Tuesday, November 08, 2005


haven't they ever heard of decaf?

"but the eighth-grader at lake gibson middle school has no trouble acquiring a cup of caffeine-laden coffee."

this is just another one of those bizarre anti-coffee articles that show up from time to time; it really makes me laugh. "acquire a cup of caffeine-laden coffee" -- as if it were a schedule 1 substance being pushed on the street corner by a shady individual in gang colors?

the article actually mentions coffee in the same sentence as cigarettes and alchol. puh-leez.

i note that the piece highlights a teen who drinks decaf green tea. it's not until waaay down in the story that the author mentions in passing that well-known substance, decaf coffee.

and while the article notes properly that the mermaid's hot milkshakes with whipped cream and flavored syrups are quite caloric, you notice it doesn't say the same for soda, which it appears to laud solely for having less caffeine than coffee. the piece doesn't seem to mention diet soda once.

the writer appears to forget the tremendous calorie impact in non-diet soft drinks, even tho' a huge number of american children are obese (um, take another look at the teens in the photo accompanying the article), and 2 million american children are pushing the edge of diabetes.

look, all people should drink coffee in moderation -- 2 or 3 5-6 oz. cups per day. devoted readers know that I strongly counsel against the mermaid's super-sized drinks, which are frankly obscene.

no one at any age should have 2 venti anythings a day, to my mind. those who find themselves sensitive to coffee's caffeine can enjoy one of the several kinds of decaf.

decaf drinkers are about 10-15% of coffee drinkers in the u.s.a. presently, and i think there's room for that market to grow as decaf processing continues to improve.

long-time readers may recall that i agree with many in the greenie community that an important key to continuing gains in coffee consumption will in fact be better-tasting decafs so that coffee can expand beyond that early-morning window.

(most coffee in the u.s.a. is savored before 11 am; this is the origin of scaa chief ted lingle's famous dictum "coffee is the engine that pulls breakfast.")

as for my own breakfast this morning, i did indeed make andrew b's ecco la nueva from yesterday in the vac pot. alas -- still no pear.

i must get ahold of some of this stuff at a younger date! but its nice citrus quality seemed more prominent in the bodum santos -- and this morning i saw for the first time a few specks of oil on some of the beans. . .

posted by fortune | 8:47 AM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 3 comments