Sunday, August 14, 2011

Coffee for a Better Life

By Billy Edward


Coffee, a drink cherished by many; a drink avoided by others. Tea, its main rival, seems to offer a bounty of better health advantages; a drink for the New Agers and those who want to get away the decadence of the brown, caffeinated drink. The fact stands that tea can only be as advantageous as its preparation, which in a few cases could have as much sugar as a can of soda. To understand coffee, one must understand the core value of tea: the brewed leaf itself is the only healthful component. Everything else is decadence.

To that, the coffee bean itself contains numerous advantages to health. But the culture of coffee, like the tao of tea, contains lots of excess trimmings. Espresso machines, for instance, produce a highly concentrated form of ordinary coffee. And then the all-consuming vice: sugar.

Along with cream, sugar waters down the advantages of coffee, where it turns the brew into drinkable candy. But all this remains the same from tea. The bean is the essential part.

Caffeine can wreak chaos on the nervous system, but that does not make it synonymous with coffee. Various kinds of coffee (all prepared differently) will yield diverse levels of caffeine content. Serving size also comes into play. To those sensitive to caffeine, the obvious alternative can be found in decaffeinated coffee. But such an alternative could downplay the positive affects of the drink. Coffee is rich in the B vitamin niacin; and in recent studies has been shown to have antioxidant-like effects on the body by getting rid of free radicals. As a caution, these benefits only come up with a balanced drinking habit. An excessive amount of cream and sugar can prove to be detrimental, while an excessive amount of coffee presents many long-term hazards. Whilst coffee might offer the B vitamin niacin, it in turn restricts your body from other vitamins. And depending on the brew, coffee contains acids that have been linked to stomach ulcers. Symptoms such as these may sound off-putting, however they exist only in the long run for the abusive drinker. A daily cup poses no risk to the average individual.

And a cup can be prepared several methods. The standard method used by drip machines yield a good amount of caffeine and the filter traps out most of the volatile fatty acids in the bean. Using a French press, with its lack of a filter, will keep the acids in the brew (though some claim it helps the coffee to taste better). The pressurized water in an espresso will not keep out most of the volatile acids, and it will also increase the caffeine content. All told, for those who refuse to switch to decaffeinated, instant coffee granules contain less caffeine and fatty acids. Compared to their quality cousins, instant coffee should please the balanced drinker. This along with less cream and less sugar, could make for a risk-free casual cup of coffee.




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