Coffee: The Great Energy Sapper

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Coffee: The Great Energy Sapper JoAnn Guest Apr 24, 2005 14:04 PDT

 

 

Compiled by Frédéric Patenaude

 

Published in JEAA, Vol. 2, #2

http://www.justeatanapple.com/coffee.html

 

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 moodenhancement 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

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 healthfood 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 offers 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: teec-

 

Moderators Note: For a more satisfying nutritious coffee substitute we

use the PERO brand from Switzerland. It is a quick brew and tastes just

fabulous! Just add a little STEVIA and presto, you have a wonderful

coffee substitute! It is most often available from your local health

food store or

in quantity at:

www.internationalbrands.com

_________________

 

JoAnn Guest

mrsjo-

DietaryTi-

www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Genes

 

 

 

 

AIM Barleygreen

" Wisdom of the Past, Food of the Future "

 

http://www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Diets.html