Is coffee really all that bad?

[Brad462]

I have been drinking a lot of coffee lately because it really seems to get the colon moving, and I read that it can help prevent colon cancer.

http://m.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/11/the-case-for-drinking-as-much-coffee-as-you-like/265693/

[LePatron7]

Yes, coffee is that bad. Lol honestly I'm not an expert on the subject.

But it's definitely heated. Not just that but it's from beans, a nonpaleo food. It also contains stimulants.

I read that it can help prevent colon cancer.

http://m.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/11/the-case-for-drinking-as-much-coffee-as-you-like/265693/

You'll find lots of research for and against coffee. Which you decide to believe is up to you.

[TylerDurden]

Way back in pre-rpd days, coffee was the only thing that made me return to normal re abilities.  After that there was no need for it, and I disliked its intense way of altering my hormone levels so suddenly.

[Brad462]

Well, I need something to take the place of my rampant drug use.

[Iguana]

http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/general-discussion/coffee-a-splendid-paleolithic-brew/msg78629/#msg78629

In The Causes and Prevention of Cancer, Bruce N. Ames
(Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Center
University of California at Berkeley) states:
Quote

    Cooking food also generates thousands of chemicals. There are over 1000 chemicals reported in a cup of coffee. Only 26 have been tested in animal cancer tests and more than half are rodent carcinogens; there are still a thousand chemicals left to test. The amount of potentially carcinogenic pesticide residues consumed in a year is less than the amount known of rodent carcinogens in a cup of coffee.

Also : http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/health/coffee/msg98075/#msg98075

[wodgina]

Well, I need something to take the place of my rampant drug use.

Heheh you could be doing worse things than a coffee.

[goodsamaritan]

Ever since i developed coffee allergy in 2000 i never recovered. Drinking coffee gives me hypoglycemic symptoms.  Id rather drink scotch.

[TylerDurden]

I once came across an American guy who needed to drink dozens of cups of coffee a day while driving long-distance. The reason was that American coffee was a bit too weak.  But still, it seemed like a very addictive substance to me.

[eveheart]

As I recall, in previous discussions of coffee on this forum, there have been some yea-sayers and some nay-sayers. I wouldn't drink "a lot of coffee" to get my colon moving. Sounds like your gut needs some healing attention. I have read (David Asprey, the Bulletproof Executive) that cheap coffee is moldy because it hasn't been dried correctly. Mold allergies may account for some people's rampant coffee addiction.

[raw-al]

I love the smell of coffee. However I have discovered that it is like rotorouter to me. 20 minutes later I absolutely have to go to the Loo.

The real problem is that it gives me serious pains in my gut, and I cannot say what their origin is, but I just know that I drink coffee I regret it.

[PaleoPhil]

I drink some coffee and also experience the benefit of its ability to gently stimulate the gastrocolic reflex (whereas other stimulators like the sennosides in the casia fistula legume tend to have harsher effects on me), especially when consumed first thing in the early morning. However, drinking too much coffee or too chronically leads to jitteriness and muscle tension for me.

I tried David Asprey's Bulletproof coffee. The Bulletproof beans are lighter, and therefore less heated, than most, but I found that I actually feel better after drinking coffee from the somewhat darker medium roast beans of Green Mountain Coffee than the Bulletproof coffee. All coffee beans come pre-roasted (and sometimes twice-roasted, aka "French roast"), but I have a French press in which I can soak the beans overnight without further heating and sometimes I drink it cold as an "iced coffee," though not necessarily adding ice, and other times I'll heat it just enough to make it nicely warm, instead of boiling hot, like so many people do.

Other things can also gently stimulate the gastrocolic reflex, such as a big early-morning meal, any hot beverage, exercise, soluble fiber, etc. There are countless sources on these and other factors.

While coffee beans (it's actually a fruit seed) and all plants contains toxins, including when cooked, one thing I rarely see mentioned in this forum is the hormetic benefits of small amounts of toxins (http://gettingstronger.org/hormesis). Where the risk tends to come in, is that if you find a particular plant food to be habit-forming, then it will be hard to avoid consuming too many of the toxins of that particular plant. When this happens, anti-toxins (antitoxicants) like activated charcoal, which Dave Asprey also happens to recommend (http://www.bulletproofexec.com/the-top-5-ways-to-avoid-a-bad-nights-sleep), or clay, may help, though I haven't found charcoal or clay all that effective in my case. Raw animal fat and raw egg yolks do seem to help some for me. Another risk is if you have high sensitivity to certain plant toxins, as many do with the toxins in gluten and some do with coffee.

Also, humans and our pre-human ancestors adapted to the toxins in certain plant foods over many millions of years, whereas we have been cooking for a much shorter time period. It's plausible that cooking changes the molecular structure of plant toxins enough that our body no longer recognizes them as well as in their raw form and therefore may be less effective in dealing with them. The picture is further complicated by the toxin-depleting effects of certain forms of cooking (especially those that involve water). The overall picture is so complex it will likely never be fully understood, so we are once again left to rely mostly on our own personal experience.

[Joy2012]

The amount of potentially carcinogenic pesticide residues consumed in a year is less than the amount known of rodent carcinogens in a cup of coffee.

I find this hard to believe. Does that mean non-organic foods are not bad after all?  If one cup of coffee contains more carcinogens than all the pesticides one takes in through eating non-organic foods in one year, then non-organic foods are pretty good...Just skip one cup of coffee and one does not have to spend money on organic foodstuff.

[Iguana]

Yes, it’s hard to believe, but it appears that’s it. Now there are certainly effects of pesticides and fertilizers which are not carcinogenic but noxious in other ways.

According to our experience (I mean the experience of my “instincto” friends and myself), organic plant foods are most of the times better  (better taste and better for our body) than non organic, but not always. We generally prefer organic ones, but we also eat non organic ones because we cannot always find enough choice of organic plant foods. There are also countries where the “organic” concept doesn’t exist and when you’re there you have no  choice.

Many “organic” farmers are not aware at all of the damage done by heat and they use a lot of heating processes, notably to weed-out fields or they pile up huge heaps of compost which spontaneously ferment and heat  up too much. Also, abnormal molecules from manure of animals having been fed heated foods (organic or not) find there way in the crops and give them a bad taste, which means they are unhealthy. Potash fertilizers are certainly less damaging to the soil and crops than manure of pigs or other animals fed with heated junk.

To be short, I would say that eating non organic raw plant foods can be acceptable — even if not ideal. For raw animal  foods, our criterions are much more severe because of the bioaccumulation along the food chain: animal flesh and especially fat concentrates the toxins. Such a bio-concentration is non existent in fruits, vegetables and nuts.   

[PaleoPhil]

I drink coffee about 3 times a week now.  I am cutting back.  I want to drink coffee zero times a week.  The strange thing is, the flavor of coffee objectively isn't that good.  It tastes burnt and unnatural.

Thanks for sharing your experience, Max. What roast are you drinking, light, medium or dark and are you heat-brewing or cold-soaking it? There's a big difference between heat-brewed Starbucks dark roast coffee, say, and a cold-soaked light or medium roast coffee.

The trouble is that we mostly live in a modern world where it is awfully difficult to socialise with people unless one is willing to compromise a little.

Excellent point, Tyler. Often coffee is the least-bad beverage choice for me made available at social settings. A healthy diet is good, but social and psychological health also weighs in the equation. A dietary restriction is not helpful if the damage to social life and overall well being exceeds the dietary benefits.

Iguana, there's no such thing as a person who does 100% paleo, only an attempt to follow an approximation of what we think was the case way back when.

Yes, none of us is truly 100% Paleo in Stone Age terms (though some critics take this too far to claim that it's hopeless to try to benefit at all from Paleo concepts).

As for Bruce Ames, he said "The point isn't to worry so much about cups of coffee, but to rethink what we're doing with animal cancer testing." (http://reason.com/archives/1994/11/01/of-mice-and-men) In other words, Ames' point wasn't that coffee is a terribly harmful food that must be completely avoided by all, but that the level of societal fear regarding certain environmental toxins is not justified by the existing data, that the focus is on the wrong things.

Iguana, what about the role of hormesis, which suggests that "the dose makes the poison" (Paracelsus)? Granted, we need to take into account the overall toxic load, not just from coffee, but it sounds like most of us don't consume a high level of dietary toxins.

[Iguana]

Here we go again!

Excellent point, Tyler. Often coffee is the least-bad beverage choice for me made available at social settings. A healthy diet is good, but social and psychological health also weighs in the equation. A dietary restriction is not helpful if the damage to social life and overall well being exceeds the dietary benefits.

Yeah… it doesn’t have to damage the social life: I never had any social problem in western industrialized countries, and barely any in other countries. I plainly let the others free to eat and drink whatever they want, so I expect them to let me free to drink a mineral water and eat oysters or raw vegetables when they drink and eat something else.

Yes, none of us is truly 100% Paleo in Stone Age terms (though some critics take this too far to claim that it's hopeless to try to benefit at all from Paleo concepts).

Yes. But something we can do is to eat 100 % raw, without any dairy and wheat. It’s an extremely interesting experiment that no one before us had ever done since a few millenniums. We don’t necessarily have to do it for all the rest of our life, but doing it 100 % for a while proves that it can be very successfully done.

Such a long duration rigorous experiment has plainly shown that we are onto something really big.

Do it partly and you won’t prove much because billions of people around the world have already had a partially raw diet, eating raw fruits, raw veggies, raw nuts, raw fish, raw meat. The point is that all have been eating some cooked food along and thus we didn’t know if it was still possible for humans to eat 100 % raw. A few friends of mine and I have not only proved it’s still possible, we also proved that most diseases are due to cooked, Neolithic and modern foods.

As for Bruce Ames, he said "The point isn't to worry so much about cups of coffee, but to rethink what we're doing with animal cancer testing." (http://reason.com/archives/1994/11/01/of-mice-and-men) In other words, Ames' point wasn't that coffee is a terribly harmful food that must be completely avoided by all, but that the level of societal fear regarding certain environmental toxins is not justified by the existing data, that the focus is on the wrong things.

Sure, and what he says is plainly in agreement with us on the point that the doses of pesticides we ingest with our food are much less harmful than heated food, the problem with coffee being that it is roasted at high temperature. There is no problem with raw unprocessed coffee seeds because you can’t it too much of it.

We’ve got to take into account the fact that Bruce Ames is not a raw foodist himself although we can infer from his advice to eat more fruits and veggies that he supposes at least some of them will be eaten raw.

Thanks for the link to the article, by the way. The first pages are really interesting. 

Iguana, what about the role of hormesis, which suggests that "the dose makes the poison" (Paracelsus)? Granted, we need to take into account the overall toxic load, not just from coffee, but it sounds like most of us don't consume a high level of dietary toxins.

Sure, the dose makes the poison in most cases. Still we have to know at what point a dose becomes poisonous in an infinity of individual specific cases! Only our instinct can tell that. It works with unprocessed, unmixed coffee seeds but it doesn’t work with a cup of coffee.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis The hormesis model of dose response is vigorously debated.[1] The notion that hormesis is a widespread or important phenomenon in biological systems is not widely accepted.[2]

The biochemical mechanisms by which hormesis works are not well understood. It is conjectured that low doses of toxins or other stressors might activate the repair mechanisms of the body. The repair process fixes not only the damage caused by the toxin, but also other low-level damage that might have accumulated before without triggering the repair mechanism.

My opinion on this? I don’t know.

[PaleoPhil]

I've never seen mineral water offered at any social occasions. Do you bring your own mineral water with you to any social occasion? You're free to do whatever you want, of course and I wasn't trying to imply that avoiding coffee and all other non-RP foods all the time would have to damage social life, just complicate it a bit and potentially damage it. If someone wants to make social life easier and doesn't want to avoid all coffee, they may not have to, depending on their tolerance. I believe Tyler and others when they suggest that the occasional cup of coffee to be sociable hasn't impacted them negatively to a significant degree. Of course, YMMV.

I do think it's wise to eat really pure raw Paleo for a while, to have a good baseline to compare less strict practices to. If you find that occasional coffee produces much worse results than pure raw Paleo, then by all means avoid it.

I'm not out to prove anything and diet is so complex that I don't think that an "optimal" diet for all will ever be completely proven and dietary debates will likely continue indefinitely.

Sure, and what he says is plainly in agreement with us on the point that the doses of pesticides we ingest with our food are much less harmful than heated food, the problem with coffee being that it is roasted at high temperature.

That's your emphasis, not Ames'. If you look at the context of what he said, it seems his point was not that coffee drinking is so terribly risky, but that people's fears about man-made chemicals are often overblown (about which I think he goes too far).

We’ve got to take into account the fact that Bruce Ames is not a raw foodist himself....

Exactly, so I doubt his point was about the horrible toxicity of cooked foods.

although we can infer from his advice to eat more fruits and veggies that he supposes at least some of them will be eaten raw

Most of us already do that. The question in this thread is not whether eating some raw food is a good idea, but whether consuming some coffee really is all that bad.

Thanks for the link to the article, by the way. The first pages are really interesting.

You're welcome.

My opinion on this? I don’t know.

"I don't know" is a good place to be at and it's basically where I'm at. I don't know with certainty that coffee is highly toxic for everyone in small amounts, so I'm not going to claim that it's proven that all should completely avoid it. Isn't it possible that at least some forms and degrees of coffee consumption might not be proven as harmful in some people, and might even provide health benefits via hormesis?

While the full hormesis model is not widely accepted yet (though most scientists do accept certain forms of hormesis, such as muscle growth and stronger bones from weight lifting), in part because the mechanism is not understood, it wouldn't make sense to rule hormesis out merely because we don't fully understand how it works:

"As previously implied ... additional research is needed to expand our understanding of hormesis; however, it is shortsighted to assume that comprehensive mechanistic knowledge is necessary before an effect has been (or can be) considered in health policy. The history of medicine and public health is replete with examples of new insights supplanting previously “well-established” concepts of disease and how they should be addressed.... The more numerous, consistent, and coherent the findings of benefit or harm, the more readily they were accepted and acted upon even in the absence of comprehensive mechanistic explanations. To argue that hormetic mechanisms require a higher level of understanding is simply an example of a double standard designed to accomplish little more than maintain the status quo." (The Importance of Hormesis to Public Health, Ralph Cook and Edward J. Calabrese, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1665397)

After all, the value of the raw Paleo approach is much less accepted in the scientific community than hormesis, yet we all employ its principles nonetheless.

[svrn]

I think coffee enemas can be good for liver flushing. As far as drinking it i think its very bad from the few times iv had it. Also, seeing people who regularly drink coffee, I can see the same negative effects in all of them. Not much different from users of other stimulants like coke and speed, sometimes the coffee drinkers look worse which makes sense considering the sheer volume of coffee needed to feel an effect compared to things like coke and speed.

and if you need to use a drug make it cannabis. I get no noticeable negative effects from it if its clean pot.

[Iguana]

I've never seen mineral water offered at any social occasions. Do you bring your own mineral water with you to any social occasion?

USA seems to be very special in this regard because in every restaurant everywhere else in the world you can order bottled water of various kinds. I only once ate in a  US restaurant and there were raw clams. I don’t remember about drinks. Anyway I would choose wine over coffee. Wine is (in principle) raw and is the only exception that I occasionally allow myself. But I should better avoid it completely as well, it doesn’t do any good.

I'm not out to prove anything and diet is so complex that I don't think that an "optimal" diet for all will ever be completely proven and dietary debates will likely continue indefinitely.

Wild animals don’t debate about diet! We don’t have to either once we have eliminated cooked, processed, Neolithic and modern foods. Everyone can thus find the optimal food that fulfills his/her specific current, transient and ever-changing needs. 

That's your emphasis, not Ames'. If you look at the context of what he said, it seems his point was not that coffee drinking is so terribly risky, but that people's fears about man-made chemicals are often overblown (about which I think he goes too far).

Sure. But what is obvious from his comments about coffee is that it would be wiser to avoid coffee than trying to avoid pesticides in food.

Said in another way, it’s nonsensical to bother about pesticides in your food (and waste your money on "organic" products) as long as you drink coffee anyway.

Exactly, so I doubt his point was about the horrible toxicity of cooked foods.

Yes, it wasn’t! What is relevant for us raw dieters is that the tiny amount of pesticides in food are much less a concern than the comparatively huge quantity of abnormal and potentially carcinogenic molecules in roasted (and cooked) foods.   

Most of us already do that. The question in this thread is not whether eating some raw food is a good idea, but whether consuming some coffee really is all that bad.

It’s not all that bad: the amount of known of rodent carcinogens in a cup coffee is only greater then than the potentially carcinogenic pesticide residues consumed in a year. 

"I don't know" is a good place to be at and it's basically where I'm at. I don't know with certainty that coffee is highly toxic for everyone in small amounts, so I'm not going to claim that it's proven that all should completely avoid it. Isn't it possible that at least some forms and degrees of coffee consumption might not be proven as harmful in some people, and might even provide health benefits via hormesis?

That’s an interesting possibility. And what’s even more interesting is that the little bit of pesticides residues we ingest might as well provide some health benefits via hormesis.   

Cheers… and Merry Christmas to all!

[Alive]

I have stopped drinking coffee after reading it increases blood sugar levels which is bad for my candida like infestation. Higher blood sugar would also feed cancer.

[PaleoPhil]

USA seems to be very special in this regard because in every restaurant everywhere else in the world you can order bottled water of various kinds.

Interesting. Do people provide it at work and social parties too? The USA is all about eating the cheapest food in the largest possible quantities, so things like mineral water are rarely present. People tell me that this or that restaurant is good and if I check it out I find that it is terrible and ask them why they thought it was good and they say "Because the portions were huge and the cost low!" (in other words, the food was crap but it was cheap).

I only once ate in a  US restaurant and there were raw clams.

Americans are generally bizarrely petrified of raw animal/sea foods and "germs."

Anyway I would choose wine over coffee.

For me it's the opposite. Most wine, even champagne, effects me much more negatively than any coffee. Everyone is not exactly the same. Certain particular varieties of coffee, mead and sake have less negative effects on me than any wine I've tried (though perhaps I just haven't come across the right wine yet--I'll bet the quality of wines in France is generally superior to those in the USA).

Wine is (in principle) raw

I read that most wine is pasteurized in this country, IIRC. As a matter of fact, someone in a wine or alcohol thread in this forum said that all wine is pasteurized and I had to point out that some is not, though it's rather rare. Apparently, champagne is not typically heated in this country, for example.

We don’t have to either once we have eliminated cooked, processed, Neolithic and modern foods.

Yet not everyone in the world agrees with you that that is necessary or beneficial, so the debates will continue. Surely you have had enough people disagree with you to reveal this to you?

But what is obvious from his comments about coffee is that it would be wiser to avoid coffee than trying to avoid pesticides in food.

Probably so.

Said in another way, it’s nonsensical to bother about pesticides in your food (and waste your money on "organic" products) as long as you drink coffee anyway.

There are many reasons to eat organic produce beyond just the pesticides. I don't buy organic because of pesticides, though that's an additional nice benefit. Plus, there's at least some potential for some evolutionary adaptation to plant and cooking toxins over the 250,000 or so years that I think Tyler said that humans have been cooking--though I doubt there's been full adaptation--whereas pesticides have been regularly used for less than a century or so. Plus, I don't notice any benefits from consuming pesticides, but I do from one particular coffee (YMMV), and other people have reported benefits in this thread and elsewhere (one study even reported that the more the coffee was heated, the better the benefits). For me, the benefits of small, intermittent consumption outweigh the negatives. I do recognize that this is not the case for some others, such as you.

what’s even more interesting is that the little bit of pesticides residues we ingest might as well provide some health benefits via hormesis.

Yup!

[TylerDurden]

The various heat-created toxins derived from cooking have so many studies showing very negative effects that one cannot claim that humans are even partially adaopted to the.

re wine:- Yes, sadly, most wine is pasteurised. It can, however, be made raw. I am myself thinking of making my own raw wine among other alchoholic drinks. Interestingly, I only easily get drunk on champagne. Due to this diet, no doubt, I am a bit more resistant to other alcoholic beverages than before.  Mind you, it's commonly recommended to eat a raw egg as a hangover remedy to replace lost fats and to drink water, so it's not surprising in my own case.

[Iguana]

Californian wines may be pasteurized, I don't know, but most European wines are not. SO2 is used instead, with a legal limit of 35 mg/l.

Here wines are seldom pasteurized, it’s only the case when it starts turning bad in the barrel. Another process used in such cases was sterile filtration with asbestos sheets filters!  I remember very well those big filters we used to work with at the oenology school, they had several elements horizontally stacked and working in parallel, each one with an asbestos sheet in between. Another kind of filtration is with diatoms filters. All wines are filtered, of course, but usually not in sterile way, which means that bacteria can pass through. They are killed by the SO2 added, anyway.

I have an oenologist diploma, but never used it because I preferred to be on the road with trucks than spending my life between a cellar and a laboratory.   

[TylerDurden]

Hmm, if I'd had been given that choice I would have chosen the cellar/lab option instead. After all,  as one gets older there's always the danger of  getting a bad back from constant driving.

Interesting facts re wine:-  Obviously, my Internet-derived info re wines being mostly pasteurised was dead wrong. I suppose only organic wines would be free of SO2?

[PaleoPhil]

Mind you, it's commonly recommended to eat a raw egg as a hangover remedy to replace lost fats and to drink water, so it's not surprising in my own case.

Yes, I do find the traditional remedy of raw eggs to help and it is fascinating. It's one of the few cases where anti-raw moderners are willing to eat raw animal foods (perhaps because they are desperate?). My brother recently asked me what to take for a hangover and I said raw egg yolk or other raw animal fat, but he was not sufficiently desperate to consider trying it in the future, unfortunately.

Californian wines may be pasteurized, I don't know, but most European wines are not.

Yes, the vast majority of California wines are pasteurized. Europe seems to be much more traditional when it comes to foods overall, with some exceptions, so I wouldn't be surprised if the wines there are more traditional. Champagne certainly is. I have heard that it is required with champagne to follow traditional raw practices by law.

[Iguana]

Interesting facts re wine:-  Obviously, my Internet-derived info re wines being mostly pasteurised was dead wrong. I suppose only organic wines would be free of SO2?

No, usually only the grapes are grown in accordance with organic practices and the wine making process is conventional. SO2 is necessary otherwise the wine oxidizes quickly, its color shifting from dark red to brown. SO2 combines with water molecules to form sulphurous acid H2SO3. If we open the bottle some hours before drinking the content, H2SO3 oxidizes first and become sulfuric acid H2SO4 which - we were told - is not toxic.