reasons to drink organic coffee think about organic coffee from Colombia or Panama and give us a call.
Brazil Buys Coffee to Shore Up Prices
Coffee prices Friday bounced off four-year lows on expectations Brazil, the world’s biggest grower, is preparing to buy beans. Coffee prices are at a ten year low due to high stockpiles. In a move similar to the US agricultural policy of providing price supports, Brazil buys coffee to shore up prices. The coffee will be stored and, for now, effectively taken off the market. A couple of years ago prices of Arabica coffee were up. El Niño ravaged the coffee growing regions of Brazil and Colombia greatly reducing harvests. Coffee leaf rust was devastating plantations from Central America down to Colombia. This year Brazil expects to see a harvest surpassing last year’s record. Colombia has gotten a handle on the leaf rust issue and prices for Arabica coffee are falling in response to oversupply. A government response appears as Brazil buys coffee to shore up prices. They have done this before; buying directly from growers to reduce market supply and as a result holding prices up. Arabica coffee as wholesale coffee is selling for only a third of its price from two years ago and just this year prices are down by a fifth.
Here is a snapshot of coffee futures at the beginning of August, 2013.
| NYMEX Coffee Futures as of August 3, 2013
Delivery Date and US Dollars per Pound of Green Coffee |
|
| Sep-13 | 1.1825 |
| Dec-13 | 1.2105 |
| Mar-14 | 1.238 |
| May-14 | 1.2565 |
| Jul-14 | 1.2765 |
| Sep-14 | 1.295 |
| Dec-14 | 1.316 |
| Mar-15 | 1.337 |
| May-15 | 1.3525 |
| Jul-15 | 1.3675 |
The general consensus is that the price for September delivery is staying above $1 a pound because Brazil buys coffee to shore up price. As the table shows the expected price for later delivery goes up as stocks are expected to diminish and Brazil will not necessarily have another record harvest next year.
Exchange Rates and Coffee Sales
Coffee is priced on the world market in US dollars. People in Brazil buy things with the local currency, the Real. After a strong run the Real has been losing ground against the USA dollar for the last two years. Here is a snapshot of the relationship of the Brazilian Real to the US Dollar over the last two years.
| Date | Real | How Many Dollars |
| 8/11 | 1 | 0.64 |
| 8/12 | 1 | 0.49 |
| 8/13 | 1 | 0.43 |
In early 2011 coffee futures went for $3 a pound which as just under five Reals. Today coffee futures are about $1.20 a pound which is just under three Reals. While coffee priced in dollars is just over a third its value of three years ago coffee priced in Reals is down forty percent. As Brazil buys coffee to shore up prices, some Brazilian farmers are selling their wholesale coffee anyway at current prices because they need money and the strong dollar gives them a better return for the current international coffee price than they would get with a weaker dollar.
For more insights and useful information about coffee and especially healthy organic coffee follow our articles on http://www.BuyOrganicCoffee.org .
Is Coffee Leaf Rust Due to Climate Change?
It is fashionable these days to blame any natural phenomena on global warming. With this in mind we ask a question. Is coffee leaf rust due to climate change? This is a pertinent question as Arabica coffee production has been devastated in several nations in the Western Hemisphere due to coffee leaf rust. There is a strong argument that temperatures are up and there certainly is a high incidence of leaf rust, la rolla in Spanish, devastating coffee crops. Over two thirds of coffee consumed worldwide is Arabica coffee. The other common variety, Robusta, is resistant to leaf rust but generally considered to be an inferior coffee. Let us take a look at the history of coffee leaf rust and efforts to control it such as with Colombian rust resistant coffee .
La Rolla
Coffee leaf rust is a fungal disease. It wiped out coffee plantations in Asia in the middle of the 19 th century. The country of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) was a coffee producer before the leaf rust drove planters to grow tea! The disease spread from the East Indies to South Asia and Africa and eventually arrived in the new world, almost a century later around 1970. Today coffee leaf rust threatens the livelihoods of coffee growers and workers throughout Central America. Due to foresight and hard work a country such as Colombia has produced a couple of leaf rust resistant strains over the last quarter of a century and greatly reduced the incidence of the plant disease in that country. Our original question was this: Is coffee leaf rust due to climate change? If that is the case you need to make the case for climate change in South Asia, the East Indies, and East Africa more than a century ago!
Dealing with Coffee Leaf Rust
Leaf rust kills organic coffee crops as well as regular coffee. The basic problem with coffee leaf rust is that when there is a big infestation the planter needs to remove all plants, treat the soil, and replant. This takes five years to produce a crop with new plants. In addition, if the planter simply chooses to use effective fungicides he loses his organic coffee certification for three years or more. The cost issues are such that leaf rust not only threatens coffee growers in general but also threatens to drive organic producers out of their niche. Is coffee leaf rust due to climate change? This is not an issue for the small grower. Finding rust resistant strains, treating outbreaks, and making a profit to support the family are the important issues.
Help Is on the Way
In the coffee producing nation of Colombia, the workers at the Cenicafé have found a cure for la rolla. Cenicafé is a research organization funded by the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation – the folks who bring you Juan Valdez coffee . In the early 1970’s coffee leaf rust was found in the Americas. In the early 1980’s Cenicafé started work on producing a Colombian leaf rust resistant coffee.
The Colombian leaf rust resistant coffee comes in two varieties, Colombian and Castillo. The first is a cross between an old Colombian variety, Caturra, and a rust-resistant strain from Southeast Asia, the Timor hybrid. Castillo is an offshoot of further cross breeding of the first Colombian leaf rust resistant coffee strain. Replanting with Colombian leaf rust resistant coffee in Colombia has reduced the incidence of leaf rust from 40% to 5% from 2011 to 2013.
Is coffee leaf rust due to climate change? Although the fungus does better at warmer temperatures it has been around for a century and a half. It is always there and ready to grow and devastate crops with conditions warrant. Replanting with rust resistant strains throughout the Americas will probably be the solution to this devastating disease.
Drinking Coffee Reduces the Risk of Suicide
Add this to your list of the benefits of both regular and healthy organic coffee. A recently published study shows that drinking coffee reduces the risk of suicide by as much as fifty percent in coffee drinkers of both sexes. The Harvard School of Public Health published an article in The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry. Researchers looked at whether or not people drank caffeine containing beverages or not and found that caffeine seems to be the key to the finding that drinking coffee reduces the risk of suicide. It turns out that drinking from two to four cups of coffee a day is associated with a fifty percent lower risk of suicide when compared to those who were not coffee drinkers. The rationale offered by the researchers is that besides being a stimulant of the central nervous system, coffee may be acting as an antidepressant. The information that led to this conclusion came from three long term health assessment studies with data going back twenty years or more. Researchers looked a total caffeine consumption of which coffee provided over three fourths. There was a slight difference between those who drank two cups a day versus four cups in suicide risk.
Health Benefits of Coffee
Caffeine seems the cause of the fact that drinking coffee reduces the risk of suicide. However, many of the other health benefits of coffee are related to regular and organic coffee antioxidants.
Antioxidants: Scientifically an antioxidant is a molecule that inhibits the cell damage and cell death in human cells caused by oxidative breakdown of other molecule in the cell. Oxidation is a factor in sickness and aging. Antioxidants help prevent the damage caused by excessive oxidation and to a degree inhibit the aging process. When an oxidative reaction brought on by disease gets going it produces free radicals that start chain reactions which in turn cause cell and tissue damage. The human body has or uses antioxidants to control this situation. Natural means of controlling oxidation include vitamins C and E as well as glutathione. It is low levels of antioxidants that can lead to a condition referred to as oxidative stress and resultant damage to cells in the body. Organic coffee antioxidants are in the same class of molecules that help reduce oxidation.
Coffee is a major source of antioxidants both because it contains them and because so many people drink coffee. Researchers have found that more coffee leads to less type II diabetes. Additionally, drinking coffee reduces prostate cancer risk. Add to these facts that coffee consumption is related to lower incidences of colon cancer and endometrial cancer as well.
Live Long and Enjoy Life
Live long and enjoy life with a couple of cups of coffee a day, or more. We knew that drinking coffee had health benefits which would logically lead to a longer life. Now we see that drinking coffee reduces the risk of suicide with an apparent antidepressant effect. So, drink organic coffee to gain both of these benefits as well as that of reducing the number of impurities that can be found in regular coffee. Enjoy your coffee!
The Insider’s Guide to Healthy Organic Coffee
Organic coffee is free of the up to 150 contaminants that can be found in regular coffee. Healthy organic coffee contains antioxidants that have many beneficial health effects such as a reduced incidence of Type II Diabetes and several types of cancer. For more info continue with our insider’s guide healthy organic coffee.
USDA Certified Organic Coffee
According to our insider’s guide to healthy organic coffee, organic coffee certification tells you the following:
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.
The problem for a small coffee grower is that some organic practices can be more costly than conventional practicesIf the coffee farmer cannot obtain a sufficiently high price for his crop his is unable to continue the sustainable farming practices necessary to produce organic coffee. Thus the ability of the consumer to obtain organic coffee antioxidants and other healthy ingredients depends upon the willingness of the consumer to pay for the higher quality coffee available through organic growing practices and organic coffee certification.
Alternative Certifications (UTZ and Rainforest Alliance)
Not all truly organic coffee is USDA certified. According to the insider’s guide to organic coffee, UTZ certified coffee is commonly organic by all standards except the seal on the bag. This label says that the bag of coffee you are buying came from a coffee farm that employed sustainable agricultural practices, good environmental practices and efficient farm management. A key feature of the UTZ Certified label is that UTZ Certified coffee is traced from grower to roaster. UTZ certified coffee is sold in North America, Europe, and Japan, in nearly fifty nations.
An alternative to organic coffee certification as noted in the insider’s guide to healthy organic coffee is for a grower to be Rainforest Alliance certified . The Rainforest Alliance is a non-governmental organization that works to conserve biodiversity. It does so for agricultural products by influencing consumers to buy what is good for the environment and good for small farmers. Rainforest Alliance certified means that the coffee that you buy was produced using good land use practices. Certified coffee farms meet a strict set of environmental standards that include preservation of the ecosystem and reduction in use of synthetic chemicals of all sorts. In addition, strict health and safety requirements are part of getting Rainforest Alliance certified.
Short List of Organic Coffee from Colombia and Panama
Colombian Organic Coffee Brands
- Linea Roja
- Sostenible
- Origen
- Frailes
- Aribica (UTZ certified)
Panama Organic Coffee Growers
- Los Lajones Estate Coffee S.A.
- Leap Of Faith Farms, Inc
- Hacienda La Esperanza
- Hacienda Barbara Jaramillo
- Finca Señor Ramón Arauz
- Finca San Miguel de La Montaña
- Finca Ramon Arauz
- Finca El Remedio – Ama de Casa
- Finca Dos Jefes
- Asociación de Caficultores Orgánicos Ngöbe Ascon
For more information about the insider’s guide to healthy organic coffee contact us today as https://buyorganiccoffee.org/contact-us/ .
Why Eat Organic?
Most people who choose to eat organic do so for the simple reason of good health. They want to eliminate the threat of poisonous pesticides, fertilizers, and drugs that are used to produce most of the food that in on the super market shelves.
Food is meant as fuel for the body. That’s what it is basically for. But if the food is not safe – if it is covered with pesticides and filled with drugs then it becomes poison rather than fuel.
The fact is that the general public has no idea of where the food that they eat each day comes from. They don’t know who grows it or raises it or what methods are used. They don’t even know what country it comes from.
In today’s world of tainted medicines, toys painted with lead-based paint, and fish caught in sewage canals that is coming out of China, it is time for all of us to get concerned. It seems to me that there are ample reasons for all of us to insist that our food supply is safe. Beef, even
beef that is grown in the United States, is raised by ranchers who regularly give their cattle antibiotics and growth hormones, and all of the beef that is imported is raised using antibiotics and growth hormones.
Vegetables that are grown in the United States are mostly raised used commercial pesticides and commercial fertilizers. Those pesticides and fertilizers are still on those fruits and vegetables when they are being displayed in the produce section of your favorite neighborhood grocer. U.S. farmers can no longer use DDT, but it is not outlawed in other countries, and many of the fruits and vegetables that we eat are raised in other countries.
Yes, you will pay more for “certified organic” foods, but they could just save your life and the lives of your children.
Colombian Leaf Rust Resistant Coffee
The story of Colombian leaf rust resistant coffee is inspiring. Leaf rust is a fungal disease that has devastated coffee plantations as far back as the mid to late 19 th century. Those with an interest in history may know that Sri Lanka (old Ceylon) used to be a coffee producer until the leaf rust wiped out all production after which the nation switched to growing tea. The coffee leaf rust spread from the East Indies to South Asia and Africa and eventually to the new world. Today a plague of coffee leaf rust threatens the livelihoods of coffee growers and workers throughout Central America. Fortunately for the coffee producing nation of Colombia, the workers at the Cenicafé have found a cure. Cenicafé is a research organization funded by the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation – the folks who bring you Juan Valdez coffee . In the early 1970’s coffee leaf rust was found in the Americas. In the early 1980’s Cenicafé started work on producing a Colombian leaf rust resistant coffee. The Colombian leaf rust resistant coffee comes in two varieties, Colombian and Castillo. The first is a cross between an old Colombian variety, Caturra, and a rust-resistant strain from Southeast Asia, the Timor hybrid. Castillo is an offshoot of further cross breeding of the first Colombian leaf rust resistant coffee strain. Replanting with Colombian leaf rust resistant coffee in Colombia has reduced the incidence of leaf rust from 40% to 5% from 2011 to 2013.
Avoid, Treating, and Curing Leaf Rust
Some time back we wrote about how leaf rust kills organic coffee crops . The concern for organic coffee growers is that when the disease has progressed too far there are only two choices. One is to spray everything sight with fungicides and the other is to dig out all of the plants, spray, wait, and replant. It is sad that the move to sun resistant coffee strains and dense planting has tended to make coffee leaf rust more prevalent. Warmer temperatures facilitate the growth of leaf rust, and so does crowding the plants. Growing plants in the shade inhibits coffee leaf rust because temperatures are lower and because fungi that grow on coffee plants in the shade tend to inhibit the growth of coffee leaf rust. A grower who wants to produce healthy organic coffee can grow his coffee in the shade and he can invest, bit by bit, in introducing Colombian rust resistant coffee strains, and others as they become available. But, for those growers who are currently hit the worst, there will typically be a three year wait before new plants reach maturity and start producing coffee.
What Is the Gene?
What is the gene or what are the combinations of genes that make the Timor variety from Southeast Asia resistant to coffee leaf rust? Is it possible to find the gene and insert it into the chromosomes of high quality Arabica coffees? This approach would likely result in a cure of the leaf rust problem even more so than the breeding efforts that have produced Colombian leaf rust resistant coffee strains. But, will the organic coffee drinking community drink a coffee that has been genetically modified? This is a question for later times and later articles.
Guide to Organic Coffee Labeling
For those of you who are looking for healthy organic coffee and are constantly befuddled by unclear labeling, here is a handy guide to organic coffee labeling. Ever since 2002 the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has had strict guidelines defining what constitutes organic coffee and any other organic food or drink. Another issue that we address in our guide to organic coffee labeling is that there are many great organic coffees such as some of the Colombian organic coffee brands that abide by different sets of standards such as UTZ and do not seek USDA organic coffee certification.
USDA Rules and Regulations for Organic Coffee
Organic coffee is a single ingredient food. As such coffee that qualifies as USDA organic coffee will have a USDA Organic label. When a food in general and specifically a coffee product has more than one ingredient you may see labeling such as 100% organic, organic, or made with organic ingredients. Only 100% organic coffee bears the USDA organic seal. Here is the breakdown:00% Organic (This means what it says. The package contains 100% organic products.)
- Organic (95% to 99% of this bag of coffee is organic.)
- Made with organic ingredients (This label means that 70% to 94% of the bag by weight is organic coffee.
- And, products with some organic ingredients may list them on the package as being organic ingredients.
Other Standards
UTZ certified coffee and Rainforest Alliance certified coffee commonly are organic coffees. The long term goals of UTZ are good agricultural practices, safe and healthy working conditions, abolishment of child labor, and environmental protection. However, a grower does not need to accomplish all that is required in the first year. This allows a grower to sign up to get his coffee UTZ certified, learn what is necessary, and grow into the long term requirements of the program. Because of the close tracking feature of all UTZ Certified products, consumers of healthy organic coffee produced by these growers can be assured of product quality as well as the farming practices that brought it to market. The process of getting certified by Rainforest Alliance is similar to getting UTZ Certified. Growers start by achieving partial success and grow into the eventual requirements. Rainforest Alliance requires that coffee growers meet half of the criteria for any given area of concern to start with and meet eighty percent of requirements overall. These criteria include ecosystem preservation, safety of wild animals, watershed conservation, fair hiring and labor practices, appropriate safety measures for workers, and strict adherence to agrochemical use standards. An additional feature of this program is the prohibition of genetically modified crops.
Too Expensive to Seek Certification
A coffee grower with a small farm in the highlands of Panama, Colombia, or Costa Rica will commonly produce organic coffee. At the same time he cannot pay the fee (commonly $500) to have a certifying agency come and certify him every one to three years. He needs to see a sufficient profit from getting certified and if this does not happen many will simply quit seeking certification even though they produce excellent organic coffee. It is, in fact, the goal of Buy Organic Coffee to seek out these growers and help them bring their products to a broader market.