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This\u00a0first post will discuss pure black coffee. If this is your favorite way to enjoy a cup of brew — keep on enjoying! A cup of black coffee has..<\/p>\n
- \n
- Five\u00a0or fewer calories<\/strong><\/li>\n
- No fat<\/strong><\/li>\n
- No sugar<\/strong><\/li>\n
- No carbohydrates<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Excellent.<\/p>\n
But wait. Didn’t Facebook, or that guy, or someone at some point tell you\u00a0that coffee is bad for you? Many of us have heard that coffee is somehow harmful. But you can rest at ease because available research indicates that coffee is NOT somehow bad for us.<\/p>\n
(Here we are of course\u00a0addressing the health implications of coffee in general and\u00a0your doctor\u00a0can advise\u00a0on what is best for your individual needs\/conditions.)<\/p>\n
A few years ago, Aaron Carroll of The New York Times<\/em> wrote an article called, “More Consensus on Coffee’s Effect on Health Than You Might Think<\/a>,” in which he\u00a0writes,<\/p>\n
“[Coffee is] a completely reasonable addition to a healthy diet, with more potential benefits seen in research than almost any other beverage we\u2019re consuming.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In a 2012 article in The Atlantic<\/em><\/a> Dr. Peter Martin, director of the Institute for Coffee Studies at Vanderbilt University (yes, this is an entire university institute dedicated to studying coffee — did I mention I’ve never been\u00a0a prouder Vandy alumnus?) was quoted as saying:<\/p>\n
“What I tell patients is, if you like coffee, go ahead and drink as much as you want and can.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Miriam Nelson, a professor in the\u00a0School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and a member of the committee that wrote the latest dietary guidelines issued by the US government, said:<\/p>\n
“We looked at all the science \u2026 we have found no negative, adverse effects on health when you\u00a0drink up to three to five cups a day.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
![\"Full](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavitadolcecafe.com\/staging\/6170\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Punch-Card-Photo-small.jpg?resize=300%2C300\")
What might surprise you most is the amount of coffee consumption that constitutes\u00a0a “good” range, or the amount defined as “moderate” in many studies. This isn’t one of those one-serving-is-good-but-two-is-horrible type deals.\u00a0 When it comes to coffee,\u00a0go ahead and have 3 cups. Or four. Or five.\u00a0Swiss cheese\u00a0that coffee card.<\/p>\nLooking more closely at meta-analyses\u00a0examining coffee consumption studies\u00a0reveals that drinking multiple cups of coffee is actually correlated with a host of health benefits<\/em>.<\/p>\n
A 2014 review and meta-analysis of studies looking at long-term consumption of coffee showed that those consuming three to five cups per day were at the lowest risk for developing cardiovascular disease<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A 2012 meta-analysis showed moderate coffee consumption to be correlated with a lower risk of heart failure<\/a>. Here, the magic number was four cups per day to experience the lowest possible risk.<\/p>\n
There have been a couple of meta-analyses, the first of which pooled data from\u00a0eleven studies involving\u00a0almost\u00a0480,000 participants,\u00a0\u00a0that have shown coffee consumption to reduce the risk of stroke<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Other research has shown coffee consumption linked to a lower risk of developing Parkinson’s Disease<\/a> and type 2 diabetes<\/a>.<\/p>\n
So not only is coffee not bad for you, it could be good for you. There’s finally even national consensus (what!?) that coffee can be included in a healthy diet. The latest national dietary guidelines,\u00a02015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans<\/a>, <\/em>released in January 2016,\u00a0states (for the first time ever in these guidelines), “Moderate coffee consumption (three to five 8-oz cups\/day or providing up to 400 mg\/day of caffeine) can be incorporated into healthy eating patterns.”<\/p>\n
National consensus. Mind blown.<\/p>\n
To\u00a0wrap up\u00a0our first post in this series,\u00a0we’ll cover\u00a0a specific aspect of coffee nutrition that we get a lot of questions about at the cafe.<\/p>\n
Caffeine Content of Coffee<\/h3>\n
Our baristas get a lot of questions about the caffeine content of various coffee drinks. How much caffeine is in a 12 ounce cup of drip brew? What about a double espresso or\u00a0a\u00a0large latte? Does decaffeinated coffee have any<\/em> caffeine?<\/p>\n
Below is a chart using data from Mayo Clinic<\/a> that\u00a0shows the\u00a0typical caffeine content of a variety of popular beverages.<\/p>\n
\n\n
\n Beverage<\/th>\n Caffeine (mg)<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n \n Drip Coffee, 8 oz<\/td>\n 95-165<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Black Tea, 8 oz<\/td>\n 25-48<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Cola, 8 oz<\/td>\n 24-46<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Energy Drink, 8 oz<\/td>\n 27-164<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Espresso, 1 oz<\/td>\n 47-64<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Decaf Coffee, 8 oz<\/td>\n 2-5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n Espresso, which is coffee brewed using high pressure, is\u00a0traditionally served in one to two ounce servings. If you do the math, you’ll see that a\u00a0double espresso (2 ounces of espresso) contains approximately the same amount of caffeine as 8 ounces of drip brew.<\/p>\n
This is surprising to some, who assume that their 16 ounce latte with three shots has a TON of caffeine when in reality it has about as much as a twelve\u00a0ounce drip coffee.<\/p>\n
Caffeine in espresso is more concentrated per ounce of liquid, making it easier to caffeinate\u00a0quickly if you’re drinking that espresso by itself. But if you want a 16 ounce drink with maximum caffeine, you should go for the drip brew over the 2-3 shot latte.<\/p>\n
Also note that decaffeinated coffee does have a bit of caffeine.<\/p>\n
And that’s all for this post. Our next post in this series is available here and covers milk options and nutrition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A while back, we showcased\u00a0a presentation, “Coffee Concoctions\u00a0To Make You Feel Good,”\u00a0at\u00a0Southern Village Wellfest.\u00a0The aim\u00a0of\u00a0our presentation was to help attendees […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coffee","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavitadolcecafe.com\/staging\/6170\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavitadolcecafe.com\/staging\/6170\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavitadolcecafe.com\/staging\/6170\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavitadolcecafe.com\/staging\/6170\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavitadolcecafe.com\/staging\/6170\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806"}],"version-history":[{"count":65,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavitadolcecafe.com\/staging\/6170\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1229,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavitadolcecafe.com\/staging\/6170\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806\/revisions\/1229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavitadolcecafe.com\/staging\/6170\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavitadolcecafe.com\/staging\/6170\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavitadolcecafe.com\/staging\/6170\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- No fat<\/strong><\/li>\n