I've read a few posts where people have actually claimed that coffee ain't so bad. Defending it. It's a shock to me. I understand that there are polyphenols in coffee, but so what? Polyphenols are common in raw fruits and vegetables too, right? What else is it about coffee that people point to as healthful?

Really curious. I must say that I have grown to love the taste but sure don't beleive it's good for me.

I've been fasting for two weeks so I haven't touched it since then. I don't plan on drinking it like I had before the fast. Once in a great while perhaps. But that sets the stage for slipping back into it.



This way is not compatible with Zen practice. This way IS Zen practice. - Dr. Doug Graham

Nothing whatsoever should be attached to. - Buddha

i'm not sure cuz i don't drink coffee at all
but if u wish to stay away from it
because u feel that the bad overall outweighs the good
i would ask a different question

now, on the other hand,...if u feel that the good outweighs the bad
then keep asking

but that didn't seem to be your intent
focus on what u want
and be clear
to kick in two different directions
diminishes the force of each kick

it's good for enemas. that's all i can think of.

addiction is a funny thing, hard to break and easy to justify and rationalize.

TroySantos Wrote:
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> .....What else is it about coffee that people
> point to as healthful?
You're trying to debate Coffee at the wrong Forum.
This Topic should be moved to 'Other Health Related'.
No one who is serious about their Health drinks Coffee.....WY

Yes I must agree. You might be able to find some good things about coffee, but that doesn't nearly outweigh all of the bad things. Its like, even some poisons have a lot of antioxidents, that doens't mean you eat them for the antioxidents.

Coffee is a perfectly healthy drink, it contains all kind of antioxidants, compounds and polyphenols that you don't find other places.

Wheatgrass Yogi, I'm surprised to hear that coming from you. Just because you bought into the mainstream idea that coffee is bad for you doesn't mean we all have.

There have been all kinds of studies done not long ago showing that coffee protects against depression, cardiovascular disease and neurodegeneration.

I can't have much respect for people who knock coffee. It's an urban legend that it's bad. It's a good way of telling the noobs from the people who are serious about their health and are able to critically look at the evidence.

I don't knock it or those who drink it. However, it does contain a lot of caffine which is a stimulant, and addictive. It also cannot be consumed in large quanities no matter how sensitive your body is to it. I personally used to drink one or two pots of coffee per day. I got to the point where I would drink a cup before I went to bed. Then, I gave it up after school was over. Shortly after then I became raw. After not drinking it for about 6 months and developing a clean body, I drank it again and developed a horrible fever. I felt great, had the coffee (a single cup), and was writhing in bed later that night. I'm sure there were other factors as well, but coffee was undoubedly the biggest.

If you want to learn if coffee is "good" or "bad" for you, research if caffine is good or bad for you. The answer is the same, and I don't think anyone would argue that caffine is good for you. Or would they... if so, enlighten me please.

P.S. Check out this article: [www.painstudy.com]
Among the most interesting arguments it makes is that caffine amplifies the effects of stress, which I think many would confirm.

SuperInfinity Wrote:
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> Wheatgrass Yogi, I'm surprised to hear that coming
> from you. Just because you bought into the
> mainstream idea that coffee is bad for you doesn't
> mean we all have.
I'm not buying into an idea, I'm going with how
my Body reacts to Caffeine. My brother drinks Coffee all
day long, and swears by it. I can't tolerate it. It gives me
the 'jitters'.....WY

[en.wikipedia.org]

eecho Wrote:
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> I don't knock it or those who drink it. However,
> it does contain a lot of caffine which is a
> stimulant, and addictive. It also cannot be
> consumed in large quanities no matter how
> sensitive your body is to it. I personally used
> to drink one or two pots of coffee per day. I got
> to the point where I would drink a cup before I
> went to bed. Then, I gave it up after school was
> over. Shortly after then I became raw. After not
> drinking it for about 6 months and developing a
> clean body, I drank it again and developed a
> horrible fever. I felt great, had the coffee (a
> single cup), and was writhing in bed later that
> night. I'm sure there were other factors as well,
> but coffee was undoubedly the biggest.
>

Okay, that was your experience, that's fine.

> If you want to learn if coffee is "good" or "bad"
> for you, research if caffine is good or bad for
> you. The answer is the same, and I don't think
> anyone would argue that caffine is good for you.
> Or would they... if so, enlighten me please.

1. The answer is absolutely NOT the same!!! Coffee has a great number of things and natural substances in it other than caffeine, saying it's the same is ridiculous!!!! The caffeine in it is only a small aspect of it.

2. Actually many people would!!! In some of the neuroprotective studies it's the caffeine by itself, ie. nothing to do with the minerals and nutrition in the coffee that has its effect. I don't have to enlighten you because you have the ability to use the computer yourself.

The question is not whether adding coffee to a SAD would make it better... that's undoubtedly true considering it's where Americans get most of their antioxidants from. The question is whether it's also good on an otherwise raw diet. I don't know the answer to that, but I think that it is and I doubt it's *bad* anyway.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/24/2009 09:24PM by SuperInfinity.

i had a girlfriend who couldnt @#$%& without having some coffee. before she became an addict she could but after a few years, well.
my mom has been trying to kick the habit for years too, gets wicked bad migraines when she goes without a cup. actually, i have a few friends who get headaches when they try to quit or miss their daily dose. i hear it's fairly common.
if i drink it i get the jitters too, my hands shake and my heart races and i feel queasy. apparently i'd adjust if i stuck with it but that seems like a crazy thing to do to me when my body is so obviously telling me that it's not for me.
the addiction factor is large for me too. i'm pretty sure anything that is addictive is not so fabulous for me physically.
if there are so many wonderful things about burned bean soak water how about the decaffeinated kind? i'm pretty sure i can get all those great things with whole, raw foods though. or that i don't need them in the first place.

Yeah, that sounds about right coco.

The truth is that we don't know whether it's good for us or not, if you like it and find it goes well with your system it's not such a bad drink to take and may even confer benefits.

However if you're not plussed on the issue or have had bad reactions to it before, you're probably better off without it.

Never was much for drinking coffee, but I used to love those Newman's Own Organic Sweet Dark Chocolate Espresso Bars!!! XD

Sorry, confessions of a chocoholic! lol

SuperInfinity Wrote:

> 1. The answer is absolutely NOT the same!!! Coffee
> has a great number of things and natural
> substances in it other than caffeine, saying it's
> the same is ridiculous!!!! The caffeine in it is
> only a small aspect of it.

I'm just going off the theory that if you can't consume in in mass quanities, its not ideal. Like, you can have an entire meal of orange juice but you can't do the same thing with coffee. It might be percieved as "good" in small quantities because the harmful effects of the caffine are not noticeable enough, but that doesn't mean they are not there.

I also think that caffine is a stimulant. You could percieve this as a good thing saying that it increases brain functions for a period of time and helps focus, or you could percieve as bad saying that its addictive, gives false energy and thus causes a crash. I argue the latter, but I understand if people consider the former to be beneficial.

eecho Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> SuperInfinity Wrote:
>
> > 1. The answer is absolutely NOT the same!!!
> Coffee
> > has a great number of things and natural
> > substances in it other than caffeine, saying
> it's
> > the same is ridiculous!!!! The caffeine in it
> is
> > only a small aspect of it.
>
> I'm just going off the theory that if you can't
> consume in in mass quanities, its not ideal.
> Like, you can have an entire meal of orange juice
> but you can't do the same thing with coffee. It
> might be percieved as "good" in small quantities
> because the harmful effects of the caffine are not
> noticeable enough, but that doesn't mean they are
> not there.
>

Okay I get what you're saying, but I find that as with fruit there's a bit of "instinctive stop" with coffee. With things like nuts, I could easily continue on eating and then feel really sick afterwards.

It's funny that you mention juice because I actually *cannot* have an entire meal of juice. I never take juice on its own, for me personally it's too rough and fast on my system. I has no fibre with it, none of the other good stuff in the fruit. I never take juice on its own. The idea of fruit in its natural form causing harmful changes in sugar or spikes is of course nonsense, however if you just down the juice without any of the associated fibre... who knows.

> I also think that caffine is a stimulant. You
> could percieve this as a good thing saying that it
> increases brain functions for a period of time and
> helps focus, or you could percieve as bad saying
> that its addictive, gives false energy and thus
> causes a crash. I argue the latter, but I
> understand if people consider the former to be
> beneficial.

I think the giving energy aspect of it is overplayed. After just a few days your body has a pretty good adaption to it, for a raw person the adaption is even better. If you were living out in nature, your body would also have to adapt to energy changes all the time depending on what you were eating.

In nature you could be eating hard drugs, your body would simply adapt to it. What you do not want to do is take a substance that does not occur naturally... such as modafinil or to a lesser extent even alcohol.

I've thought of eating raw coffee beans, however I've never seen them in our shops for some reason (I live in Ireland and we drink mainly tea here like in the UK).

I heard that raw coffee beans are toxic and require cooking in order to consume, similar to red kidney beans. Has anyone had raw coffee beans before and been ok?

Just a few thoughts to consider:
Coffee is a strong stimulant, caffeine or not, which many feel isn't the best for your body to run it's daily inner functionings for health. Just because you don't feel the stimulating effects, doesn't mean they are not there. Most people in the beginning stages of raw(5 years or less) usually think it's fine but their bodies aren't that tuned in yet. So why drink it then??

With so many questions and concerns, is it even worth it?? If it can't be just dropped that should be a red flag right there one is eating/drinking emotionally and not for health perhaps.

you can't eat raw coffee beans. oh, i mean you Could, if you really wanted to, but it would be like eating pebbles. they would come out exactly as they went in. they are as hard as rock.

are they that way on the plant, or once they hit the market

i don't know how they could possibly do anything to a raw coffee bean to make it rock hard, or why any one would bother. they are just like that until you roast them (really, it's burning, they get burned to a crispy black in the roaster).

Rock hard as in pebble hard or rock hard as in plum-stone hard?

rock hard as in pebble. totally in edible. if you go to a place where they roast their own and ask they'll surely give you one to try. they really are like little stones.

I think its possible that they are dehydrated or something, for transportation/storage purposes. If not, then what are they for in nature? If they're rock hard on the plant then what animal eats them off the plant?

The most expensive coffee in the world is from Indonesia and is harvested from the excrement of the palm civet or 'luwak' in Indonesian.

the coffee "bean" comes inside a little fruit, the fruit is edible, the bean is not. it traverses the digestive tract intact and gets "planted" in the @#$%&.

Well what's the fruit like. Is it nice? Does it taste like coffee? lol.

eecho Wrote:
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> If not, then what are they for in nature? If
> they're rock hard on the plant then what animal
> eats them off the plant?

The purpose of the coffee bean (seed) is to create more coffee trees.



SuperInfinity Wrote:
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> Well what's the fruit like. Is it nice? Does it
> taste like coffee? lol.

Here's a product made from coffee fruit:

[www.coffeeberry.org]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2009 04:54PM by Omega.

Omega Wrote:
off the plant?
> The purpose of the coffee bean (seed) is to create
> more coffee trees.

cool, didn't know it was a seed

Does it ever strike you as amazing how little we know about what we consume? We don't even know where it comes from.

Not so long ago I didn't even really know what a "grain" was and I think I still knew more than 95%+ of people about nutrition. I swear there are people out there who have gone through their whole lives eating it every day and have no idea where bread comes from...

eecho Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Omega Wrote:
> off the plant?
> > The purpose of the coffee bean (seed) is to
> create
> > more coffee trees.
>
> cool, didn't know it was a seed

SuperInfinity,

One of my mother's favorite shopping tales was of how she went to the local market to buy some produce, and at the checkout, the teenage boy ringing up her groceries was puzzled:

boy: "Um, ma'am, what's this?"

Mom: "It's an eggplant."

boy: "An eggplant? Eggplant?"

Mom: "Yes, an eggplant."

Boy picks up eggplant and shakes it gently next to his ear.

Mom: "What are you doing?"

boy: "Listening for the eggs."

Mom[staring horrified]: "No, young man, it's a vegetable. See how it's sort of shaped like an egg? That's why it's called an eggplant."

This is a true story. A friend of mine hearing it recounted, quipped, "You should have told him, 'shhhh, the eggs are sleeping.'" : )



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2009 08:26PM by Tamukha.

Oh man, people in the check out are always checking out what i'm checking out for sure! I get asked "what's that?" about beets with greens, kale, cheyote, avocado, so many things. People are seriously under-food-educated.

That's super cool about the coffeeberries, neat!