Is Coffee healthy ?

LMSC

Pretty longish video with JH and Prof Tim Spector. I have saved it to my play list to watch leisurely.

ooglewoogle

I skimmed it listening to the bits I was interested….pretty good/interesting chat!

LMSC

Interesting video. Nothing new for most of us.

The main points are :

Coffee is healthy and contains more soluble fibre than people think.
Drink coffee the way we would like to drink
Does affect sleep and caffeine can stay in our blood for more than 5 to 7 hours.
Decaf is good and is not definitely a cheaper drink. JH avoids caffeine after 3 pm.
Adding milk to coffee is ok and probably less reason to add it in light and medium light roasts as they are not bitter
-Coffee from shops are generally bitter and hence milk-based drinks are popular
-It will be good if people can experiment drinking coffee without milk to get a real taste of it!

MediumRoastSteam

My phone suggested this to me today: https://phys.org/news/2023-06-unsustainable-coffee-production-people-sick.html

DavecUK

MediumRoastSteam I guess the use of agrichemicals (especially the banned ones) is not great. One thing though, if they weren’t employed in the coffee industry and making money etc.. What else would they be doing, living in poverty, growing cocaine, or poppies (which is what they usually do instead of coffee). It could be argued that more people will get ill and die from the alternatives at the moment?

I know one thing for sure…when the west steps in and (helps) interferes many years later, it’s hard to see the positive effects of that help. I’m thinking of Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, even Iran (where USA ) interfered big time to remove the then Shah….dunno

MWJB

Is there any correlation, or recommendation in the video as to how much coffee is healthy, or a tipping point where it generally becomes unhealthy?

Grahamsphillips

MWJB The tipping point is around 3-4 coffee drinks a day

Cuprajake

99% of our daily lives are bad for our health, from the stuff we wash in, eat, drive, breathe etc

I enjoy coffee. If it kills me I’ll die happy

MediumRoastSteam

Cuprajake - same here.

I am a firm believer that it’s fine to have things in moderation.

As you say, I enjoy coffee and won’t stop drinking unless my doctor tells me to. Same with beer, same with wine, red meets, cured meats, etc, etc etc.

MWJB

MediumRoastSteam I am a firm believer that it’s fine to have things in moderation.

Indeed, but what is ‘in moderation’ regarding coffee?

Going back to Hoffmann’s caffeine measurement video the FDA recommended limit equates to around 67g of dose for espresso, 40g dose for brewed. WHO recommendation 50g espresso dose, 30g dose for brewed. Less, if you’re drinking Robusta & blends containing it.

Pompeyexile

Funny but it seems that whatever we eat or drink if over done it can cause us harm. Even scientists say that a vegan diet is not altogether healthy and there are elements in meat which we need that a plant based diet just cannot give you. Plus, I have seen a lot of overweight vegetarians/vegans, so whatever it is they are eating cannot be that good for them surely or like us meat eaters are they just greedy.

I guess the answer for everyone including the vegetarians and vegans is ‘a little bit of what you fancy does you good’ A lot does not. I remember seeing this programme, where this large lady was complaining about being overweight and couldn’t understand it as she said she ate healthily, and produced her normal breakfast bowl of fresh fruit berries etc to prove it. Trouble was, the bowl was piled high with all this lovely sweet sugary fresh fruit and what does sugar have lots of…calories.

To me, the biggest problem we have especially in the west, is lack of both self control and personal responsibility (and yes to a certain extent I put myself in that bracket, especailly as I’ve gotten older). We smoke and drink and pig out on stuff, can’t be arsed to exercise then moan when we fall ill.

Ernie1

Pompeyexile

Absolutely spot on. Also like with everything it’s hard to know which studies/research/reports are fact and which have been paid for by an organisation with a stake in the discussion.

I’ve been vegan almost three years and I’m in the best shape of my life by a country mile. However it takes the same discipline as with any other diet to not reach for the sugary snacks and processed c**p. I could just as easily be overweight on a vegan diet as I could with any other.

Interestingly that Tim Spector in the vid above has a company called Zoe which targets gut health. It revolves around the idea that each of us are entirely unique and one diet/food/drink that affects one person doesn’t automatically affect the next in the same way. This seems to contradict the ‘one size fits all’ approach to nutrition and health that we’ve been used to for hundreds of years.

All about listening to you body and doing what feels right for you.

I think it also changes with age. I would happily consume 6 coffees a day when I was younger without issue. Doing that now would have me truly on edge. Whereas I know plenty of people who drink more than that, or can’t even have 3.

Cuprajake

I went vegan, very strictly,

Aug/sept 19, near 18st by the end of first lockdown in what march 2020 I was 12:4

I did it to cut out all my processed and junk food.

You can buy just as bad vegan stuff now

I’m now an omnivore, as in I may have a piece of meat once a month, I eat mainly fish, and lots of veg pasta, cut out milk too, I’ve always been a big water drinker 4l plus a day

I’m not stable at 13st 4 my body seems happy here,

General rule is a little bit of what you like does you good, too much of what you like makes you fat 😂😁

DavecUK

Cuprajake too much of what you like makes you fat

I am loosing weight and staying trim by eating everything I don’t like….easy really. It also feels like I will live for ever…..

Cuprajake

To add I was 1200 cal diet to start too.

MediumRoastSteam

MWJB - for me it’s my body telling me what’s enough. For coffee… It’s 2× 18g in 36g out in the form of espresso, one in the morning and one after lunch. Any more than that and I get a headache.

Sometimes I do “crave” a espresso after dinner. And it seems to be OK providing it’s a single (8g dose).

Systemic

I’m following two diets simultaneously. Don’t get enough to eat with just one

Shadow745

Define healthy as every single living thing will vary a bit. I currently easily/safely consume up to 1 gram of caffeine in a 3-4 hr time frame quite often with NO side effects whatsoever. Have labs done 2-3 times yearly, have no jump in blood pressure/pulse and can even take a short nap after that bit of consumption. Actually gonna start pushing upwards of 2 grams periodically just to see if anything comes from it, but so far it’s been MANY years since I’ve actually felt any side effect of caffeine. People should never go by lame videos or what others preach on and on about and just experiment to see what fits your body/lifestyle.

chlorox

link removed, so we don’t encourage them to make more useless advertorials, supposedly about coffee.

DavecUK

chlorox That is just a massive rubbish advert (of no value at all), full of links….20 or 30 of them.

I’ve a good mind to remove the link so we don’t advertise it…..aaand I did.

chlorox

DavecUK

I didn’t bother wirh opening any of the links but just reading the info on the article itself which I thought compiled in one place some useful info which I figured was reassuring for us coffee lovers.

Here is a relatively recent NY Times article which mentions a study that found a correlation between lower mortality rate and drinking coffee that was I believe had been referred to by that article thar has now been deleted.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/01/well/eat/coffee-study-lower-dying-risk.html

John_Yossarian

I thought that this question asked on a coffee forum is kind of politically incorrect 😁.

For years I have had two double ristrettos sometimes three a day, with every 9-10 months going lightly on coffee, i.e. no coffee for a week or two, as my pulse rate would go up. Nowadays, it is a strong double ristretto in the morning and rarely could I have a second one around lunch time.

Diet-wise, rule of thumb for me is go easy at evening meals. Omnivore, although I can easily go vegetarian for a week or two effortlessly.

Exercises are essential though. I cannot go without having my endorphins in my blood stream early in the morning.
@Cuprajake what you have done is commendable. This is a massive outcome by any standard.