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by William Cobbs

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Coffee..about 1678, coffee spread from Spain to France to England, and in fifty years had become such a fad that all over Europe, little shops sold cups of coffee, tea, and later (about 1600) added tobacco and pipes. It was a convivial if totally male set of habits and places to enjoy them.

Coffee followed the early Americans to Virginia, and the settlers thought it more important to have a coffee house than a courthouse, so built one before Williamsburg, Virginia's State House was built.

Fairly recently, the usual high consumption of coffee was doubled or tripled by the incidence of 'fashionable' coffee houses all over America, creating a new industry from the old beverage. With the addition of many pleasant but questionable flavors and additives.

COFFEE IS GOOD AND BAD FOR US

Let's define what we mean by "a cuppa". For this essay, "a cuppa" is 6 ounces. And the coffee is just coffee, and has been brewed in an old fashioned way.

First, we roast the berries or buy them roasted. We then grind the roasted berries in a hand-grinder or power-grinder.
Or we skip all of those steps and open a can of, yep, Brazilian! Or Bolivian! Or other!

We then put one heaping tablespoon of our coffee for each cup in water and bring it to a boil, allowing it to boil for one minute, then pouring the contents through a proper filter to get the unwanted dregs out of it.

The we drink it or pollute it with cream, flavors, etc.etc.

This writer takes his TWO cups (6 ounce cups) at the beginning of his day, and that's it.

WHAT IS GOOD ABOUT COFFEE?

For a healthy individual, everything about coffee without additives is good. It wakes you. It envelops you in a feeling of ability. It dissolves the fumes of the night. You are ready to face the day until the next two cups tomorrow morning. There is absolutely no threat for you as a 12 ounce per day coffee drinker who adds nothing to his brew.

Whats more, the real drug effect of caffeine in coffee ,that is coffee without any additives is a form of slowing down fears, allowing a mind to focus on the day's problems,and additional indications of well-being familiar in more dangerous drugs but safe here for healthy people.

WHAT IS BAD ABOUT COFFEE?

An unhealthy person may not drink coffee at all. That is, if your lack of health is connected in any way to your heart, stomach, bowel, or brain. Any unusual problems in those places would be exacerbated and made dangerous by the caffeine and tar in coffee.

Any stomach upset, any irritation of the bowel, and heart condition, and you may not safely drink coffee. Added to that is any TIA {Transient Ischimic Attack) (small stroke)
would indicate a very strong reason for never imbibing caffeine.

The same is true for heart murmurs, high blood pressure, heartburn, irritation of stomach or each of the bowels. Those areas often indicate conditions worsened by caffeine and/or the tars in coffee.

Research has shown that we Americans in particular tend to ignore or invent excuses for facts about our health when they interfere with our pleasure. The very real fact that a person in poor health, particularly suffering from heart or brain problems, shortens his life considerably in searching for the obliterating happiness of coffee.
Additives such as cream or flavors may please our taste buds, but face the facts: the same amount of caffeine and tar is still in there!

A study by one of the medical journals indicates that when a subject has ingested 12 ounces of coffee(two ideal cups) and his blood pressure is immediately tested, if the blood pressure rises over 20 points systolic in an hour after coffee, he should not continue to drink coffee.
There is no way to check on the immediate damages to stomach and intestine, but post mortems have shown heavy caffeine content and tar scars in stomach and bowels_of afflicted persons.

Think of coffee as a medicine rather than a food. Many of our medicines purposely have caffeine for several reasons, the main one to alert the patient.

For a hundred years, the most popular over-the-counter drug in America was an "A.P.C." or aspirin-phenacetin-caffeine which mainly served to placate headaches and minor pains. We don't prescribe APC's any longer, recognizing the danger in the aspirin and phenacetin to sensitive stomach tissues. That medicine was like a cup of coffee with phenacetin and aspirin.

In summation, if you are healthy and you know it, hopefully from a proper physician, drink your two 6 ounce cups every day with no additives (black!).

If you are overweight, have stomach or bowel problems, or have been dizzy or had a T.I.A., or are short of breath, or know you have high blood pressure, don't drink coffee or any caffeinated drink. It may mean that abstinence saves or lengthens your life.

Learn more about this author, William Cobbs.

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