Seven reasons it’s good for your health.
Every time I read something like this, I wonder if I should start drinking it. As I’ve noted in the past, I don’t want to become one of those people who can’t function (or at least think they can’t) without it.
I can testify that after 20 yrs of army coffee, aka eau d’diesel I demonstrate no ill effects . I probably have the equivalent of 4 cups a day these days (way less than my salad days) and developed a taste for black coffee after reading Taubes’ book, Death to sugars, carbs and starches! I do miss bagels, but I’m down 30lbs from my high.
That’s funny I started drinking it black after I read his book too. Well, I drink the office swill black during the week but use heavy cream and splenda on the weekends when I brew my own.
6 cups a day on average for me for at least the past 14 years
I started drinking coffee when I was four years old. I am now forty seven. I drink ten to fifteen cups a day. I have been doing so for at least twenty five years.
Four years ago, I quit for a month after a bout of flu kept me from drinking it for a week. It was a strange experience not having large amounts of caffeine in my system. I felt like my conscious self or soul, if you will, was slightly out of its container. I didn’t like the feeling and so after a few weeks, I started drinking coffee again. Boy, was it good after four weeks without it.
Six years of rotating shift work made caffine addiction a near certainty. I do drink coffee everyday because I like it. Last Thanksgiving, I visited some relatives a couple hundred miles from here. The day I drove home, I was having a terrible time. Turns out my relatives only drink decaf.
Don’t do it. It will just lead to disappointment – http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/27/global-warming-to-endanger-breakfast-by-2080/
Like anything else caffeine addiction is based on genetics. But I drink it for another reason. Caffeine is a close relative to a drug used for controlling asthma and I find it seems to help my asthma.
Also it has never kept me up, in fact I find a good cup of coffee helps me sleep better, probably because it makes it easier to breath with my asthma.
I avoided coffee addiction for most of my life. I’d drink it occasionally when some sort of sleep-related catastrophe forced it, but I wasn’t a regular drinker.
Two small children changed all that.
Now I can honestly say I’m somewhat dependent. I can skip a day and feel no ill effects, but sometimes I’ll get a mild headache from going without.
Here’s the thing though: If you drink the good stuff and cut yourself off no later than 3pm, it can really be a nice part of life.
Working in San Francisco has one tremendous benefit: the coffee here is epically awesome. My advice: avoid regular Starbucks and get into the good stuff. If you just want to drink it one mug at a time, get a bonmac ceramic filter holder and an electric kettle and make yourself individual pour-over cups. Comes out way less harsh than machine coffee and you can only make a little instead of brewing a full pot and just sort of drinking the whole damn thing because it’s there.
A guy at my office has a hand-cranked grinder, but that’s probably a bit much.