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7/30/2019 Bet You Didn't Know This About Coffee http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/bet-you-didnt-know-this-about-coffee 1/3 Bet You Didn't Know This About Coffee While tea was the leading hot drink for hundreds of years, coffee has rapidly overtaken tea over the past few decades. No one has yet produced a convincing reason why. Few places in the world have an equal balance of tea and coffee consumption. One always dominates. Maybe the reason has to do with advertising by coffee companies. One company, Swiss multinational Nestlé, has been particularly effective with advertising for its nutritional, snacks and health foods. Nestlé controls over 25 percent of coffee production in the world. Most people know coffee for its caffeine. Tea also has caffeine, though not as much, especially compared with brewed coffee. Caffeine was long thought to be nothing but a mild stimulant. Today it is treated almost like a drug in itself because of the way coffee stimulates some people, relaxes others and actually enhances the effects of other products such as pain killers. Some may think of caffeine in terms of the popular energy drinks on the market. Energy (I use the term loosely) from coffee was used in energy bars by the Galla nomads of Ethiopia. They ground up coffee beans, then mixed them with animal fat as an energy snack some time in the first millennium. A thousand years ago Arab traders brought coffee beans home from Africa and boiled them to produce a drink called qahwa, which translates as "that which prevents sleep." Most people would not consider using coffee for health purposes. German physician Max Gerson did, in the 1930s. He promoted the use of coffee in enemas, to detoxify the liver, stimulate the metabolism and even to cure cancers. While the National Cancer Institute, the US government's main agency for cancer research, says that Gerson's claims are unsupported, and the American Cancer Society warns that illness or death could result from use of contaminated coffee enema equipment, it hasn't deterred Prince Charles. The British monarchy's heir apparent has raved about coffee enemas. Amazon.com sells DIY kits for coffee enemas. Spoilers have searched for decades for ways in which coffee could be bad for the health. They were disappointed in 2011 when the Harvard

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Bet You Didn't Know This About Coffee

While tea was the leading hot drink for hundreds of years, coffee hasrapidly overtaken tea over the past few decades. No one has yetproduced a convincing reason why.

Few places in the world have an equal balance of tea and coffeeconsumption. One always dominates. Maybe the reason has to do withadvertising by coffee companies. One company, Swiss multinationalNestlé, has been particularly effective with advertising for itsnutritional, snacks and health foods. Nestlé controls over 25 percent of coffee production in the world.

Most people know coffee for its caffeine. Tea also has caffeine, thoughnot as much, especially compared with brewed coffee. Caffeine waslong thought to be nothing but a mild stimulant. Today it is treatedalmost like a drug in itself because of the way coffee stimulates somepeople, relaxes others and actually enhances the effects of otherproducts such as pain killers.

Some may think of caffeine in terms of the popular energy drinks onthe market. Energy (I use the term loosely) from coffee was used inenergy bars by the Galla nomads of Ethiopia. They ground up coffeebeans, then mixed them with animal fat as an energy snack some timein the first millennium.

A thousand years ago Arab traders brought coffee beans home fromAfrica and boiled them to produce a drink called qahwa, whichtranslates as "that which prevents sleep."

Most people would not consider using coffee for health purposes.German physician Max Gerson did, in the 1930s. He promoted the useof coffee in enemas, to detoxify the liver, stimulate the metabolismand even to cure cancers.

While the National Cancer Institute, the US government's main agencyfor cancer research, says that Gerson's claims are unsupported, and

the American Cancer Society warns that illness or death could resultfrom use of contaminated coffee enema equipment, it hasn't deterredPrince Charles. The British monarchy's heir apparent has raved aboutcoffee enemas. Amazon.com sells DIY kits for coffee enemas.

Spoilers have searched for decades for ways in which coffee could bebad for the health. They were disappointed in 2011 when the Harvard

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School of Public Health reported after a huge study (48,000 men over22 years) that men who drank six cups or more of coffee a day had a60 percent lower rateof dying from prostate cancer.

Sweden's Lund University supported the distaff side in 2008 when itreported a study showing that drinking coffee lowers the risk of breastcancer for women with the relatively common gene variant CPY1A2,which helps to metabolize estrogen and coffee.

The Swedish team got even more attention with its report that womenwith the gene variant who drank three cups or more a day of coffeetended to have smaller breasts.

The following year researchers at UK's Durham University reportedthat students who drank three cups or more each day were threetimes more likely to hear voices and have out-of-body experiences.

J.S. Bach expressed his love for coffee in a cantata. With libretto byChristian Friedrich Henrici, the Kaffeekantate was first performed inLeipzig, Germany in the early 1730s.

If that seems strange, check out some of the words of the sopranopart. "Father, don't be so severe!/ If I can't drink/ My bowl of coffeethree times daily/ Then in my torment I will shrivel up/ Like a piece of roast goat." Kind of makes you want to watch that one play out,

doesn't it?

Americans show their devotion to coffee by spending $40 billion on iteach year. Over the world, people consume close to 1.6 billion cupseach day.

Starbucks may be best known for its coffee concoctions. Their grande(or medium) 16-ounce coffee has an amount of caffeine equivalent to9.5 cans of Coke. Yup, that in one "medium" cup.

Coffee's greed for water goes far beyond what goes into each cup.

Including all the water needed to grow and process the beans, one cupof java requires about 4,700 ounces, or 37 gallons.

Coffee is grown on mountainsides, with just certain conditions. Changethose conditions and coffee plants won't grow. Highland forests inEthiopia and South Sudan, where most wild coffee grows, maydisappear as the planet warms, according to researchers at London's

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Royal Botanic Gardens. However, domesticated coffee production willbe safe for a while.

Safe, that is, from warming. Not necessarily from disease. 70 percentof coffee consumed today is produced from variants of the wild

Arabica, or Coffea arabica, the wild bean that stores most of thegenetic information needed to re-engineer coffee plants to producebeans under different conditions. Industrial coffee monocultures are asmuch at risk from one unanticipated disease as every othermonoculture of agriculture.

One coffee grows already decaffeinated. Coffea charrieriana, found inCameroon, is the only variety known to grow without the stimulant.

Elephants love coffee cherries, the fruit that surrounds the seeds weroast and drink. But don't send them away. A smooth and carameltasting variety of coffee is made from beans that made their way allthe way through the elephant's digestive system. Pre-hulled seeds areharvested from the dung. But wait, there's more. Elephant dung coffeebeans have been known to sell for as much as $500 a pound. Yes, withtwo zeroes.

Don't worry about coffee making your breath smell bad. Tel AvivUniversity researchers revealed, in 2009, that adding coffee to a dishof saliva actually inhibited the growth of a bacterium that causes badbreath.

Now, if you will excuse me, it's time for my coffee break.

Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for 

Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents andteachers who want to grow kids who develop well in all ways, not justintellectually.Learn more at http://billallin.com 

[Primary information source: Discover , April 2013]