You drink it every day (most days, multiple times), but have you ever stopped to consider the health benefits of coffee? Supposedly there are quite a few.
If you Google “health benefits of coffee,” you are provided a generous 55,200,000 results. For example:
Coffee is chock full of antioxidants though it’s a small wonder green tea is still promoted for its health-building properties. I mean, given the choice.
With coffee consumption allegedly comes a reduced risk of type two diabetes. Fantastic! Though, I guess that doesn’t factor in the pecan pie and cream cheese brownies that accompany the cup (or is that just at my house?!).
Other benefits of coffee are lowering liver disease and cancer risks. Especially colon, because I’m sure I’m not the only one who notices what coffee can do to the body if you drink too much of it, by itself, first thing in the morning.
Again, coffee tends to protect against heart failure. To clarify, *COFFEE* not breve lattes. Not Thai iced coffee (which may, in the most literal sense, be to die for).
More supposed health benefits of coffee are a lowered risk of stroke, prostate cancer, tinnitus, and endometrial cancer. Fat burning is allegedly a plus, which in my case proves I don’t consume nearly enough. I can always make more!
Nutrients can, in fact, be found in the brew. Few of them, perhaps, but they do exist somewhere in coffee. Think of it along the line of bacon being listed as a meat product on a nutritional chart.
So, good, we’ve compiled a list of health benefits of coffee. Good thing we drink so much of it on a regular basis! But, realistically, is this why we drink coffee? I dare say that how good it is (or isn’t) for us is not what genuinely matters to us as consumers.
We’ve also been warned that coffee consumption may increase anxiety levels, and if taken to an extreme, may reduce a woman’s chance of becoming pregnant.
And, we have received the heads up on the “negative” side effects, but does that stop us? Nah.
I don’t know about you, but I guess that (like me) when your alarm goes off, you begrudgingly drag your butt out of bed, shuffle to the kitchen in your pajamas and get your coffee brewing. Then you pee. And then you let your dog out.
Face it – we don’t drink the stuff because we care about the health benefits of coffee. We drink it because it’s an addictive substance we’ve grown to love and have come to need to make it through another day. We like it. We want it. We’re going to have it.
Regardless, when we wake up tomorrow, we will make coffee. We will drink it “in moderation” or otherwise. Because. At least now, if/when we do decide we’re concerned about the health benefits of coffee; we can reassure ourselves that they exist.
