What are the benefits of drinking coffee? How many coffees should you drink a day? And what is the best tasting coffee? We answer all these questions and more surrounding coffee and health, and bust some harmful myths along the way.

 

The benefits of drinking coffee

There are so many benefits to drinking coffee that extend far beyond what we usually associate our cup of coffee with: a-very-much-appreciated increase in energy level! The consumption of coffee in a normal, moderate amount – 2-3 cups per day – has been shown by numerous studies to have benefits across a wide range of health outcomes. Some of the health benefits of drinking coffee includes, but isn’t limited to:

Improved blood circulation

Some studies suggest that the active ingredient in coffee – caffeine – is responsible for an increase in blood flow. This may be why it is also shown to improve cardiovascular health and would be an exciting discovery, but more research needs to be done to confirm this theory.

Better athletic performance

Studies have shown that caffeine can increase vigilance during endurance sports, as well as perceived difficulty of the activity in other types of sports. Athletes report efforts ‘feeling easier’ because caffeine has been found to influence the central nervous system of the body. The well-researched reduction in fatigue also helps improve performance, usually in high intensity and shorter duration sports, but works well as pick-me-up in endurance sports that will ultimately result in better athletic outcomes.

Increase in metabolic rate and freeing fatty acids

There is solid evidence to suggest that caffeine in coffee does significantly stimulate the metabolic rate when compared to individuals who do not consume caffeine. This was observed in one study that found that the increase in metabolic rate related to a significant increase in the freeing of fatty acid levels and oxidisation of fat– though this increase was only observed in individuals of normal body weight. When compared in obese individuals, the same increase was not seen.

Improved mood, concentration and cognition

Coffee has been found by multiple studies to significantly increase alertness and elevate mood, as well as improving concentration and supporting mental cognition in those who consume it. Given the low toxicity and lack of serious psychological side effects, it is no wonder that coffee – or rather, caffeine – has become such a wonder drug all over the world.

Improved memory

Coffee can help improve your memory, with some studies showing that this was particularly true when drunk in the morning – meaning this is possibly the best time to take exams, study, and get important work done! Others studies show that consumption of caffeine directly after a task may boost long term memory by aiding the process the brain uses to consolidate new information.

Healthier hearts

There is now a large stack of evidence to suggest that drinking coffee can significantly decrease the chances of heart diseases and complications such as heart failure, coronary heart disease and stroke. The good news for coffee lovers is that the more coffee you drink – the lower your risks of heart complications become! There are many reasons that a link between coffee and heart health can be made, and these include its caffeine content, antioxidant levels and anti-inflammatory properties. There is also a common correlation between coffee drinkers and those that live a more active lifestyle, which of course lends itself to being healthier for your heart. Regardless, researchers have found that even those living an otherwise unhealthy lifestyle lower their risks to their heart health simply by adding coffee to their daily routine.

Lower risk of type 2 diabetes

Coffee consumption in healthy people has been linked to a lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes – a significant decrease of risk at 25% when more than 2 cups of brewed coffee per day were consumed. It is important to note that the consumption of coffee has only been found to be helpful in preventing Type 2 diabetes, and not in improving the symptoms. Some studies have shown that caffeine can interfere with blood sugar levels, and it can vary greatly between individuals, so those with diabetes should consume coffee carefully.

Better outcomes for liver diseases

The jury is in on drinking coffee and healthy livers – and it’s looking good enough to get excited! Multiple studies have now shown that the consumption of coffee not only helps in preventing a whole range of liver diseases and complications, it actively helps improve the outcomes of those who already have some type of liver issue. Doctors who specialise in livers – hepatologists – and epidemiologists are really excited about the potential that coffee has for helping liver function. Watch this video to hear specialist Dr. Sanjiv Chopra talk through the most recent exciting findings.

Prevention of Parkinson’s disease, dementia and Alzheimer’s

There are now a host of emerging studies that are showing links between coffee consumption and a lower risk of developing Parkinson’s, Dementia and Alzheimer’s. Some of this could be attributed to the better health outcomes coffee aids in that have already been discussed in this article, while other factors are more specific about the way in which caffeine interacts with the body on a neurological level to offset the risks of these diseases. The results of these studies are exciting, but are nonetheless still in their infancy, and are still undergoing further research and studies to define the real links and causation.

 

What is the healthiest coffee to drink?

The healthiest coffee to drink in terms of nutrition depends on your personal health state. If you are a normal-to-overweight person, then drinking black and unadulterated coffee is the healthiest option. It has the most benefits – caffeine, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals – with the least amount of calories.

However, if you are currently underweight or need to be consuming more calcium or dairy – choosing coffee made with milk or fortified alternative milks is the best and most healthy dietary choice for you. Not only does it include more calories, it includes a smorgasbord of vitamins, minerals and essential nutrients to boost your health goals. If you are unsure about what the healthiest option for you is, always consult with your GP to get the best advice!

 

Is too much coffee bad for you? 

As healthy as coffee is for us in many ways, it’s easy to throw down a few too many – it makes us feel great and it tastes like heaven! As many benefits as we can list for drinking coffee, there are of course a few caveats. The way you drink coffee, how much you consume, and your unique tolerance for it are all things that need to be factored in when including coffee in your regular diet.

Too much of a good thing

Like everything in life, you can always have too much of a good thing. Most of us are particularly guilty of over-indulging if we have read that the object of our desire has health benefits. “See?!” We cry, “It’s GOOD for us” – as we pour our third glass of red wine. Just like anything else, there is such a thing as too much coffee.  While coffee is known as a mild diuretic, the popular myth that it is dehydrating has been busted several times – so we can put that one to rest. While it may be a mild diuretic, its high water content offsets this effect.

Other risks you take when consuming excess caffeine can include things like poor sleep, increased anxiety or restlessness, stomach upset, nausea and vomiting. The recommended guideline on how much caffeine to consume each day without risking any side effects is up to 400mg, and depending on the type of coffee you drink – this could be anywhere between 2-6 cups of coffee per day. If you’re consuming coffee instead of eating a balanced meal, it can also impact on your overall nutrition. Some espresso coffee drinkers consume a certain type of ristretto to reduce their caffeine consumption over a day, without sacrificing their coffee!

Adding milk and sugars

Black coffee itself contains very little calories – around 2 calories per cup of brewed black coffee – and plenty of nutritious antioxidants. You can run into trouble on the health front when you start adding things to your coffee, as many of us love to do. Australians favour dairy or alternative milk-based coffees, and this can become an issue in relation to healthy caloric intake. It’s easy to put away too many calories each day when they are hidden in snacks and liquids – especially if you like adding a little sugar or a flavoured sugar syrup – caramel latte anyone? – To your daily caffeine hit. There are of course some great sugar-free syrups and natural sweetener alternatives that can be used to reduce calorie load in your coffee, and the team here at Crema Coffee Garage recommends ordering a ‘long black with a dash of milk’ as a great alternative drink to order, so you can cut back on your milk intake without sacrificing your normal coffee volume or flavour!

Low personal tolerance

Every person’s body is a unique set up, with different levels of tolerance for coffee. It may be that some are more sensitive to caffeine, or perhaps they have an acid-related health issue that stops them from enjoying a cup as much as the average person. If you personally find that coffee isn’t having a great effect on your body, mind or life – don’t persevere with it! There are also great benefits to be derived from drinking alternatives like decaffeinated coffee, tea, chocolate and any number of non-coffee drinks.

 

Is coffee acidic?

The short answer is yes – coffee is acidic. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing! It’s simply one of many other natural healthy foods and drinks we consume as part of a balanced diet.

There has been a surge in interest and spruiking of “Alkaline Diets” in recent years, and that has had our local baristas fielding some interesting questions. The nature of coffee leans in an acidic direction, with its average pH value being around 4.85-5.10. The main claim of the ‘Alkaline Diet’ is that it helps your body maintain its blood pH level, and eating acidic foods somehow disrupts them, which then goes on to cause other health issues. On this issue, Dr. Steve Beveridge had this to say: “Maintenance of body pH is a crucial factor in the body. It costs us significant energy expenditure to maintain this range. Should we deliberately add more alkaline materials to the diet, we will kick in the process where the stomach generates more acid.

The body controls acid/base levels automatically. As the material from the stomach is digested and moves into the duodenum (first part of the small intestine) the pancreas produces litres of bicarbonate per day to neutralise the acidic material – all under auto pilot! The notion of “alkalising” the normal, healthy body in reality is contrary to the fundamental “design factors” of the body.

As a general rule and under normal circumstances (i.e. not consuming absurd, almost life-threatening quantities!), we can make very little change to the pH of the body by ingestion of acidic or alkaline materials”.

Dr. Beveridge has been a fountain of expert knowledge for the team at Crema Coffee Garage, and his background as an Associate Professor of Chemistry has added invaluable input into many studies and projects we have run in the past, such as our study on caffeine content in collaboration with the University of Newcastle.

There is an impressive collection of acids that are contained in coffee, which all contribute different things to the final flavour and these include:

Chlorogenic acid – Found in coffee beans, eggplants, peaches and prunes

Citric Acid – Found in citrus fruits

Quinic acid – Found in tree barks and coffee, most famous for flavouring tonic water

Acetic Acid – Found in vinegars and other industrial uses

Lactic acid – Found in yoghurts, wine and the human body

Malic acid – Found in many fruits including blueberries, apricots, pears and unripe apples

Phosphoric acid - Common additive in soft drinks and jams to add a tangy flavour

Linoleic acid – One of two essential fatty acids that humans need for good health

Palmitic acid – Common saturated fatty acid found in food, with high concentrations found in palm oil.

The acidity of coffee is part of what makes it so tasty and interesting to drink – it’s a foundational part of what makes coffee taste like coffee, and trying to neutralise it simply results in an overall unpleasant cup. While we understand that some may be asking – is acid in coffee bad for you? The answer to that is a very firm no.

The only exception to this is where a pre-existing health condition that effects an individual’s ability to tolerate acidic foods and drinks is in play. These conditions can include things like acid reflux, gastric ulcers or Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). If you have a condition like this, then it is understandable that you may want to limit or avoid your consumption of an acidic drink like coffee.

 

How to reduce acidity in coffee

For those who simply can’t give up there morning brew, but are suffering from an acid-sensitive condition – never fear! There are definitively some simple changes you can make to your morning cup to make it less acidic, and without sacrificing on flavour. These include:

Cold brewed coffee over hot brews

Coffee that is brewed with cold water inhibits the release of some of the acids found in coffee, but not so many that it becomes tasteless. In fact, cold brew coffee has become outrageously popular in the last decade due to how tasty and smooth it is to drink. The original creator of the Toddy Cold Brew System actually designed his brewer to produce coffee that was 67% less acidic than hot coffee – not for taste reasons, but to specifically help those with acid-sensitive medical conditions enjoy their coffee. An unintended side effect of this was just how popular it would become because of how tasty it is!

Choosing less acidic coffees

By talking to your local roasters and coffee experts like us here at Crema Coffee Garage, we can help you choose a coffee that has a lower acid profile to begin with – even before you start brewing. These tend to perform best as black coffees if maximum flavour strength is what you’re after. However, they pair perfectly well with milk if that is your preferred brew – they may just taste a little milder.

Choosing to pair your coffee with milk

Dairy milk contains calcium carbonate – the main ingredient in ant-acid medications - and protein, both of which have been proven to be helpful in relieving heartburn and acid-related health issues. However, some studies show that the presence of fat can delay stomach emptying processes, which could in turn cause heartburn. So skimmed or light milk would be better options to try in your pursuit for a lower acid coffee.

Pairing light or skimmed milk with cold brewed coffee would be a perfect solution. For those that love a hot coffee, you can absolutely heat cold brew up! Many people enjoy their cold brew hot, as its a particularly smooth brew.

There are other suggestions you can find online about how to make your coffee less acidic, however we found that most of those did not come backed by evidence, and in some cases were soundly disproven. As such, we have chosen not to list them here.

  

Are there toxins in coffee?

There are a number of naturally occurring toxins present in coffee that are well below dangerous levels of ingestion and that we safely consume every day. There are also thousands of natural chemical compounds found in coffee, as is entirely expected for a natural product! Some of these ingredients in coffee that would not normally be considered a toxin, unless it was present in a harmful concentration.

Other toxins naturally present in coffee include putrescine, acrylamide, 2-Ethylphenol and mycotoxins, which can be produced by molds commonly found on various foods, including coffee. All of these toxins and chemicals would need to be ingested in dangerously high concentrations to be considered harmful to human health, and finding these ingredients in such high doses would usually require access to scientific chemical resources.

Chemicals in coffee

There well over 1000 chemical compounds found in coffee that contribute to the final flavour and aroma of a cup of coffee, and each one of their aspects are active areas of research in food chemistry and science. Some of these areas of study include (but are not limited to) flavour, human physiology, processing and growing effects, origin differences, and botanical species differentiation. Studies are conducted to determine what effects the chemical compounds of coffee have on these research areas, as well as how each research area effects the final chemical make-up of the coffee bean.

Chemicals sprayed on coffee

Most coffee crops are sprayed with chemical or natural pesticides during the growing phase to protect the crop from bugs and pests, in exactly the same fashion as most plant foods grown at an agricultural scale all over the world. These are necessary to produce enough food to feed the population. The use of pesticides or insecticides are regulated by several governing bodies which include but are not limited to the World Health Organization, Departments of Agriculture, Food Administrations, and Food Safety Authorities. Coffee beans do not have the same level of human risk in relation to chemical ingestion, due to the fact that coffee beans are deep inside the fruit that is sprayed. There are several layers between the surface of the coffee cherry, and the green coffee bean inside. The low levels of pesticides found in coffee beans are considered safe. Consumers can choose to buy only organically produced coffee, but many organic growers often still use bio-pesticides which are not necessarily considered safer than synthetic ones.

Mold in coffee

The mold sometimes found in coffee is not generally considered dangerous. The mycotoxins produced by mold found in coffee can be toxic at extremely high levels – meaning you would need to be ingesting coffee that was obviously growing mold, and lots of it, to experience harmful effects. Mold is generally only found in coffee during the harvesting, processing or storage (as green beans) stages and any trace amounts of mold that may be present are usually killed during the high temperatures of around 200℃ they are subjected to during the roasting stage.

It is a recently popular and widely spread theory that coffee contains harmful amounts of mold or mycotoxins, and it is simply unfounded when it comes to examining the regular condition and consumption of coffee.

Many other foods also contain mycotoxins, which are neutralised by your liver as long as your ingestion levels remain relatively low. Most human ingestion rates of mycotoxins is regular, but occurring at very low, safe levels. There is very rarely food production found without some risk or occurrence of mold.

 

The takeaway on coffee

At this point, it is undeniable that coffee has some extremely worthwhile health benefits and that the acid content of coffee is certainly in no way harmful to the average, healthy individual. Of course, there are caveats to this – if you have a pre-existing health condition that is affected by coffee, or it doesn’t agree with you – don’t drink it! We can also safely put to bed worries about any potential chemicals, toxins or molds in coffee. Though they may all be present in very low, safe levels, they aren’t there in any higher concentrations than the rest of the fresh food produce we consume daily all over the world.

For those that do pursue coffee with a passion, the advice is moderation in serving sizes and add-ins – don’t drink bucket loads and/or add too much milk, sugar or extras to it. If you do, you shouldn’t be surprised when you don’t feel too great. Limiting yourself to around 4 cups of coffee per day, and avoiding excessive sweeteners and milk will do a lot to make sure the benefits outweigh the risks.

In short – it’s safe to love coffee, and love it hard! The Crema Coffee Garage crew can sleep easy at night knowing that our cute little addiction isn’t shortening lifespans, and keep working with our customers to inspire their ultimate brewing experience with a crystal clear conscience. If you have any extra questions in regards to this article or coffee in general – don’t hesitate to get in touch with our friendly team today to pick our coffee brains!