I guess I missed the news. Surely there’s been a spate of headlines about the discovery of a cure for cancer? For Autism? Alzheimer’s? For male pattern baldness? No? Then for goodness sake, why are researchers working to suss out whether pistachio nuts might provide a decaffeinated alternative to coffee? Indeed, having learned nothing from prior efforts to substitute roasted coffee with acorns, beetroot, chicory, malted barley, cottonseeds, dandelion root, figs, potato peels, and toast scrapings — no, I’m not making this up — researchers now claim that:
” …carefully roasted, the fruit of the Pistacia terebinthus tree, which is much smaller than normal pistachios, could offer all the flavour of coffee, with none of the kick – as well as being significantly cheaper.
“It might seem an unlikely boast, as the special type of pistachio nut is from a tree better known as having sap which is a source of turpentine.”
Turpentine, yum.
Let’s be clear: there are countless maladies in want of a cure. We have climate problems. Food source problems.1 Economic problems aplenty. And for cryin’ out loud, we’re desperately close to losing Terry Pratchett to Alzheimer’s — can we please try to focus on what’s important?
- That’s food — as in something that provides nourishment, not some fool substitute for product that’s just terrific already, thanks. [↩]
Not to mention that recent research has figured out that coffee contains soluble fiber. This would explain its ability to prevent alzheimer. I totally agree with you, let’s see how we can make coffee better, not how we can replace it…