To drink coffee? Or to
abstain? What about instant coffee? Maybe decaf?
Sometimes clients ask me
questions like “Is it ok to drink coffee?”
Well, the short answer is
YES! (unless you are in some way intolerant to coffee or your body is
not processing it well- which I can easily test).
Everyone else who likes
coffee can drink it guilt-free. Coffee is not “the bad guy”.
Contrary to common opinion, it has never caused gastritis or any
other digestive issues. The causes of such things never lie on the
surface.
There are,
however, just a few things to bear in mind.
1. Coffee is an excellent
diuretic. Within a half an hour you have to go to toilet.
Coffee dehydrates the body. So along with coffee always drink water,
otherwise you lose more valuable water than you take in. If you ever
take a holiday in Italy, you'll see this wherever you go– along
with their coffee they also have a glass of water.
2. While coffee is not in
itself a “bad guy”, it often keeps bad company - sugar and
milk:
Sugar – because of all
the hormone and blood vessel disruptive properties, and milk - for
increased production of phlegm and hormone disruptive properties as
well. So try to teach yourself to drink coffee black. The only
downside to that is that the coffee then really must be good and not
some liquid filth that needs sugar and milk to be drinkable.
So bearing
all that in mind, what's good about coffee for your health and
wellbeing ?
- According to the latest research, caffeine containing coffee strengthens blood vessels and the heart as well as lowering blood pressure. Yes, yes – it actually lowers blood pressure (that's why if you wake up during the night, have a cup, despite it being a stimulant, you will actually find that it is much easier to fall back to sleep) (This research was done on 430,000 people over several decades.)
- it also turns out that for people who drink one cup of coffee a day liver cirrhosis happens 23% less than for those who don't drink coffee at all.
- Coffee is also a great psycho-stimulant meaning it helps to mobilise our short-term memory. It is this memory that we use most often in our daily lives. In cases of Alzheimer's for example – it is the operational memory that gets lost – e.g. the sufferer cannot remember where they put the keys... cannot remember why they were going to the kitchen etc.... 2-3 cups a day is not proven to prevent this but mobilising one's short-term memory regularly may slow down the process of memory loss and possibly postpone it slightly.
- Other research (done in Switzerland and Sweden) suggests that caffeine can prevent breast cancer, because it attaches to the same receptor sites where the 'evil' chemicals want to attach themselves.
All these good things
relate only to caffeine containing coffee.
Where is
the most caffeine?
In ground coffee? In
instant coffee? Or coming out of those fancy capsule coffee machines?
It turns out that instant
coffee contains more caffeine than the natural ground coffee.
But the coffee made in the
fancy capsule coffee machines have the maximum possible caffeine. In
addition – since the coffee capsules retain most of the essential
oils that are extracted properly under high pressure – that coffee
is indeed the pleasure to drink.
So – make your day with
a guilt-free cup of coffee or two! And drink lots of water:)
A disclaimer – I am not
lobbying now coffee industry or capsule coffee machine industry. Just
pure facts based on research. As with everything else in life, I try to enjoy coffee in moderation. And I drink some Japanese Green tea and herbal teas and keffir with honey and berries throughout my day.
