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I read that it can help prevent colon cancer.
http://m.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/11/the-case-for-drinking-as-much-coffee-as-you-like/265693/ (http://m.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/11/the-case-for-drinking-as-much-coffee-as-you-like/265693/)
In The Causes and Prevention of Cancer, Bruce N. Ames
(Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Center
University of California at Berkeley) states:
Quote
Cooking food also generates thousands of chemicals. There are over 1000 chemicals reported in a cup of coffee. Only 26 have been tested in animal cancer tests and more than half are rodent carcinogens; there are still a thousand chemicals left to test. The amount of potentially carcinogenic pesticide residues consumed in a year is less than the amount known of rodent carcinogens in a cup of coffee.
Well, I need something to take the place of my rampant drug use.
The amount of potentially carcinogenic pesticide residues consumed in a year is less than the amount known of rodent carcinogens in a cup of coffee.
I drink coffee about 3 times a week now. I am cutting back. I want to drink coffee zero times a week. The strange thing is, the flavor of coffee objectively isn't that good. It tastes burnt and unnatural.Thanks for sharing your experience, Max. What roast are you drinking, light, medium or dark and are you heat-brewing or cold-soaking it? There's a big difference between heat-brewed Starbucks dark roast coffee, say, and a cold-soaked light or medium roast coffee.
The trouble is that we mostly live in a modern world where it is awfully difficult to socialise with people unless one is willing to compromise a little.Excellent point, Tyler. Often coffee is the least-bad beverage choice for me made available at social settings. A healthy diet is good, but social and psychological health also weighs in the equation. A dietary restriction is not helpful if the damage to social life and overall well being exceeds the dietary benefits.
Iguana, there's no such thing as a person who does 100% paleo, only an attempt to follow an approximation of what we think was the case way back when.Yes, none of us is truly 100% Paleo in Stone Age terms (though some critics take this too far to claim that it's hopeless to try to benefit at all from Paleo concepts).
Excellent point, Tyler. Often coffee is the least-bad beverage choice for me made available at social settings. A healthy diet is good, but social and psychological health also weighs in the equation. A dietary restriction is not helpful if the damage to social life and overall well being exceeds the dietary benefits.Yeah… it doesn’t have to damage the social life: I never had any social problem in western industrialized countries, and barely any in other countries. I plainly let the others free to eat and drink whatever they want, so I expect them to let me free to drink a mineral water and eat oysters or raw vegetables when they drink and eat something else.
Yes, none of us is truly 100% Paleo in Stone Age terms (though some critics take this too far to claim that it's hopeless to try to benefit at all from Paleo concepts).Yes. But something we can do is to eat 100 % raw, without any dairy and wheat. It’s an extremely interesting experiment that no one before us had ever done since a few millenniums. We don’t necessarily have to do it for all the rest of our life, but doing it 100 % for a while proves that it can be very successfully done.
As for Bruce Ames, he said "The point isn't to worry so much about cups of coffee, but to rethink what we're doing with animal cancer testing." (http://reason.com/archives/1994/11/01/of-mice-and-men (http://reason.com/archives/1994/11/01/of-mice-and-men)) In other words, Ames' point wasn't that coffee is a terribly harmful food that must be completely avoided by all, but that the level of societal fear regarding certain environmental toxins is not justified by the existing data, that the focus is on the wrong things.Sure, and what he says is plainly in agreement with us on the point that the doses of pesticides we ingest with our food are much less harmful than heated food, the problem with coffee being that it is roasted at high temperature. There is no problem with raw unprocessed coffee seeds because you can’t it too much of it.
Iguana, what about the role of hormesis, which suggests that "the dose makes the poison" (Paracelsus)? Granted, we need to take into account the overall toxic load, not just from coffee, but it sounds like most of us don't consume a high level of dietary toxins.Sure, the dose makes the poison in most cases. Still we have to know at what point a dose becomes poisonous in an infinity of individual specific cases! Only our instinct can tell that. It works with unprocessed, unmixed coffee seeds but it doesn’t work with a cup of coffee.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis) The hormesis model of dose response is vigorously debated.[1] The notion that hormesis is a widespread or important phenomenon in biological systems is not widely accepted.[2]My opinion on this? I don’t know.
The biochemical mechanisms by which hormesis works are not well understood. It is conjectured that low doses of toxins or other stressors might activate the repair mechanisms of the body. The repair process fixes not only the damage caused by the toxin, but also other low-level damage that might have accumulated before without triggering the repair mechanism.
Sure, and what he says is plainly in agreement with us on the point that the doses of pesticides we ingest with our food are much less harmful than heated food, the problem with coffee being that it is roasted at high temperature.That's your emphasis, not Ames'. If you look at the context of what he said, it seems his point was not that coffee drinking is so terribly risky, but that people's fears about man-made chemicals are often overblown (about which I think he goes too far).
We’ve got to take into account the fact that Bruce Ames is not a raw foodist himself....Exactly, so I doubt his point was about the horrible toxicity of cooked foods.
although we can infer from his advice to eat more fruits and veggies that he supposes at least some of them will be eaten rawMost of us already do that. The question in this thread is not whether eating some raw food is a good idea, but whether consuming some coffee really is all that bad.
Thanks for the link to the article, by the way. The first pages are really interesting.You're welcome.
My opinion on this? I don’t know."I don't know" is a good place to be at and it's basically where I'm at. I don't know with certainty that coffee is highly toxic for everyone in small amounts, so I'm not going to claim that it's proven that all should completely avoid it. Isn't it possible that at least some forms and degrees of coffee consumption might not be proven as harmful in some people, and might even provide health benefits via hormesis?
"As previously implied ... additional research is needed to expand our understanding of hormesis; however, it is shortsighted to assume that comprehensive mechanistic knowledge is necessary before an effect has been (or can be) considered in health policy. The history of medicine and public health is replete with examples of new insights supplanting previously “well-established” concepts of disease and how they should be addressed.... The more numerous, consistent, and coherent the findings of benefit or harm, the more readily they were accepted and acted upon even in the absence of comprehensive mechanistic explanations. To argue that hormetic mechanisms require a higher level of understanding is simply an example of a double standard designed to accomplish little more than maintain the status quo." (The Importance of Hormesis to Public Health, Ralph Cook and Edward J. Calabrese, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1665397 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1665397))After all, the value of the raw Paleo approach is much less accepted in the scientific community than hormesis, yet we all employ its principles nonetheless.
I've never seen mineral water offered at any social occasions. Do you bring your own mineral water with you to any social occasion?USA seems to be very special in this regard because in every restaurant everywhere else in the world you can order bottled water of various kinds. I only once ate in a US restaurant and there were raw clams. I don’t remember about drinks. Anyway I would choose wine over coffee. Wine is (in principle) raw and is the only exception that I occasionally allow myself. But I should better avoid it completely as well, it doesn’t do any good.
I'm not out to prove anything and diet is so complex that I don't think that an "optimal" diet for all will ever be completely proven and dietary debates will likely continue indefinitely.Wild animals don’t debate about diet! We don’t have to either once we have eliminated cooked, processed, Neolithic and modern foods. Everyone can thus find the optimal food that fulfills his/her specific current, transient and ever-changing needs.
That's your emphasis, not Ames'. If you look at the context of what he said, it seems his point was not that coffee drinking is so terribly risky, but that people's fears about man-made chemicals are often overblown (about which I think he goes too far).Sure. But what is obvious from his comments about coffee is that it would be wiser to avoid coffee than trying to avoid pesticides in food.
Exactly, so I doubt his point was about the horrible toxicity of cooked foods.Yes, it wasn’t! What is relevant for us raw dieters is that the tiny amount of pesticides in food are much less a concern than the comparatively huge quantity of abnormal and potentially carcinogenic molecules in roasted (and cooked) foods.
Most of us already do that. The question in this thread is not whether eating some raw food is a good idea, but whether consuming some coffee really is all that bad.It’s not all that bad: the amount of known of rodent carcinogens in a cup coffee is only greater then than the potentially carcinogenic pesticide residues consumed in a year. ;)
"I don't know" is a good place to be at and it's basically where I'm at. I don't know with certainty that coffee is highly toxic for everyone in small amounts, so I'm not going to claim that it's proven that all should completely avoid it. Isn't it possible that at least some forms and degrees of coffee consumption might not be proven as harmful in some people, and might even provide health benefits via hormesis?That’s an interesting possibility. And what’s even more interesting is that the little bit of pesticides residues we ingest might as well provide some health benefits via hormesis. :) :D
USA seems to be very special in this regard because in every restaurant everywhere else in the world you can order bottled water of various kinds.Interesting. Do people provide it at work and social parties too? The USA is all about eating the cheapest food in the largest possible quantities, so things like mineral water are rarely present. People tell me that this or that restaurant is good and if I check it out I find that it is terrible and ask them why they thought it was good and they say "Because the portions were huge and the cost low!" (in other words, the food was crap but it was cheap).
I only once ate in a US restaurant and there were raw clams.Americans are generally bizarrely petrified of raw animal/sea foods and "germs."
Anyway I would choose wine over coffee.For me it's the opposite. Most wine, even champagne, effects me much more negatively than any coffee. Everyone is not exactly the same. Certain particular varieties of coffee, mead and sake have less negative effects on me than any wine I've tried (though perhaps I just haven't come across the right wine yet--I'll bet the quality of wines in France is generally superior to those in the USA).
Wine is (in principle) rawI read that most wine is pasteurized in this country, IIRC. As a matter of fact, someone in a wine or alcohol thread in this forum said that all wine is pasteurized and I had to point out that some is not, though it's rather rare. Apparently, champagne is not typically heated in this country, for example.
We don’t have to either once we have eliminated cooked, processed, Neolithic and modern foods.Yet not everyone in the world agrees with you that that is necessary or beneficial, so the debates will continue. Surely you have had enough people disagree with you to reveal this to you?
But what is obvious from his comments about coffee is that it would be wiser to avoid coffee than trying to avoid pesticides in food.Probably so.
Said in another way, it’s nonsensical to bother about pesticides in your food (and waste your money on "organic" products) as long as you drink coffee anyway.There are many reasons to eat organic produce beyond just the pesticides. I don't buy organic because of pesticides, though that's an additional nice benefit. Plus, there's at least some potential for some evolutionary adaptation to plant and cooking toxins over the 250,000 or so years that I think Tyler said that humans have been cooking--though I doubt there's been full adaptation--whereas pesticides have been regularly used for less than a century or so. Plus, I don't notice any benefits from consuming pesticides, but I do from one particular coffee (YMMV), and other people have reported benefits in this thread and elsewhere (one study even reported that the more the coffee was heated, the better the benefits). For me, the benefits of small, intermittent consumption outweigh the negatives. I do recognize that this is not the case for some others, such as you.
what’s even more interesting is that the little bit of pesticides residues we ingest might as well provide some health benefits via hormesis.Yup!
Mind you, it's commonly recommended to eat a raw egg as a hangover remedy to replace lost fats and to drink water, so it's not surprising in my own case.Yes, I do find the traditional remedy of raw eggs to help and it is fascinating. It's one of the few cases where anti-raw moderners are willing to eat raw animal foods (perhaps because they are desperate?). My brother recently asked me what to take for a hangover and I said raw egg yolk or other raw animal fat, but he was not sufficiently desperate to consider trying it in the future, unfortunately.
Californian wines may be pasteurized, I don't know, but most European wines are not.Yes, the vast majority of California wines are pasteurized. Europe seems to be much more traditional when it comes to foods overall, with some exceptions, so I wouldn't be surprised if the wines there are more traditional. Champagne certainly is. I have heard that it is required with champagne to follow traditional raw practices by law.
Interesting facts re wine:- Obviously, my Internet-derived info re wines being mostly pasteurised was dead wrong. I suppose only organic wines would be free of SO2?
Interesting. Do people provide it at work and social parties too?Yes, sure, mineral and spring water are very common.
Yet not everyone in the world agrees with you that that is necessary or beneficial, so the debates will continue. Surely you have had enough people disagree with you to reveal this to you?Yes, useless debates usually last long after a new and more adequate scientific theory has been devised. It’s always been the same and even Einstein’s special and general relativity remained a subject of debates for several decades.
There are many reasons to eat organic produce beyond just the pesticides. I don't buy organic because of pesticides, though that's an additional nice benefit. Plus, there's at least some potential for some evolutionary adaptation to plant and cooking toxins over the 250,000 or so years that I think Tyler said that humans have been cooking--though I doubt there's been full adaptation--whereas pesticides have been regularly used for less than a century or so.Yes, I agree.
Plus, I don't notice any benefits from consuming pesticides, but I do from one particular coffee (YMMV), and other people have reported benefits in this thread and elsewhere (one study even reported that the more the coffee was heated, the better the benefits). For me, the benefits of small, intermittent consumption outweigh the negatives. I do recognize that this is not the case for some others, such as you.There are plenty people reporting short term “benefits” from various cooked, Neolithic or modern foods. This doesn’t prove much as long as the person’s immune system is still in state of tolerance for the toxins contained in those foods.
Yes, sure, mineral and spring water are very common.Wow! That's quite different than it is here.