Posts Tagged ‘Health’

Posted on August 13, 2008 - by deCadmus

Coffee Notes from All Over

• The cool kids at Barismo do a deft take on a David Letterman style top-ten list with 10 Reasons Coffee Doesn’t Taste Like the Bag Descriptions.
  

  Number 10 - Juan Valdez is dead. Get over it.
  Number 9 - The marketing team ran out of ways to say, “tastes just like coffee, but better.”
  Number 8 -  Two words: cat poo.

  Okay…  none of these are actually on Barismo’s list, I’m just feelin’ punchy.

• Despite the fact that it gets a lot of the salient facts about coffee and health right on the money, I got a beef with the recent NY Times’ health article — Sorting Out Coffee’s Contradictions — for perpetuating the myth that Howie Schultz was the founder of Starbucks…
  

  When Howard D. Schultz in 1985 founded the company that would become the wildly successful Starbucks chain, no financial adviser had to tell him that coffee was America’s leading beverage and caffeine its most widely used drug. The millions of customers who flock to Starbucks to order a double espresso, latte or coffee grande attest daily to his assessment of American passions.

  To set the record straight, Schultz *left* Starbucks — the company founded in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker  — to start his own coffee company, Il Giornale, in 1985. Two years later Howie bought out the original Starbucks’ stakeholders with the profits from his new company and the help of a few investor friends, and bundled everything under the name of the coffee company that made its bones on Pike Place… Starbucks. So there.

• The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation plans to help coffee farmers in Africa boost their agronomy skills and coffee processing capabilities in an big dollar effort directed by the good people of Technoserve. Which is a very cool thing to do, and all the more remarkable as it allows me to additionally note that Bill Gates — not that Bill, his *dad* Bill Gates, Sr. — was was of the original investor friends that allowed Howie Schultz to buy out Starbucks from its original founders in 1987.Small world, huh?

Posted on April 22, 2008 - by deCadmus

Green Up Your Coffee House!

It’s Earth Day 2008. The climate crisis is accelerating, vast sheets of ice are collapsing, islands in the Pacific have been drowned in rising seas, and weather the world over is growing increasingly violent. If we don’t take immediate action — all of us, and right now — we face a future unlike anything we’ve known.

But let’s be honest… running a successful and (ideally) profitable coffee house is something of a high-wire act at the best of times. And — economically-speaking — these aren’t the best of times. You’ve got a budget to watch; a creeping expense column can throw things out of kilter. Fast. It’s not going to do you or your environmentally-minded customers any good for you to bankrupt yourself in the name of ecology.

That said, there are savings to be found in running a more efficient and sustainable coffee house, coffee shop or espresso bar. Some of these savings can be realized pretty quickly, others require a longer view. If you can, don’t just consider today’s bottom line, but tomorrow’s. And next year’s. And — for goodness sake — don’t lose sight of the ultimate bottom line here… the planet’s climate is in crisis. And it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that the viability of specialty coffee is at the forefront of that crisis.

In greening up your coffee house, there are (at least) three distinct areas where you can bring your efforts to bear: reducing energy, increasing sustainability, and making it easier for your customers to go green, too. We’ll look at each in turn. There’s a lot to slog through here, so I’ll get right to it.

Reduce energy.

A coffee shop is an energy sink. You’ve got lots of things to keep hot, things to keep cool, and excruciatingly specialized equipment to get them all mixed together. Where do you begin?

Start with an energy audit. Chances are your power company will audit your business at no charge, and provide you with a fairly comprehensive list of recommendations. It’s a great place to start… and an ideal way to benchmark where your business stands, right now. You’ll want that baseline to measure against after you’ve made some improvements.

While your power company will have lots of tips for you in terms of properly insulating your space (ceilings, walls, windows, doors) and savings you might achieve in terms of lighting (switching to CFL fixtures) and the like, chances are they won’t know enough about your specialized equipment — say, espresso machines — to tell you the whole story. You can augment what you learn on an audit report by using a portable or panel-installed power use monitor (think Kill-A-Watt and the like) to measure how much energy your specialized equipment consumes.

You’ll find your coffee house has any number of power-sucking commercial appliances. You’ll probably learn which of these costs you the most to operate in the course of your energy audit; you may not learn, however, which are the most efficient… or more importantly, which aren’t. Lacking any information to the contrary, here’s where you might want to start.

• Dishwashers. You probably know you can save energy and water by running your dishwasher only with a full load. (Of course you do!) You may not know that if you invest in an Energy Star rated commercial dishwasher you can see a pretty immediate return on your investment. An efficient dishwasher can save your coffee house up to 90 MBtus, (about $850 a year on your energy bill) and 52,000 gallons of water (probably another $200 a year).¹
• Refrigerators and freezers. Today’s Energy Star rated chill chests are as much as 35% more efficient² than the bog standard item of the last 10 years, due to advances in compressor and fan-motor efficiency and new anti-sweat technologies (’cause nobody likes a sweaty fridge.) Your new refrigerator can pay for itself in a little more than a year.
• Espresso machines and brewers. In a great many cases, you can insulate the boilers of your always-on equipment (much like you’ve insulated your shop’s hot water heater, right? Right?) Mind you, if you don’t know the internals of your brewers like the back of your hand, it’s probably best to have it done by your service-tech. A flaming espresso machine is decidedly not eco-friendly; we’re probably talking about kevlar, not simple fiberglass batting.
• Coffee roasters. Clean, clean, clean! A clean roaster is not only a safe roaster, it’s also far more efficient than one that’s choked up with years of coffee oils, a creosote-filled exhaust and clogged air vents. You may be surprised with the energy savings you realize.

So maybe it’s not in your budget to spring for new, high-efficiency appliances this year… there’s no reason you can’t make sure the appliances you have are operating at peak performance. Clean your fridge’s evaporators, condensers, and heat-exchange coils. Replace worn and leaky door seals. Better still, get a regular service regimen going so that all of your equipment is operating well throughout the year.

Increase sustainability.

Greening up entails more than just curbing your shop’s power demands. It’s also about breaking some bad habits, many of them having to do with things we simply throw away. After decades of disposable everything, we’ve become conspicuous consumers of our limited natural resources. And it’s got to stop.

• Enough with the plastic cold cups already. Bio-polymer alternatives biodegrade in commercial composting landfills inside a month; plastics are forever. Greenware cups from Fabri-Kal make petroleum-based plastic cold cups obsolete.
• Nix those unrecyclable paper hot cups. Look into compostable paper cups like the ecotainer from International Paper, lined with a corn-polymer resin that’s compostable and will degrade over time.
• Still double-cupping? Just stop, already. Please. Products like the Java Jacket are pretty much de rigeur and new biodegradable entrants like the ecoSleeve appear to work just as well for cold cups, too.
• Want to take a really big step? Consider getting rid of disposables altogether!
• Recycle! How many gallons of milk does your coffee house consumer every day, and how many plastic jugs do you empty as a result? If you’re not recycling, that adds up to a heaping pile of forever in a landfill. Recycle your consumables. More, make it easy — like, really easy — for your customers to do the same.
• Use green cleaning products. Green cleaning agents are safer for your employees to use, and they typically don’t contain any VOCs (volatile organic compounds).³ Check with the Green Restaurant Association for a list of endorsed products.
• Buy food locally. When you purchase locally grown foodstuffs, suddenly all of your customers are localvores. More to the point, locally produced milk, fruits and vegetables are fresher, taste better, and your dollars support your own community (rather than some faceless transnational food cartel.)

Make it easier for your customers to go green, too.

People are waking up — finally! — to the stark realities of global climate change. And increasingly, folks the world over want to do something about it. People are setting back their thermostats, choosing cars with better gas mileage, replacing their light bulbs — all the while looking for opportunities to do more. You can help.

• Offer organics. By all means, start by offering a selection of great organic coffees. More, make an organic coffee your house blend; your standard espresso. But don’t stop there! Look for local, organic milk and dairy suppliers, bakers and folks who farm great produce. Make organic an every day thing.
• Switch to recycled paper products. From paper towels to napkins to bath tissue, recycled paper products — no longer limited to options of “brown” and “rough” — are an increasingly compelling alternative to virgin fiber sources.
• You know and I know that folks just love those cute little bottles of water. More, we both know those little plastic bottles are just plain stupid, ecologically. So do something about it. Offer ice-cold, filtered water to refill your customer’s reusable bottles, to start.
• Encourage customers to use their own mugs. Whether you want to host a wall of customer cups for your regulars, or offer a discount for folks who drop in with their travel tumbler in-hand, get behind your customers’ efforts to green up their own lives.
• Educate your customers. Going green isn’t one of those private, hair-shirt-wearing sort of things… it’s something that you want to make some noise about. Let your customers know that you’re going green. And how. And why. By demonstrating your commitment to the environment, and by making it easy for your customers to make good choices in your place of business, you help them make greener, more sustainable choices everywhere.

Final thoughts… and an invitation.

Greening up your coffee house can save you money (in the long run, certainly, even if it may have some up-front costs). And going green can improve the morale of your staff even as it boosts the loyalty of your customers — all of them. Greening up means a safer, healthier place of business, and will ultimately lead to a safer, healthier environment. Most of all, going green is simply the right thing to do.

While I’ve thrown a lot of ideas into this article, it’s really just a start. I welcome your feedback, your ideas, and your stories about how you’re greening up your coffee house… the challenges you face, and how you overcame them. We’re in this together, after all.

I’m not the only one talking about the intersection of coffee houses and sustainability these days. See also:

• Matt Milletto’s Going Green in Your Coffee House, part 1 and part 2.
• Stewart Fritchman’s Sustainable Coffeehouse video

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Notes and Links

1. Source: Energystar.gov commercial dishwasher savings guide. ↩
2. Source: Energystar.gov commercial solid door refrigerator / freezer savings guide. ↩
3. See Treehugger.com for more on volatile organic compounds. ↩

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Posted on April 3, 2008 - by deCadmus

Coffee & Health: More Benefits, Still

Daily Coffee May Protect the Brain. New research suggests coffee may cut the risk of dementia by blocking the damage cholesterol can inflict on the body. Coffee had already been linked to a lower risk of Alzheimer’s Disease, and –according to the BBC– a study by a US team for the Journal of Neuroinflammation may explain why.

“Caffeine appears to block several of the disruptive effects of cholesterol that make the blood-brain barrier leaky,” said Dr Jonathan Geiger, who led the study.

“High levels of cholesterol are a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, perhaps by compromising the protective nature of the blood brain barrier.

“Caffeine is a safe and readily available drug and its ability to stabilise the blood brain barrier means it could have an important part to play in therapies against neurological disorders.”

And while we’re at it:

• Caffeine may help protect memory in women
• Coffee is tied to a lower risk of Parkinson’s
• Coffee is linked to a lower risk of Diabetes
• Coffee drinking is related to a lower risk of Liver Cancer.

Drink up!

Posted on July 31, 2007 - by deCadmus

Coffee Notes from All Over

• Just the same, don’t forget the sunscreen. Researchers have found that caffeine boosts resistance against UV radiation, and skin cancers.
  

  The relationship between caffeine and cancer cells is under close scrutiny following evidence that it can increase a process called “apoptosis”, in which the body gets rid of damaged or even cancerous cells by killing them off.

  To really boost the cancer-resisting effect? Add exercise into the mix.

• Talk softly, and carry a hot cuppa joe. Psychologists at Yale altered people’s judgments of a stranger by handing them a cup of coffee:
  

  The study participants, college students, had no idea that their social instincts were being deliberately manipulated. On the way to the laboratory, they had bumped into a laboratory assistant, who was holding textbooks, a clipboard, papers and a cup of hot or iced coffee — and asked for a hand with the cup.

  That was all it took: The students who held a cup of iced coffee rated a hypothetical person they later read about as being much colder, less social and more selfish than did their fellow students, who had momentarily held a cup of hot java.

• Let the battle begin! The World Barista Championship is underway in Tokyo, Japan. Forty-nine countries are represented this year, each by its own national champion. And this round of the WBC introduces a tasty new twist — for the first time ever spectators are able to sample some of the barista’s work. (What a concept!)

  While you can’t taste from here, you can watch the entire event. It’s not real-time, but that’s just fine… I understand they’re all night-owls on the other side of the planet.

Posted on July 18, 2007 - by deCadmus

Coffee Notes from All Over

• Where’s the next battleground for coffee supremacy? Place your bets on India…
  

  Today, there are about 750 cafés across India, two-thirds of which are owned and operated by Café Coffee Day, a company that plans to have 1,400 cafés across India in five years’ time, as well as 10 in Pakistan and 10 in Austria.

  “I expect this market to grow 40 per cent annually for the next three years,” says Jagdeep Kapoor, director of Samsika Marketing Consultancies. “That is going to be huge.”

  Of course, Starbucks is looking to enter the fray, and is reported to be scoping out New Delhi and Mumbai.

• I started drinking coffee regularly when I was 14, though it would be several years on that I discovered good coffee (and I haven’t looked back.) While we know that coffee doesn’t really stunt your growth (it certainly had no effect on mine,) is there such a thing as being too young to drink coffee?
  

  Like many people, Nicole Rivera uses coffee to survive a long day of hard work.

  One cup in the morning, and sometimes a second at lunch for a little pick-me-up. Another cup in the afternoon to avoid a late-day slump. A final mug around 7 p.m. to help her finish the work she’s brought home.

  “Without coffee, I’m dead to the world,” she says.

  Rivera may sound like a veteran of the corporate world, but she just finished ninth grade.

• It’s a Jewish thing… Here’s one I haven’t heard before… kaffei hafukh, or “upside-down coffee.”

Posted on May 8, 2007 - by deCadmus

She don’t lie, she don’t lie…

CNN reports that a Las Vegas based beverage company is pulling it’s energy drink — named “Cocaine” — from store shelves nationwide. Seems they’ve run into something of an image problem with its label. Redux Beverages company spokesperson Clegg Ivey says they plan to sell the drink under a new name for now –

“Of course, we intended for Cocaine energy drink to be a legal alternative the same way that celibacy is an alternative to premarital sex,” Ivey said. “It’s not the same thing and no one thinks it is. Our product doesn’t have any cocaine in it. No one thinks that it does. We think it is most likely legal in the United States to ship our product.”

Presumably the company’s planned launch of “Crystal Meth” pop-rock candy and “Exstacy” jelly beans are unaffected by this setback.

Sheesh.

Posted on April 22, 2007 - by deCadmus

Green Up Your Coffee Cup

It’s Earth Day…
In the face of the now very real threat of global climate change, this year’s recognition of Earth Day carries with it a certain sense of urgency. It’s time to change some habits. Permanently. The good news? Greening up your coffee cup doesn’t mean sacrificing the quality of your coffee! Here’s some tips to get you started…

• Enough of the paper filters, already. If you enjoy your coffee in a press pot, good on you, you’re already there. But if you’re making a drip cup, consider some alternatives to your paper coffee filters. The gold standard of reusable drip filters are made by SwissGold, and they have a product line that covers most every filter basket style — from Mr. Coffee to Bunn to Melitta-styled cone filters — used in auto-drip machines today.
• Enough of the bottled water, too. I’ve written quite a lot about the importance of good water for good coffee. So by all means, use great water, but make it great yourself. Start with water from your own tap and filter it with any number of great filtration products (I like Brita, and PUR.) You’ll save oodles of money, and save oodles of carbon emissions from all the shipping that bottled water requires.
• Heat your water on-demand. Long-time readers will know that I’ve proclaimed my love for Bunn coffee makers in the past… but I have to tell you, that relationship is over. Home coffee makers that keep water hot 24 hours are energy hogs, pure and simple. Instead, use a water kettle to boil up only exactly as much water as you need. Chances are it’ll take no more time than your Bunn ever did.
• Take your mug on the road. If you’re heading to your local coffee house, take your mug with you! There’s thermal travel mugs and tumblers of every sort to make sure you don’t spill a drop on your commute, and chances are your coffee shop will thank you! (One of a coffee shop’s biggest costs is paper, and the lion’s share of that is paper cups.)
• Choose Fair Trade Certified™ and Organic coffee. Yes, you really can make a difference by choosing coffee with eco-friendly bona fides. And you have been! Sales of Fair Trade coffee rose ten-fold between 2000 and 2005, and Fair Trade and Organic coffee sales are right now seeing accelerating double-digit growth. Keep it up! These coffees are ecologically sound, sustainable, and make for safer, healthier coffee-growing communities.

Visit TreeHugger.com for still more ideas to green up your cup.

Posted on March 28, 2007 - by deCadmus

Coffee, Caffeine, Nutrition and Health, Redux

A couple years ago I’d had it up to here with the constant stream of pseudo-scientific disinformation coming out of the camp of one or another self-proclaimed “nutritionist” who had clearly made it a cause célèbre to give coffee a bad rap. And so I researched and wrote a fairly exhaustive (hey, it exhausted *me* at the time) article — The Facts: Coffee, Caffeine, Nutrition and Health.

Two years on (more…)

Posted on May 20, 2005 - by deCadmus

The Facts: Coffee, Caffeine, Nutrition and Health

Even before its introduction to the West (and its subsequent baptism by then-pontiff Pope Clement VIII) coffee has been the subject of every kind of vitriol and indignity on grounds religious, social, political and medical. It’s unfair, really… but to be expected; coffee has proved time and again to be an effective, if unlikely and altogether unwitting agent of change.

Still today there remain those with an axe to grind with coffee — more frequently with its chief agent provocateur, caffeine — and who take no small delight in sewing seeds of fear, uncertainty and doubt where the health aspects of coffee are concerned. These reports typically offer no sources at all, or perhaps small-scale studies that have been dated for 40 years.

Let’s see if we can’t shed some light on the subject… using multiple, credible and authoritative sources, and send coffee’s naysayers scuttling back under their rocks.
(more…)