Tips for Responsible Coffee Consumption
Executive summary about tips health by essjay
“Drinking coffee responsibly?” some might ask…but not Eat Drink Better readers! So no doubt, coffee consumption takes a major toll on the environment.
1. Avoid Corporate Coffee – Big coffee brands mass produce coffee, and do not think twice about cutting down trees to create large coffee plantations.
2. Compost Used Coffee Grounds – If you’re a green thumb, you’ll love this tip (if you don’t already know it). The heavy nitrogen content in the coffee is a powerful fertilizer.
Cats don’t like the smell of coffee either.
3. No Need For a Coffee Stirrer – Rather than mixing sugar and cream with a plastic spoon or stirrer, try pouring them into an empty cup.
4. Go Local – To reduce the amount of carbon produced by shipping coffee halfway around the world, try buying coffee that has traveled the shortest distance to reach you.
5. Look for Fair Trade Coffee – If you’re going organic, and avoiding corporate coffee, buying fair trade coffee just makes sense. Rainforest Alliance and Transfair coffees not only ensure fair living wages for coffee farmers, they take into account environmental standards in their certification process.
6. Get Re-Usable Filters – To help reduce the amount of paper you use when drinking coffee, it’s a good idea to get a reusable gold coffee filter; not only will it help the environment, but it will improve the taste of your coffee. There you have it, 10 easy ways to reduce the impact of coffee on the environment.
What other creative uses for coffee can you think of?
Benefits of Drinking Coffee
Executive summary about tips health drinking By Raza Imam
For people with sensitive nerves and stomachs, coffee can be an irritant. Stronger workouts. Researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Medicine in Stockholm, Sweden, found that two cups of coffee a day reduced people’s liver cancer risk by 43 percent. Other scientists at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis found that women coffee drinkers lowered their heart disease risk by 24 percent.
Relief from muscle cramps. A study at the University of Georgia in Athens showed that women who took the caffeine of two cups of coffee had 48 percent less leg pain within an hour after having their leg muscle stimulated.
Breast cancer prevention. Research in the Journal of Nutrition discovered that young women who drank four or more cups of coffee a day had 40 percent less breast cancer risk than non-drinkers. Even two daily cups of coffee provided a benefit.
Tips For Healthier Coffee Drinking
Executive summary about tips health By Craig Fear
I don’t force diets and supplements down people’s throats. I understand people use food for mental, emotional reasons and that taking a specific food away can be akin to a huge psychological shock. I always encourage my clients to minimize too much coffee in their diet. It can contribute to blood sugar irregularities (see #5 below) as well. I’ve tried switching to tea and I’ve tried the coffee substitutes. I’ll never forget that first sip of coffee on the morning of day 31. Of course, there’s a big difference between drinking a cup of coffee a day to say drinking 3 pots. I’m much more concerned with people getting sugar, chemicals and all manner of processed foods out of their diet. So if you’re eating mostly locally grown, nutrient dense sources of foods– including plenty of good healthy fats from grass fed, pastured animals– and if drinking a cup of coffee per day is your only nutritional vice, trust me, you’re way ahead of the game.
1 Choose organic
Conventional coffee is heavily sprayed with pesticides.
2 Get the sugar out!
Until I did this I never realized that what I was really craving in my coffee was the sugar more than the caffeine. I actually started enjoying the taste of coffee instead of the taste of sugar. Try adding just cream (preferably raw if you can get it) in place of sugar. The fat in cream will cut the bitterness of coffee. Lastly, please do NOT use those flavored cream/creamer concoctions! Low fat milk and all manner of low fat products are not health foods. But that’s another blog topic for another blog day.
Coffee beans, like anything, will begin to breakdown and become rancid once the inner contents are exposed to oxygen and moisture. The white flesh starts turning brown pretty fast. I’m skeptical about the anti-oxidant health benefits you hear about in coffee. But if it’s true, those anti-oxidants will start to oxidize immediately after grinding, which is OK if you drink the coffee soon after. After a few days however freshly ground coffee doesn’t taste so fresh anymore. For starters, one cup is not a Starbucks twenty plus ounce mega -grande french vanilla frappuccino with whip cream and chocolate syrup. I know more than a few people who drink coffee all day long – five, ten, fifteen cups.
3 Drink coffee after a meal.
For most people that would be breakfast, and it’s definitely better to wait until you have some food in your system before downing that cup of coffee. Caffeine causes your body to release sugar into your bloodstream which in turn causes the pancreas to release insulin (another good reason to get sugar out!). Guess what will help spike that sugar besides sugar? Caffeine. Furthermore, the caffeine in coffee can suppress your appetite causing you to go longer without feeling hungry. This sets up further episodes of low blood sugar and further coffee and sugar cravings. Having food in your stomach will help modulate this blood sugar response and keep those cravings at bay.
Yeah, that’s right. So don’t feel guilty it, your one cup per day of organic, ground-at-home-with-cream-coffee.
