When it comes to coffee, I was a late starter
Let me explain. My grandmother lived as if drinking plain water was for toddlers. The main beverage in the house was black tea. We drank tea with cookies, cakes, sandwiches, fried potatoes, black bread and even with smoked fish and pickled mushrooms… Yeah, pretty much with everything and we did it from dawn to midnight. You may think we were conscious of the amounts of caffeine we were consuming? Nah, we were completely oblivious to that. Tea is how we got hydrated; water existed only as an ingredient to make more tea.
I’ve loved tea all my life and grew up to be quite a picky tea purist. When I met my husband and realized that he preferred tea and didn’t care much about coffee, I thought it was a lucky coincidence; and we immersed ourselves into the world of luxury tea estates and varieties of seasonal flushes, pampering our palates with exquisite tastes of Darjeeling, Kavas and Oolongs.
Until one day we stumbled upon a book on Telomeres
Although the book addresses chromosomes and cellular level biochemistry, it is written in plain language which allowed us to plunge into the complexity of it and learn enough to make lifestyle changes.
Telomeres are the nucleotide sequences at the end of our chromosome that protect them from deterioration.
As humans age, the length of these telomeres reduces. This is due to the fact that a telomere shortens with each cell division. As scientists have discovered relatively recently, their length can show the state of our health, because depending on how quickly our telomeres wear down, it is possible to predict how fast our cells will age and how soon they will die.
Our DNA chromosomes have Telomeres at their ends which get shorter as we age.
To put it simply, the longer your telomeres, the healthier and/or younger you are. I say “and/or” because a young person could also have damaged telomeres due to harmful environmental factors, such as excessive stress or exposure to toxic elements, for example.
Telomeres and coffee
In that particular book we read about a trial that had been done on groups of humans, drinking coffee (black and latte) to see if it may improve health of people with chronic liver disease. In this study they found that people who drank four cups of black coffee daily had longer telomeres than the control group (the ones drinking lattes).
Furthermore, a sample of over 4000 women who drank caffeinated coffee showed that they were more likely to have longer telomeres.
People who drink black coffee have longer telomeres.
The more we researched the more evidence showed up that black unsweetened coffee had wonderful benefits for human well-being. Research shows that coffee reduces the risk of cognitive decline, liver disease and melanoma, for example.
There are studies, meta-analysis of which suggest that an increased consumption of coffee may reduce the risk of liver cancer.
So in spite of all the contradicting information on effects of coffee on our body, black&unsweetened coffee is good for you. Yes, it is a stimulant and since it contains caffeine it should be consumed in moderation. You have to know what is more important for you, an espresso after dinner in a restaurant or a good-night sleep, right? Make sure that no amount of social pressure can impel you to choose that which is not in line with your own priorities.
Coffee as a daily ritual
Nowadays, over a billion people drink coffee daily. In ancient times coffee was regarded highly for its ability to stimulate the mind and was believed to have nearly miraculous powers; coffee-drinking tribes believed that not only does it help to stay awake through the night, it also helped to awaken higher states of consciousness.
So, since coffee is a bioactive substance which means that it has a biological effect on the human body, how do we make sure that with this habit we are giving our body the best possible support we can?
Here I invite you to re-examine how we drink our coffee and where we get it in order to maximize the benefit that you can gain from drinking coffee.
If we do it every day, we better do it the healthiest way possible!
First and foremost, let’s make sure we are on the same page. We do not grab a pack of instant coffee. Although it could be convenient as it is fast and readily available, in my opinion, drinking it can be justified only if you are a resident of the International Space Station.
Yes, it has less caffeine, but at the same time it has been found to have higher levels of acrylamide, which could be potentially harmful. (it is believed to be a carcinogen, research separately if interested) The more processed your product is, the more chance it contains acrylamide. Stay to the natural product as much as possible!
Next…
Coffee is a fresh living food
The green beans (which are actually not beans at all; they are seeds of coffee cherries) can be stored for months without going stale or losing their nutritional value. Apparently, before coffee was a beverage, indiginous people of Ethiopia (where coffee plant comes from) picked cherries, dried them and packed them into a fruit-bar type of super-food.
However, once roasted, coffee beans lose their vitality in one week! Storing them in a freezer or vacuum packages just doesn’t help. In fact, roasted coffee beans are considered stale about 30 days after roasting. And once they are roasted, they need to be consumed within a week to get maximum potency and positive effects.
When you buy, check the date of roasting!
Ground coffee has more surface exposed to oxidation so it is advisable to grind your roasted beans right before consumption, to ensure freshness. So, if you have to grind your beans, do it directly before brewing that morning cup. If you are lazy or busy or both, like us, just get a coffee maker that grinds beans for you with a push of a button.
Consume it directly after roasting
Apparently during the roasting process over 1500 chemical reactions are taking place ! The seeds are totally transformed, they become a pharmacological resource that can be consumed by our bodies and brains and the potency of this substance is quite short-lived!
Indiginous coffee roasters historically used open fire, some still utilize open wood stoves because their focus was on freshness, on the immediate potency of coffee. But commercial coffee roasters are focusing on marketing and shelf-life. Commercial coffee producers must make coffee readily available so they have to change the way it is prepared, packages and consumed.
Do you want to try to roast your own coffee and see how it will taste? Try Hot-air popcorn poppers, the same way you pop you popcorn (not the microwave type, however)
We made a decision to roast our coffee at home. We invested in a coffee roaster.
These are the reasons why we decided to roast our own coffee:
1. We consume our coffee literally days after roasting ensuring the utmost freshness of the beans.
2. We buy green beans, which have much longer shelf life than roasted beans and they are much cheaper when purchased in large quantities. The cost of our roasting machine was covered in a few months.
3. With cheaper bulk prices, we can choose organic plantations. We always try to buy organic. Not only is it better for us to consume an organic product, it is also better for farm workers who spend their days among coffee trees untreated by pesticides. We want to support organic coffee producers.
What’s all the fuss about having your coffee fresh?
Freshly roasted coffee has a high level of Chlorogenic acid, which is like polyphenols are a biological antioxidant. This strong antioxidant effect of coffee on the body is being studied but it is already an established scientific fact that the Chlorogenic acid is capable of counteracting the damaging effects of excess oxidation.
Chlorogenic Acid in freshly roasted coffee is one of the best antioxidants for our bodies
Another research connects the consumption of the acids that increase after coffee beans are roasted with the slowing glucose absorption in the human gut which is good news for those with a potential risk of diabetes.
And just one last thing to keep in mind
There are more acids in the green beans ( since they break down after roasting) but we cannot make a delicious drink out of green beans, so we have to make sure that the coffee we drink is freshly roasted and ground directly before brewing. If you do want to go for a healthier type, make it a lighter roast, as there are studies which show that only 60 % of chlorogenic acid is broken down in lighter roasts, while in the darkest roasts the breakdown could go as high as 100%.
The origin country: Peru
So here we go, if you love your cup of coffee, if you can’t imagine your morning without one, but on the back of your mind you were not sure if this habit was completely innocuous, make a few amends to your ritual and indulge guilt-free!
