Coffee – it’s everywhere. How did it become a staple of our culture?

You have to go back over 600 years to Ethiopia. Through Mediterranean trade routes, coffee spread to Arabia, Turkey, and across Europe. Some countries at first banned coffee for its stimulating properties, but eventually they relented.

Since then, coffee has spread to the Americas, Indonesia, China, Korea, the Caribbean, Hawaii, and Australia, with the top coffee producing countries now Brazil, Vietnam, and Columbia.

Coffee shops are on every street corner in urban areas. Drive-through lines back up into traffic every workday, as people fortify themselves to face the commute.

What compels us to drink it? The aroma of fresh ground coffee… the ambiance of sharing a cup with a friend… the very artform that has developed to the point where a good barista is a skilled professional, typically for espresso.

Is there a problem? Sad to say, but yes... a big problem.

Coffee plants have evolved to protect themselves from insects. Yes, coffee beans contain a chemical to kill bugs. It’s known as caffeine... also found in most tea and chocolate, generally in lower amounts.

When you drink coffee and feel that energy rush, it’s the result of your body’s response to the toxin you've just consumed. Caffeine causes an adrenalin rush and an increase in blood pressure. Unfortunately, this is what makes us feel good in the moment, so we keep drinking it every day.

Long term, coffee compromises our sleep patterns, and we fail to experience REM sleep for mind repair and deep sleep for body repair.

Caffeine contributes to bone loss, and its acidic properties damage our teeth. Other possible side effects include anxiety, digestive problems, fatigue, and muscle breakdown.

Worst of all is the effect of coffee on the brain.

In 1995, NASA conducted experiments with spiders, giving them various mind-altering substances: marijuana, speed, caffeine, etc., and observed the webs they spun. The results were astonishing, with the caffeine webs being dramatically inept. But we are not spiders.

Researchers in Wake Forest, North Carolina conducted MRIs on a woman before and after she drank just one cup of coffee. They discovered that blood flow to the brain dropped over 40% as a result.

See link in References below.

That bag of coffee beans is not the friend you thought it was.

Caffeine withdrawal will cause some discomfort and headaches for a while as you remove it from your life. I phased it out over about a month, reducing the amount of coffee each week. That worked best for me.

I found that I’m better off without the addiction and I hope you will be too.