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Compiled by Frédéric Patenaude. Published in Just Eat
An Apple magazine, Vol. 2, #2
Most of my readers are aware of the evils of coffee, and probably all
of them have given up this habit. However, I often meet raw foodists or
vegetarians who, otherwise following a healthy lifestyle, still drink
coffee. It's their guilty pleasure they say. Others still have an occasional
cup of green tea, maté, guarana, or other caffeinated beverages.
Some may even think that these beverages are healthy. For many, it's chocolate,
which gives the same strange "pleasure" as the beverages.
The effects of caffeine on the body are well researched, but you never
hear about it in your newspaper. You never hear about it anywhere because
the whole nation, if not the whole world, is addicted to caffeine. Doctors,
journalists, scientists, writers, everyone drinks coffee. Those whose
job is to inform us are usually heavy coffee drinkers. And few of them
ever rise up to speak against this popular drug. But one did, his name
is Stephen Cherniske, and he's a scientist who spent 10 years of his life
researching the effects of caffeine on the body and compiling them in
a shocking document, "Caffeine Blues."
On the first page of this book we can read: "Caffeine can't provide
energy, only chemical stimulation and induced emergency state that can
lead to irritability, mood swings, and panic attacks. Caffeine's ultimate
mood effect can be letdown, which can lead to depression and chronic fatigue.
Caffeine gives the illusion of heightened alertness by dilating pupils,
quickening heart rate, and raising blood pressure. In fact, caffeine does
not increase overall mental activity."
I have read "Caffeine Blues" and selected the most relevant
information and quotes out of it for this article. The Great Caffeine
Hoax You may have read somewhere, or have been told in school, that as
long as caffeine was consumed in "moderate" quantities, it did
not pose any threat to health. You were reassured. Once in a while, you
may even read somewhere in the newspaper about the "benefits"
of drinking coffee. So far, so good. Who could ever say anything against
coffee? Mr. Cherniske responds: "I had been told only that caffeine
was a mild stimulant and its association with health disorders was unproven.
I was also told that caffeine is not addictive. Since I knew from my own
painful experience that the opposite was true, I reasoned that perhaps
I had been snowed on the whole topic."
"What I quickly learned was that everyone has been snowed - researchers,
doctors, journalists, and especially the public. The deception has been
well coordinated by an industry whose goal is quite simple: to get as
much caffeine into our bodies as possible. The caffeine industry knows
caffeine saps your natural sense of vitality, leaving you dependent on
their products to get through the day. They know that you actually crave
their products and, more importantly, that you suffer when you don't consume
them. "It's a marketing dream, and it's legal. No wonder more and
more companies are jumping on the caffeine bandwagon, churning out products
from specialized coffees and teas to 'herbal' caffeinated energy pills,
caffeinelaced fruit beverages, 'supercharged' soft drinks, caffeinated
beer, and even caffeinated bottled water." (Caffeine Blues, page
4)
The Caffeine Stimulation: Not Energy, Caffeine is a poison.
The body has absolutely no use for it as it is a danger to its living
function. It must detoxify it through the liver and reject it with great
effort. The "stimulation" we feel after drinking coffee is nothing
more than the expended effort in eliminating this poison. The Law of Excitation
Herbert Shelton clearly explained the delusion of stimulation in his classic
book, "Orthobionomics." "Whenever any irritating substance
or influence is brought to bear upon the living organism this occasions
vital resistance and excitation manifested by increased and impaired action,
which, always necessarily diminishes the power of action and does so in
precisely the degree to which it accelerates action; the increased action
is caused by the extra expenditure of vital power called out, not supplied,
by the compulsory process, and therefore the available supply of power
is diminished by this amount…" "Under all circumstances,
vitality or energy of any character whatever is invariably manifested
or noticed by us, as energy, in its expenditure, never in its accumulation."
In other words, what appears to give us energy is draining our energies.
The stimulation people get from drinking coffee is an expenditure of vital
forces, not real energy which can only come from rest.
Cherniske who well understands this, wrote: "Caffeine does not provide
energy - only chemical stimulation. The perceived energy comes from the
body's struggle to adapt to increased blood levels of stress hormones...
Using coffee for mood enhancement is a short-term blessing and a long-term
curse. While the initial adrenal stimulation may provide a transient anti-fatigue
'lift,' caffeine's ultimate mood effect is a letdown, either subtle or
profound. Advertisers and coffee 'institutes' have kept this side of caffeine
from public view... "While caffeine users may feel more alert, the
experience is simply one of increased sensory and motor activity (dilated
pupils, increased heart rate, and higher blood pressure). The quality
of thought and recall is improved no more than the quality of music is
improved when played at a higher volume or speed." The energy we
get from caffeine is similar to the "energy" a horse gets when
whipped. It is not energy gained but power spent responding to an injury.
Tolerance
About tolerance to caffeine, he says: "What is tolerable for one
person may be excessive for another. Moreover, what is tolerable caffeine
intake at some point in your life may actually cause health problems just
a few years later." (Caffeine Blues, page 8) We often hear that caffeine
is only bad when consumed in excess, but when taken in small quantities
it is not dangerous, and could even be beneficial, raising "mental
alertness." But since when can a poison be good for you? "...
of all the thousands of research papers that have been published on caffeine,
none have concluded that caffeine is good for you."
The truth is that the moderate coffee drinker is a rare gem, because
coffee is so addictive that most consumers eventually end up drinking
quite a bit. And the "average person" is a myth anyway. This
person described by scientists in their research papers when they statistically
analyze caffeine consumption simply does not exist. Not everyone reacts
to a poison the same way, not everyone can detoxify it at the same rate,
and not everyone consumes the same dose. Those who are purified by, for
example, a raw vegan diet, will react more strongly to caffeine than the
average person. Children are more affected too, because their organism
is purer. So the same dose of caffeine will have different effect on different
people. So we can see the fallacy of recommending "moderation"
- because it doesn't mean anything. Moderation can only concern the healthy
factors of life, not those that are damaging to it. Moderation in them
is impossible. Any quantity will be an excess.
But how did we come to drink coffee? It seems that coffee beans were
used as a drug long before they were used as a food. The practice of giving
toxic substances to the sick has been in vogue for a long time and has
not changed much today. A large percentage of today's pharmaceutical drugs
contain caffeine as one of their "active ingredients." "It
was not until the thirteenth century that Arab monks made a revolutionary
discovery. Roasted coffee beans could be made into a drink. No more falling
asleep at prayers! The news spread from monastery to monastery, then hit
the streets in the world's finest coffeehouses." (Caffeine Blues,
page 14)
"When coffee was first brought to European cities in the seventeenth
century, people were repelled by its color and taste. They complained
that it smelled and looked like roofing tar. But after they experienced
its stimulating effect, the beverage was quickly proclaimed to be one
of nature's miracles. Historians record this phenomenon without noticing
the irony of what they are writing. Caffeine is, after all, a psychoactive
drug, and human beings tend to crave substances that alter their states
among them caffeine, morphine, nicotine, and cocaine. Indeed, all of these
alkaloids are chemically related and, while they produce widely different
effects, all are poisonous." (Caffeine Blues, page 17)
Now coffee has conquered the world to the point where almost everyone
drinks coffee, if not tea, if not another type of caffeinated beverage,
such as coca-cola. Americans are the largest coffee drinkers in the world
- with a dazzling record of 420 million cups drunk every single day.
Toxicity of Coffee
Coffee is not a food, it is not a drink - it's a poison. It's a "mild"
drug containing a whole array of toxic substances. In addition to caffeine,
coffee contains hundreds of volatile substances including more than 200
acids. These the body must reject by a great expense of energy, which
is the strange stimulation perceived as "energy." "Caffeine
is a biological poison used by plants as a pesticide. The caffeine gives
seeds and leaves a bitter taste, which discourages their consumption by
insects and animals. If predators persist in eating a caffeine-containing
plant, the caffeine can cause central nervous system disruptions and even
lethal side effects. Most pests soon learn to leave the plant alone."
(Caffeine Blues, page 17) But humans have fooled their instincts and tastes
bud and transformed coffee into a drinkable beverage, often mixed with
milk and sugar. The same holds true for chocolate. No one would ever think
of eating cocoa beans, because of their horrible taste. So we mix it with
sugar and fat and call it chocolate. But our sense of taste was right
in detecting that poison - used by the plant as a pesticide to repel insects.
Caffeine, like theobromine (found in chocolate), has to be detoxified
by the liver, and injures it overtime. Caffeine is a poison for the liver.
But caffeine is not the only toxic substance in coffee. "Remember
that coffee contains a host of chemicals, not just caffeine, among them
a group of extremely toxic compounds known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
(PAHs). You might remember them as the cancer-causing agents isolated
from barbecued meat." (Caffeine Blues, page 53)
Chocolate
Chocolate contains a small amount of caffeine, but also contains a good
amount of another substance called theobromine. This is an substance analogous
to caffeine, producing similar physiological effects. When you combine
the caffeine and the theobromine contained in a one-ounce piece of chocolate,
you end up with the stimulating power of 40 milligrams of caffeine!
But everyone drinks coffee!
"When it comes to coffee, the most common reaction I hear is, 'How
can it be bad for you? People have been drinking coffee for centuries.'
"To a scientist, this observation is meaningless. History is filled
with cases where millions of people made serious mistakes. There are herbs
in China, for example, that have been used medicinally for thousands of
years, and are still being used to treat sinus congestion. But repeated
use of these herbs over time can cause cancer of the nose and throat.
Epidemiologists (scientists studying the distribution of disease in populations)
have estimated that this habit has caused premature and painful death
for millions of Chinese people. Clearly, great numbers of people can be
wrong, especially when they don't know the facts." (Caffeine Blues,
page 49)
I have a saying: A lot of what popular wisdom holds true is wrong. With
so much misinformation spread today, I rarely say this line inappropriately.
"You should also question the sanity of common statements that we
hear from friends, celebrities, and co-workers. In the movie Shadow of
a Doubt, Joseph Cotten's famous line was, 'I can't face the world in the
morning. I must have coffee before I can speak.' Now, substitute for the
word coffee any other drug, say amphetamines. If a person said he or she
can't face the world without amphetamines, we'd call him or her an addict.
We'd whisk the person off to rehab and maybe even throw him in jail. But
because coffee is a drug we consume ourselves, we wink and nod and say,
'Yeah, ain't it the truth!'" (Caffeine Blues, page 50)
Caffeine and Impaired Digestion
"Impaired digestion is more of a problem than most people realize
- and it gets worse with caffeine. That jumbo 32-ounce soft drink or the
double espresso we have with meals is a major contributor to the bloating,
pain, and gas that roughly 50 percent of American adults experience after
they eat. And these symptoms are only the physical signs of indigestion.
Unseen are the harmful by-products of fermentation and putrefaction. Some
of these by-products are absorbed back into the bloodstream, and the toxins
that stay in the gut increase your risk of gastrointestinal disease."
(Caffeine Blues, page 60)
Caffeine and Sleep Disturbance
"There is a popular notion that coffee before 3 P.M. can't disturb
your sleep. In fact, caffeine at any time of the day can cause sleep problems,
especially if you are under stress." It seems that caffeine disturbs
the most important phase of sleep, the deep-sleep phase. It's a vicious
circle: caffeine intake leads to decreased sleep quantity, which leads
to increased caffeine intake, which leads to decreased sleep quality,
which leads to disease and fatigue, which leads to increased caffeine
intake, and so on.
"We also tend to think that caffeine-related problems are mostly
experienced by people in the workforce. In reality, those hardest hit
appear to be the elderly. Oven though seniors tend to cut back on coffee,
the caffeine they do ingest is detoxified much more slowly and their nervous
systems are much more sensitive than those of younger people. Research
is now showing that sleep disturbance among the elderly is a major factor
not only in age-related physical degeneration but in mental degeneration
as well." (Caffeine Blues, page 85)
Caffeine & Malnutrition
Coffee also causes many nutritional deficiencies. Poisons in tea and
coffee, including caffeine, cause an increased loss of B vitamins in the
urine. There is also a loss of calcium. "Research just published
in the Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism found that caffeine increased
potassium loss by nearly one-third. To make matters worse, such mineral
loss appears to be accelerated when caffeine is mixed with sugar. Studies
show that the mechanism behind this mineral-wasting phenomenon may have
to do with the fact that caffeine impairs the kidney's ability to hold
on to calcium, magnesium, and other minerals. Most recently, zinc was
added to the list of nutrients depleted by caffeine." (Caffeine Blues,
page 90) To add to this list, iron absorption is also impaired when caffeine
is taken.
Caffeine and Mental Illness
I have known for a long time that even a moderate caffeine intake may
cause a small depression, the "blues." I have noticed this on
myself a couple years ago when I started drinking green tea, thinking
that this beverage only had a tiny amount of caffeine in it. I couldn't
fall asleep before 2 a.m. and started to experience a mild depression.
As soon as I discarded the green tea, it went away. How many people feel
depressed and tired for no apparent reason? And how many of them drink
coffee or tea and can't give it up? "If a person were injected with
500 milligrams of caffeine, within an hour he or she would exhibit symptoms
of severe mental illness, among them, hallucinations, paranoia, panic,
mania, and depression. But the same amount of caffeine administered over
the course of a day only produces the milder forms of insanity for which
we take tranquilizers and antidepressants." (Caffeine Blues, page
124)
Coffee and Constipation
"... many people claim that caffeine helps them maintain normal
bowel regularity, but that is the same as relying on laxatives. Either
way, you're using a drug to induce bowel movements, and ultimately many
coffee drinkers become dependent on this laxative action. Without the
caffeine stimulation, they experience what is known as 'rebound constipation.'
(page 173)
Caffeine and Headaches
"Forty-five million Americans suffer from chronic headaches. Seventeen
million are migraine sufferers." "The person with a headache
doesn't know that it was caused or triggered by caffeine, so he or she
looks for a painkiller (analgesic). Studies show that in 95 percent of
cases, the analgesic drug contains caffeine. Such painkillers work, especially
if the headaches was caused by caffeine withdrawal, but the caffeine ultimately
triggers another headache. Ultimately, the hapless sufferer becomes dependent
on the painkiller for even a modicum of relief, but the headaches increase
in frequency and intensity. This may go on for many years, creating a
cycle of pain and depression that destroys the quality of life."
(Caffeine Blues, page 185)
"A caffeine deprivation (withdrawal) headache results from the normal
opening (dilation) of blood vessels that are constricted by caffeine.
In other words, habitual caffeine intake keeps blood vessels in the brain
constricted. When caffeine is not consumed, these blood vessels return
to their normal blood-flow potential, and it is this increased circulation
in the brain that causes the throbbing agony of a caffeine withdrawal
headache." - (Caffeine Blues, page 186)
Adrenal Exhaustion
"Caffeine contributes to adrenal exhaustion, wherein a raft of important
hormones are depleted. The destruction is not silent. You'll feel it every
day in many ways as you simply can no longer command the vitality necessary
for what were once everyday tasks." (Caffeine Blues, page 197)
Caffeine and Women
"Compared to men, research shows that caffeine is much more damaging
to women, producing adverse effects at lower intake. The effects are even
more far-reaching when you consider the harm caffeine does to fetuses
and nursing babies." (Caffeine Blues, page 225) Here are other facts
about caffeine concerning women: caffeine causes iron deficiency; increases
calcium loss and risk of osteoporosis; caffeine produces short-term mood
elevation, but contributes to rebound depression.
Ecology: pesticides, rain forest destruction and land use issues.
Coffee is the most important crop in the world. More than wheat, rice,
corn, or livestock. More than fruit, more than vegetables, or any other
staple crop - coffee is number one. More than cars, more than steel, more
than everything, only third next to petroleum and some metals used to
make weapons. The reason: coffee is a drug, nearly everyone is addicted
to it, and it's part of the culture. Coffee also happens to be one of
the most heavily sprayed agricultural crops. In the countries where it
is grown, there are few restrictions concerning pesticide use, where there
are fewer laws to protect workers and the environment.
"Coffee plantations use huge amounts of pesticides that pollute
the land, rivers, and destroy plant and animal life around them. The beans
go off to market, but what happens to coffee pulp and the processing water?
This water, now laden with pesticides, fungicides, and nitrogenous waste,
goes directly into local streams, rivers, and lakes. With no filtration
or reconditioning, the water pollution harms aquatic life as well as the
health of people who live alongside those same bodies of water. And the
coffee pulp? It sits in huge, rotting piles, leaching out its high nitrogen
discharge into the groundwater and eventually into the same polluted waterways."
(Caffeine Blues, page 276) Cherniske also mentions in his book how coffee
plantations have probably contributed to the destruction of Rain Forests
more than any other crop in the world, since large portions of the forest
are destroyed every year to make room for the coffee plantations. Coffee
culture is labor-intensive and requires large portions of land and resources.
These are astronomical numbers once you get your calculator out and consider
that the world demand for coffee is 13 billion pounds a year. Since the
average plant produces one to two pounds of roasted coffee a year, this
will require 7 billion trees. Judging from what the average farmer can
get from one acre, it ends up that 70 million acres are devoted to grow
this non-food, this drug, this poison that contributes to human suffering
and ruins the health of the millions without their being aware of it.
70 million acres devoted to the culture of coffee. Let's ponder that for
a moment. 70 million acres... If we add to that the land devoted to cacao
culture (for the making of chocolate), tea leaves culture, sugar cane
(for the making of sugar), and grape culture (for the making of wine),
we would arrive at frighteningly high numbers. Hundreds of millions of
acres of the most fertile land in the world exclusively devoted to the
culture of non-foods and beverages that contribute to the suffering of
humanity. Why talk about a lack of food? We're simply cultivating the
wrong plants for the wrong purposes!
The corruption of the health food industry
"Until the 1990's, caffeine was one of the no-nos of the health-food
industry, like sugar and white flour. Caffeine-free herbal teas got their
start in the health-food industry, where caffeine-free products have traditionally
been the hallmark of natural food choices. Now those same stores have
huge display bins full of coffee beans and many have coffee bars serving
pumped-up caffeine concoction. How did this happen? (Caffeine Blues, page
266) "The face of the industry changed as the original visionaries
sold out to conglomerates for whom profit superseded health principles.
The proliferation of organic coffee bins in natural food stores took off,
and before you knew it, manufacturers of health food products discovered
what the food and beverage industry has known for decades: Caffeine sells."
(Caffeine Blues, page 267)
Coffee replacement and giving up coffee
We know it: giving up coffee is rarely easy, especially for those who
have been drinking a few cups a day for many years. The detoxification
symptoms can include headaches, depression, tiredness, and many more discomforts.
Cherniske mentions a plan where one can give up coffee with little discomforts,
by gradually replacing coffee with herbal replacements until no more coffee
is drunk. However, this process seems a bit long, and I personally would
recommend a more radical method, but people will go with what they think
they can do best. It takes 60 days for your body to eliminate all the
caffeine and really see the results. But this could be accelerated by
a short fast, or a raw food, eliminating diet, such as a strict raw fruits
and vegetables diet. There are coffee replacements that can be used to
give up coffee.
Health food stores now offer a wide range of products, usually made from
roasted cereals, that have a similar taste to coffee. However, you have
to make sure that you buy genuine, caffeine free replacements. Items such
as guarana, kola nut, green tea, maté tea, and ephedra are just
other plant sources of caffeine and other stimulant drugs. They impair
the body's functions just like coffee does. There is also a new product
called "Teeccino" that brews like regular coffee but does not
contain any caffeine or any coffee beans. It is made from dates, figs, carob, barley, etc. It can be found in many health food stores or ordered from: Teeccino Caffé, Inc P.O. Box 42259, Santa Barbara, CA 93105, 800-498-3434, www.teeccino.com; Email: teeccino@aol.com
Caffeine Blues makes a great gift for your coffee-drinking friends. Order on the Internet, go to: www.amazon.com
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