Coffee: consumed religiously by businesswomen on their way to work, students mid-lecture, and overworked retail employees on a much-needed lunch break. But what is it about this lustrous bean that keeps us coming back for more?
And how does the new Stiwdio machine work?
All this and more will be answered.
Here goes, the pros:
Studies have shown that roast coffee has high anti-oxidants.
As covered in my plant piece anti-oxidants are useful when it comes to destroying free radicals and lowering your risk of cancer etc; great. Green coffee and roast bean both create different biomes in your stomach, feeding gut bacteria and improving your health, much like a Yakult or a similarly marketed health yogurt. In fact, it has been found to contain over 1000 bioactive compounds. After all, if your body is a temple, think of the billions of bacteria bowing down in it every day; you've got to keep them happy. An empty temple eventually falls to rack and ruin.
Not only is there a negative correlation between the diagnosis of dementia and coffee consumption, but these studies also imply that mere caffeine alone isn't enough to do the trick. There are compounds in coffee that can also be seen to have positive effects on the drinker's cognitive abilities, so tea drinkers won't be reaping the same benefits. ( They are no doubt reaping some benefits. But not the same ones.)
3. Old health
The oldest cat ever recorded is said to have drunk coffee on a daily basis. Creme puff, a 38-year-old moggy consumed the caffeinated beverage daily. Though the turkey, broccoli, and a two-daily eye dropper of wine may also have assisted.
Aside from the aforementioned decrease in Alzheimer's/ dementia risk, there is also a 19% decrease in the likelihood of cardiovascular disease as well as a range of other potentially terminal illnesses. Coffee, while not a life-giving elixir itself, can seemingly help to stave off life-ending illnesses.
4. Plant health. So packed with nutrients, coffee grounds don't need to be thrown away after use- you can sprinkle them on your flower beds as highly nutritious compost.
In fact, the average cup is packed with
"Vitamin B2 (riboflavin):
11% of the DV Vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid):
6% of the DV Vitamin B1 (thiamine):
2% of the DV Vitamin B3 (niacin):
2% of the DV Folate:
1% of the DV Manganese:
3% of the DV Potassium:
3% of the DV Magnesium:
2% of the DV Phosphorus:
1% of the DV"
Thank you Healthline. They also make a good face and body scrub.
5. Performance. Caffeine is known to increase metabolism ( 3–11% )and exercise performance (11–12%) and concentration.
Caffeine molecules are similar shape to adenosine molecules. These are part of the system that controls tiredness- when enough adenosine molecules bind to your adenosine transmitters, you feel sleepy; it is your body's time for rest. However, by binding to your transmitters so that adenosine can't, caffeine can mask the feeling of tiredness, helping you stay more awake. Sadly, over time, your body is known to grow more adenosine transmitters to make up for this, and thus the affects of caffeine diminish over time.
Which brings us neatly to:
Cons.
1. You will build up a tolerance Positive impacts like improved concentration are great for the short term, but if you consume coffee daily, your body will build up a tolerance, leaving you with an ultimatum: do you drink more and more per day to get the same benefits, or do you have a break, relinquishing the enhanced performance until your base line caffeine tolerance decreases? Tolerance can occur as quickly as 1-4 days and a reset can take between 2 weeks or 2 months, depending on how habitual your consumption.
2: Caffeine is a diuretic Caffeine is metabolized into Theophylline by your body. Theophylline relaxes your smooth muscles. While this can cause vein dilation, and thus increased blood flow around your body ( good) it can also cause your colon and bladder to relax, leading to that mad dash to the toilet when one has consumed too much black bean juice. The diuretic quality comes into play as more water is excreted in your urine.
3. Caffeine crash Once the caffeine is metabolized by your body, they are not blocking the adenosine receptors, meaning that all the adenosine molecules that have built up during your false period of energy can finally latch on, making you all of a sudden knackered, as opposed to the more gradual fatigue you would have experienced without the stimulant. . If you have not had adequate rest the night before, eaten very little, or in some4 other way lacking energy, you will feel even worse. Dopamine release is impeded by adenosine, so you could find yourself knackered AND grouchy.
Intravenous consumption of caffeine is not therefore recommended.
So why is coffee as ubiquitous as it is? Since the 15th century, it has been known for its energy-giving properties, seeming to gift the drinker with youth and vigor, in exchange for a painful crash afterward. Stealing energy from the future. Like many Deals with the Devil, this seems a worthy exchange. Whenever we begin the day with a steaming cup of bean juice, we seem to forget the droopy-eyed husk we were the previous evening when the elixir wore off; or else blamed it on an unavoidably busy day, not our abuse of chemical stimulants. We remember only the surge of warmth, the get-up-and-go before it got up-and-went. And the flavor, we remember that too. We are now in the "third wave of coffee", as coined in 2002, where thanks to Starbucks, Nescafe, and a range of other dealers, we can get our beans in a range of flavors, styles, roasts, and concoctions that we will never get bored. We are treating our pallets as well as our brains. It is more than a drink, it is a way of life. And that's one question answered. we will have to leave the Stiwdio coffee machine for another day.
We know how to use it, how to clean it, and how to empty it's pellets of anti-oxidant infused fertilizer onto the plants outside. And that's good enough for me.
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