What's Inside a Cup of Coffee?

[pokerfan]

By Patrick di Justo

Caffeine
This is why the world produces more than 16 billion pounds of coffee beans per year. It's actually an alkaloid plant toxin (like nicotine and cocaine), a bug killer that stimulates us by blocking neuroreceptors for the sleep chemical adenosine. The result: you, awake.

Water
Hot H2O is a super solvent, leaching flavors and oils out of the coffee bean. A good cup of joe is 98.75 percent water and 1.25 percent soluble plant matter. Caffeine is a diuretic, so coffee newbies pee out the water quickly; java junkies build up resistance.

2-Ethylphenol
Creates a tarlike, medicinal odor in your morning wake-up. It's also a component of cockroach alarm pheromones, chemical signals that warn the colony of danger.

Quinic acid
Gives coffee its slightly sour flavor. On the plus side, it's one of the starter chemicals in the formulation of Tamiflu.

3,5 Dicaffeoylquinic acid
When scientists pretreat neurons with this acid in the lab, the cells are significantly (though not completely) protected from free-radical damage. Yup: Coffee is a good source of antioxidants.

Dimethyl disulfide
A product of roasting the green coffee bean, this compound is just at the threshold of detectability in brewed java. Good thing, too, as it's one of the compounds that gives human feces its odor.

Acetylmethylcarbinol
That rich, buttery taste in your daily jolt comes in part from this flammable yellow liquid, which helps give real butter its flavor and is a component of artificial flavoring in microwave popcorn.

Putrescine
Ever wonder what makes spoiled meat so poisonous? Here you go. Ptomaines like putrescine are produced when E. coli bacteria in the meat break down amino acids. Naturally present in coffee beans, it smells, as you might guess from the name, like Satan's outhouse.

Trigonelline
Chemically, it's a molecule of niacin with a methyl group attached. It breaks down into pyridines, which give coffee its sweet, earthy taste and also prevent the tooth-eating bacterium Streptococcus mutans from attaching to your teeth. Coffee fights the Cavity Creeps.

Niacin
Trigonelline is unstable above 160 degrees F; the methyl group detaches, unleashing the niacin—vitamin B3—into your cup. Two or three espressos can provide half your recommended daily allowance.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/17-10/st_coffee

[MindPilot]

1. Wow! I recently installed a diet program on my computer

You input what you eat and it calculates all the calories and nutrients. I was astonished to find that there was so much niacin in coffee.

[Liberation Angel]

7. got links?

love to have that

[MindPilot]

9. Certainly!

http://www.dietpower.com/

Download & install the trial--thirty bucks if you like it. Even if you're not trying to lose weight it is a good tool to just keep you aware of what you're eating. And it's also a very good tool if you have dietary restrictions like low-salt or diabetic.

[tridim]

2. It also contains a whole lot of "Mmmmmmm!"

A little trick I just learned is to add a tiny pinch of salt to your cup, just a few grains, it boosts the wonderful coffee flavor to heavenly levels.

[pansypoo53219]

10. i decided salt is basically a

flavor enhancer. i'll have to try this.

[blueworld]

3. It's scarier to discover what's in your water:) n/t

[silverweb]

4. Meh.

And organic, shade-grown coffee farms provide a livelihood for many, many families, and the drinking of coffee itself is almost as ritual a part of many cultures as tea is.

I'll continue my one cup of organic brew every morning, thanks.

If there are valid complaints to be made against coffee, they center around the corporate-run plantations that exploit workers, use child labor, use petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides, pollute the environment, etc, etc, like all other factory farms. Ditto for virtually all other agricultural products.

[Skink]

5. OK time to go to starbucks.

:hangover:

[kestrel91316]

15. Not me. I buy my beans at Peet's.

[Skink]

16. I remember Pete's.

back in the day.

[flamingdem]

6. Does this mean I can go ahead and brew my second pot of the day w/o worry ? nt

[jdlh8894]

8. All this comes straight from the bean?

I buy green coffee beans from different parts of the world and roast them myself. I do not believe that my beans have all these chemicals in them.

[eppur_se_muova]

11. These are natural flavor/aroma components, not additives.

If present in ppm, or even ppb concentration, they contribute to the sensory experience, without necessarily posing any danger to health.

Of course, "all things in moderation" remains the watchword.

[Posteritatis]

12. Why not? "Chemicals" aren't all intrinsically evil or unnatural. (nt)

[NNadir]

13. It's a thirteen step synthesis from quinic acid to "Tamiflu."

I referenced a link to it elsewhere on the internet: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/6/9/740489/-My-Doctor-Says-I-May-Have-the-H1N1-Flu.">My Doctor Says I May Have the H1N1 Flu.

I didn't have H1N1 flu by the way, and I have subsequently learned from CDC pages that Tamiflu isn't all that effective in any case, although Pfizer's neuroamidase inhibitor is apparently still marginally effective.

Coffee probably has no effect on viruses by the way.

[kentauros]

14. So that's why I drink tea!

That and the fact that the wonderful aroma of coffee is diametrically opposed to its supposed "flavor"