Thursday, October 23, 2003


weeping gnashing weeping part iii

sometimes it's shocking how little people know about coffee -- especially if they claim to be scientists. thus today we are supposed to be stunned at the news that different coffees can have different caffeine amounts!

well, duh. long-time readers know that roast level, grind, and preparation method greatly affect caffeine content (see question 2).

in general, properly made coffee has less caffeine, because with correct timing and water temperature, the less caffeine will wash out of the grounds. coffee has many phtyochemicals, and many of them are more soluble than caffeine.

thus the best tasting coffee, properly brewed, will tend to have less caffeine than that which has been poorly extracted, or made with water at the wrong temperature, or allowed to sit in contact with the coffee grounds too long.

caffeine is a naturally bitter substance; but coffee has many natural sugars. in general, the sugars will wash out of the coffee before the majority of the caffeine. so brew your coffee with care for a great and sweet-tasting cup!

no let's get to my biggest beef. the article asserts that coffee is addictive. no, it's not.

caffeine is not listed in the doctor's handbook, the dsm, as an addictive or dependence-creating substance (scroll down to caffeine and addiction, questions 1 & 2).

more rigorous studies have shown that the supposed symptoms of so-called caffeine withdrawal seem only partially based in reality and mostly based in autosuggestion.

in short, if everyone didn't tell you that caffeine was addictive -- if everyone didn't already know -- then the vast majority of people wouldn't experience any symptoms. this canard is similar to the famous university of chicago experiment where researchers tested the idea that caffeine interferes with sleep.

and guess what? it doesn't! when scientists put caffeine in hot milk and made people drink it before bed-time, they all slept like babies. . .because as we all know, hot milk helps you sleep. . .

(i want to find the direct link to this, but the science community has just made it too hard to reach their abstracts -- the same study is mentioned here, scroll down to sleep fallacy largely psychlogical.)

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