Coffee Accompanied Deadline
by Kieran- Published:April 27th, 2008
- Comments:2 Comments
- Category:Pages
I remember about two years ago I would proclaim my dislike for coffee to my housemates at the time. "It’s foul stuff!" I would say without thinking twice of taking a quick sip to glimpse a recollection of the horrible taste.
For a period of time I was an absolute health freak, I wouldn’t even eat a chocolate bar or have a fizzy drink. I went from a thirteen stone, five foot four, sixteen year old to a nine stone, five foot six, eighteen year old. Previously I led a care-free lifestyle with absolutely no consideration for the foods and drinks I was consuming on a regular basis.
Of course there’s a picture of me of when I was at my skinniest (I’m on the right, picture taken 2004), and I find it mildly disturbing. Three years later I weighed in three stone heavier. My weight has been up and down over many years, and again I lost stones worth of weight during my stay in hospital and the time afterwards.
Though despite all of my health-concious years I still had never touched a cup of coffee and stood religiously next to my bottles of water. Let’s take that and put it into perspective. Yesterday I believe I had five cups of sugar-spiked, three-spooned-strong coffee and I loved every sip of it. I first tried coffee when I started having Mocha’s at a company I used to work for (we had two Costa Coffee’s in our buildings). I think I’ve been hooked ever since.
With a fiancee who regularly drinks coffee, and a software developer whom I work side-by-side with drinking it as if it were the cup of strength there is no way for me to avoid it any more than I’d like to. The question is, does it really help? I have actually been drinking caffeine-free coffee which tastes very similar, but the health risks of caffeine-free coffee are supposedly greater than that of regular coffee due to the chemicals used to remove the caffeine, plus, you don’t get the "hit" from it.
What I will say is this. I’m giving up as soon as this research paper is due in, and I’m going to get quite health-concious because I believe I am doing far more harm than good. Stay safe kids, avoid the dream-beans.
2 Comments
Coffee also has benefits, such as the reduced risk of Alzheimers and Parkinsons, reduces the risks of diabetes, and some cancers. As usual, in moderation.
Personally I only drink ‘decent’ coffee now - no instant crap, just good-quality espresso from beans I grind myself just before. One a day is my usual, occasionally two.
Personally I find health advice to change so often as to be mostly useless - I personally think you just need to be sensible with all things. A little bit of caffeine / chocolate / alcohol is not going to be detrimental, in fact most studies suggest they have beneficial effects. Moderation is the key.
I have to admit, the coffee I had at your place was really nice. I’m not sure about the process of instant coffee and what negative impacts it has.
I’m trying to avoid it as much as possible now by replacing it with things like fruit if I’m in the mood for something flavoursome. The problem with me is that I can’t do anything “in moderation”, I either have a lot of it, or nothing at all.