I’ve been reading up on coffee and caffeine. It is quite interesting since caffeine is not perceived as a healthy supplement. Coffee is typically avoided as a health issue, such as pregnant women should not ingest coffee because it can affect fetal heart development.
I learned quite a lot from Dr. Mercola on this subject.
There appears to be instances where coffee may be of therapeutic benefit to aid in total wellness.
Coffee Quality is Key
When it comes to the whole food, in this case of the coffee bean as opposed to the isolated caffeine, the converse is oftentimes true.
Most coffee produced today is heavily contaminated with pesticides. It’s actually one of the most heavily sprayed crops grown. So, when speaking of coffee here, make sure that you are using organic, pesticide-free coffee. With a quality coffee bean, you get nutrients and flavonoid antioxidants.
As an organic food in the United States, the crop must have been grown using at least 95 percent organic fertilizers and without the use of chemical pesticides for at least three consecutive years and the beans may not be irradiated.
Always look for the USDA 100% Organic seal. If you have trouble finding organic coffee in your local grocery store, check online, as there are many organic coffees available. Coffee should be taken black, without sugar (or use Stevia instead). Otherwise, you could be overspiking your insulin and causing insulin resistance.
There are some reasons why coffee has gotten such a bad rap.
Risks of Caffeine
Most coffee available today is rancid and packed from ground beans that will be stale in a week. The rate of rancidity increases heavily once you grind the beans. A lot of the bagged coffee you find in your grocery store is an already degraded product with rancid oils inside.
For total wellness, in order to provide you with healthful nutritional co-factors, you would want to grind the coffee beans of your choice fresh, making sure they are organic and pesticide free.
If too much caffeine is being chronically absorbed, there is a high likelihood that it could cause glutamate toxicity and related damage in certain areas of your brain.
Acidity from Coffee—Is that Good or Bad?
Another reason why coffee has a bad reputation is because it’s an acid forming substance. But some acid forming foods are essential to your health. They provide benefits that should not be overlooked. However, Acidity is a major problem. Anything that chronically acidifies your body can cause metabolic acidosis, a condition which is extremely unhealthy to say the least.
When your body becomes overly acidic, due to an acid forming diet, you set yourself up to a total metabolic shutdown. Over acidification of your body wastes your muscle and bone tissues, and as the level of acid rises, cellular congestion occurs along with increased vulnerability to degenerative disease. Basically, when your body is acid, you’re falling apart… So there was good reason to believe that all acid foods may cause metabolic disorders and disease including cancer. The two things that cancer thrive on are acid and sugar. So you should avoid having too much acid and certainly avoid sugar.Logically… But in real life, not all acid foods are bad…
In fact, some of the most beneficial foods are acid forming. These include protein foods and plant based antioxidants such as alagic acid, garlic acid, fulvic acid and humeric acid all of which are highly beneficial to your health.
So what should you do? For total wellness, first of all, eat whole foods and do not ever eat protein isolate… protein isolate doesn’t have the alkalizing mineral co-factors that are needed to balance the acidity of the protein. This means that you should stay away from all whey isolate, hemp isolate, or soy isolate. These are extremely acidifying. If you keep using them in large amounts unbalanced by alkalizing foods, you risk metabolic acidosis.
Virtually all plant foods are alkalizing, besides glutenous grains and some nuts and seeds… If you support high protein intake with a high intake of fruits and vegetables and good selection of nuts like raw unpasteurized almonds for instance, you cannot go wrong. You must balance acidic and alkalizing within the body for total wellness.
The same rule actually applies to coffee! Another great way to balance the acidity in our bodies is to use alkalized water. I personally use a Kangen Water machine to alkalize my water for drinking and it majorly helps to decrease the acidity of the body and promote much better health. You can contact me if you are interested in finding out more about Kangen Water!
If you drink coffee, just make sure your intake of raw fruits or vegetables is high enough. Essentially, a good diet is a balanced diet that includes all the major building blocks—fats, proteins and carbs—acidic and alkalizing foods must be balanced! Using Kangen Water in making your coffee is another way to lower the acidity in your body!
What Makes Caffeine Healthy?
Natural sources of caffeine include tea, coffee, and chocolate. These whole caffeinated foods are highly beneficial. Every time you get naturally occurring caffeine, such as in cocoa beans, coffee or tea, you get it from a nutritionally dense healthy whole food. And note that when you use the same food in a decaffeinated form such as decaffeinated coffee, or decaffeinated tea, you ingest ”nutritionally deficient inferior foods.
A tea without caffeine is useless. It loses all the antioxidant bioflavonoids in the processing. Same with decaffeinated coffee…it has zero nutritional value. Research has shown that both whole cocoa beans and coffee have remarkable neuroprotective properties. There is emerging evidence that South American societies who drink freshly ground coffee from whole coffee beans have the lowest rates of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’sdisease. That’s definitely something I’m interested in because Alzheimer’s and Dementia run in my family.
***Can Coffee stop aging?*** There is a new school of research that argues that the body is much smarter than previously thought…and it has the capacity to literally stop aging. The body has a mechanism that can actually destroy damaged, sick or cancerous cells along with weak or damaged muscle fibers. These are then digested and recycled back into the tissues. BDNF (Neuro-factor) turns on the mechanism that activates stem cells to rebuild the tissue. This mechanism is real. It’s just that it stays dormant for most people… you need to know how to activate it.
***Coffee activates this rejuvenation mechanism in your brain. You will keep your brain young by activating neuro-factors that regenerate neurons and recycle your brain tissue.”
Other Benefits of Coffee
Coffee increases your metabolism by up to 20 percent.
Again, make sure you use whole, fresh, organic coffee and take it balck without sugar (or use Stevia).
So, all in all, it appears coffee may have some valuable benefits, particularly to boost the benefits for your health, as long as you get high quality organic coffee, ground your own beans to make sure it’s fresh, and avoid adding sugar.
If you use a “drip” coffee maker, be sure to use non-bleached filters. The bright white ones, which most people use, are chlorine bleached and some of this chlorine will be extracted from the filter during the brewing process and they are also full of dangerous disinfection by products like dioxin.
Also be careful about the container you use. You will want to avoid plastic cups as the BPA from the plastic will migrate into your blood . You also want to avoid the use of Styrofoam cups as that will leach polystyrene molecules. Your best bets include
glass and ceramic travel mugs.
Warmly,
Connie Clark
303-770-3180 home office
303-898-7376 mobile
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