BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
Showing posts with label coffee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coffee. Show all posts
27 February 2023
16 May 2022
31 August 2021
13 October 2020
12 October 2020
03 July 2018
Coffee Drinkers Are More Likely!! 2JUL18
YES! YES! OH YES! OH HAPPY DAY! OH MY YES!!! I knew all my years of grinding my beans fresh every morning, the ice cold water and then chanting while it brewed with incense burning and the occasional bang on a gong or ringing of bells was going to pay off!!!!!!
Coffee Drinkers Are More Likely To Live Longer. Decaf May Do The Trick, Too
Coffee is far from a vice.
There's now lots of evidence pointing to its health benefits, including a possible longevity boost for those of us with a daily coffee habit.
The latest findings come from a study published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine that included about a half-million people in England, Scotland and Wales. Participants ranged in age from 38 to 73.
"We found that people who drank two to three cups per day had about a 12 percent lower risk of death compared to non-coffee drinkers" during the decade-long study, says Erikka Loftfield, a research fellow at the National Cancer Institute.
This was true among all coffee drinkers — even those who were determined to be slow metabolizers of caffeine. (These are people who tend to be more sensitive to the effects of caffeine.) And the association held up among drinkers of decaffeinated coffee, too.
In the U.S., there are similar findings linking higher consumption of coffee to a lower risk of early death in African-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Latinos and white adults, both men and women. A daily coffee habit is also linked to a decreased risk of stroke and Type 2 diabetes.
What is it about coffee that may be protective? It's not likely to be the caffeine. While studies don't prove that coffee extends life, several studies have suggested a longevity boost among drinkers of decaf as well as regular coffee.
So, researchers have turned their attention to the bean.
"The coffee bean itself is loaded with many different nutrients and phyto-chemicals," nutrition researcher Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health told us in 2015. These compounds include lignans, quinides and magnesium, some of which may help reduce insulin resistance and inflammation. "My guess is that they're working together to have some of these benefits," Willett said. (He's the author of a study that points to a 15 percent lower risk of early death among men and women who drink coffee, compared with those who do not consume it.)
"Coffee, with its thousand chemicals, includes a number of polyphenol-like, antioxidant-rich compounds," says Christopher Gardner, who directs nutrition studies at the Stanford Prevention Research Center. He says there's so much evidence supporting the idea that coffee can be a healthy part of your diet, it's now included in the U.S. Dietary Guidelines. In 2015, the experts behind the guidelines concluded that a daily coffee habit may help protect against Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Gardner says part of the benefit of coffee may be linked to something profoundly simple: It brings people joy.
"Think about when you're drinking coffee — aren't you stopping and relaxing a little bit?" Gardner asks.
He says it's such a simple pleasure. "I just love holding that hot beverage in my hand. It's the morning ritual," he says. He drinks at least three cups a day.
So, how did coffee achieve such an image makeover? It wasn't too long ago that coffee was considered a vice.
Gardner says the bad rap goes back to a time when people who drank coffee were also very likely to smoke cigarettes.
So, when earlier epidemiological studies suggested that coffee consumption was associated with health risks, researchers were thrown off. It wasn't until they separated these two habit apart that a completely different picture emerged.
"Smoking was the cause of the association," Gardner says. "Ever since they disentangled smoking, coffee wasn't just null, it was [shown to be] beneficial."
So, when earlier epidemiological studies suggested that coffee consumption was associated with health risks, researchers were thrown off. It wasn't until they separated these two habit apart that a completely different picture emerged.
"Smoking was the cause of the association," Gardner says. "Ever since they disentangled smoking, coffee wasn't just null, it was [shown to be] beneficial."
Bear. Hot Tub. Margarita & DAILY NEWS FROM NRP 3JUL13
There have been bears visiting a few times this year at my mom's house in Scandia, PA. Very cool no matter where you see them as long as it is not a surprise for them and you know how to act and react around them. Followed by the rest of the stories in the NPR daily news letter for 3 JUL 18.
Bear. Hot Tub. Margarita
You may be just a few hours away from the Fourth of July holiday. Now, may we present to you a video of a bear that is truly channeling the spirit of a mellow summer BBQ.
This encounter happened on Friday afternoon, just as Mark Hough of Altadena, Calif., was settling into a relaxing margarita. Suddenly, a bear appeared in his backyard.
It could have been a terrifying event — until Hough noticed the bear had lowered itself into his hot tub and was having a "grand old time," he told The Associated Press. He started filming.
Video of a bear lounging in a California hot tub only tells part of the story. Read more of the margarita-lapping bear's antics here: apne.ws/rXRAhG2
The bear splashes around in the sunshine and appears to dunk its face in a jet, plays with the chlorinator and munches on flowers.
After that, Hough tells the AP, the ursine bather "popped out of the bushes, walked right over to the margarita, knocked it over and lapped it."
The bear was spotted a short time later in a tree, perhaps sleeping it off. "So he had his margarita, he had his Jacuzzi, and now he's ready for an hour nap," Hough said.
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19 November 2017
15 April 2017
19 November 2016
17 October 2016
27 March 2014
Your Coffee Pods' Dirty Secret 19MAR14
I love my coffee. My drip brewer is set up as a little shrine, and every morning after I grind my +Mayorga Coffee beans for a fresh pot I burn a little incense, chant and ring a small string of bells during the brewing process!
NOT REALLY!, But I do love my coffee. I have never been impressed with coffee brewed from any of those pod things, and have no intention of ever owning one. When I had to buy a new coffee machine a couple of years ago I found a +Hamilton Beach system that will brew a pot and offers the option on the side to brew a single cup, no pod required. Pot or single cup, it uses wire mesh filters for the coffee. I am very happy with my coffee system, it brews a great pot or single cup of coffee without the waste of paper filters or pods. This from Mother Jones.....
Coffee brewing is in the midst of a revolution, and I'm not talking about the AeroPress. It comes in the form of a small 2-by-2-inch single-serving pod that requires a special machine.
Keurig, owned by Vermont-based Green Mountain Coffee, makes the most
popular pods, called "K-Cups." At the press of a button, the Keurig
brewer punctures a small hole into the aluminum lid of an individual
plastic cup filled with grounds, flushes it with steaming water, and,
voilà! Out comes one hot cup of joe.
When Keurig launched its specialized brewing system in 1998, it might have come off as a bit niche. Not anymore. According to a survey by the National Coffee Association, nearly 1 in 5 adults drank single-cup-brewed coffee yesterday, making it the second most popular way to brew after the traditional drip methods—and far more popular than espresso machines.
What Keurig customers love, proclaims Green Mountain's 2013 annual report, is the system's "Quality, Convenience, and Choice"—and let's be real, it's convenience that trumps for most busy Americans. Keurig systems take under a minute to brew coffee, and cleaning them is laughably easy: Just chuck the used coffee pod in the trash, then press a button, and a "cleansing brew" shoots hot water through the system to clear it of residue.
But critics warn that the packaging needed for these systems comes with environmental and health-related costs. By making each pod so individualized, and so easy to dispose of, you must also exponentially increase the packaging—packaging that ultimately ends up in landfills. (And that's to say nothing of the plastic and metal brewing systems, which if broken, aren't that easy to recycle either.)
Journalist Murray Carpenter estimates in his new book, Caffeinated, that a row of all the K-Cups produced in 2011 would circle the globe more than six times. To update that analogy: In 2013, Green Mountain produced 8.3 billion K-Cups, enough to wrap around the equator 10.5 times. If Green Mountain aims to have "a Keurig System on every counter," as the company states in its latest annual report, that's a hell of a lot of little cups.
Green Mountain only makes 5 percent of its current cups out of
recyclable plastic. The rest of them are made up of a #7 composite
plastic, which is nonrecyclable in most places. And for the small few
that are recyclable, the aluminum lid must be separated from the cup,
which also must be emptied of its wet grounds, for the materials to make
it through the recycling process. Even then, chances are the pod won't
be recycled because it's too small, says Darby Hoover, senior resource
specialist at the National Resources Defense Council.
Keurig just released a sustainability report announcing that the company plans to make all coffee pods recyclable by 2020, among other ecofriendly efforts. The company says it's evaluating the type of plastic used in the cups, exploring potential biodegradable and compostable packaging, and coming up with an easier way for customers to easily prepare them for recycling.
Some competitors already have recyclable or biodegradable versions of this single-serve pod; Nespresso's lid and pod is made entirely from aluminum. A Canadian brand, Canterbury Coffee, makes a version that it says is 92 percent biodegradable (everything save for the nylon filter can break down). Finding a substitute is an interesting challenge, says Keurig spokeswoman Sandy Yusen, because coffee is perishable, and so the material used must prevent light, oxygen, and moisture from degrading the coffee.
Another reason to look beyond plastic is a concern with what could leach out of the material when heated. Yusen confirmed that the #7 plastic used in K-Cups is BPA-free, safe, and "meets or exceeds applicable FDA standards." But new evidence suggests that even non-BPA plastics can test positive for estrogenic activity. (Our "Frightening Field Guide to Common Plastics" contains more information about this.)
"No. 7 plastic means 'other,'" says the NRDC's Hoover. "You don't know what it is." One concern with this plastic mix is the presence of polystyrene, containing the chemical styrene, which Hoover warns is especially worrisome for workers. A possible carcinogen, styrene can wreak havoc on the nervous systems of those handling it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The chemical also shows up in tobacco smoke and home copy machines, and in the Styrofoam used in food containers.
Keurig does make a plastic and mesh reusable coffee filter. But why use a filter that necessitates cleaning—and also requires a fancy-schmancy brewing system—over the traditional method? As Hoover points out, "you're essentially giving up the convenience of the little teeny tiny cup."
It's not just convenience that's sacrificed. By my calculations, a K-Cup-worth of coffee will run up your tab way more than grounds and a filter (not including the cost of the brewer); a standard pod of Green Mountain coffee costs 68 cents, while one cup of the company's Vermont Blend brewed the traditional way costs about 44 cents, filter included. The New York Times did a more comprehensive analysis of the actual price of single-brew coffee, and determined that it ends up costing more than $50 a pound, even for standard brands like Folgers, compared to the less than $20 you can expect to pay for a bag of roasted beans. Call me a cheapskate, but I'll stick to freshly ground coffee that doesn't require a bulky brewer and billions of plastic pods to be delicious.
NOT REALLY!, But I do love my coffee. I have never been impressed with coffee brewed from any of those pod things, and have no intention of ever owning one. When I had to buy a new coffee machine a couple of years ago I found a +Hamilton Beach system that will brew a pot and offers the option on the side to brew a single cup, no pod required. Pot or single cup, it uses wire mesh filters for the coffee. I am very happy with my coffee system, it brews a great pot or single cup of coffee without the waste of paper filters or pods. This from Mother Jones.....
| Wed Mar. 19, 2014 3:00 AM PDT
When Keurig launched its specialized brewing system in 1998, it might have come off as a bit niche. Not anymore. According to a survey by the National Coffee Association, nearly 1 in 5 adults drank single-cup-brewed coffee yesterday, making it the second most popular way to brew after the traditional drip methods—and far more popular than espresso machines.
Keurig would not tell me what types of plastic go into its #7 blend, saying the information was proprietary.
The single-serve method has experienced impressive growth: According to the Seattle Times,
while US consumers bought $132 million worth of coffee pods in 2008,
they forked over $3.1 billion for them last year, compared to $6 billion
for roasted coffee and $2.5 billion in instant coffee. Keurig also has
similar brewing systems and pods for tea and iced beverages, and will
roll out a system for Campbell's soup later this year.What Keurig customers love, proclaims Green Mountain's 2013 annual report, is the system's "Quality, Convenience, and Choice"—and let's be real, it's convenience that trumps for most busy Americans. Keurig systems take under a minute to brew coffee, and cleaning them is laughably easy: Just chuck the used coffee pod in the trash, then press a button, and a "cleansing brew" shoots hot water through the system to clear it of residue.
But critics warn that the packaging needed for these systems comes with environmental and health-related costs. By making each pod so individualized, and so easy to dispose of, you must also exponentially increase the packaging—packaging that ultimately ends up in landfills. (And that's to say nothing of the plastic and metal brewing systems, which if broken, aren't that easy to recycle either.)
Journalist Murray Carpenter estimates in his new book, Caffeinated, that a row of all the K-Cups produced in 2011 would circle the globe more than six times. To update that analogy: In 2013, Green Mountain produced 8.3 billion K-Cups, enough to wrap around the equator 10.5 times. If Green Mountain aims to have "a Keurig System on every counter," as the company states in its latest annual report, that's a hell of a lot of little cups.
Keurig just released a sustainability report announcing that the company plans to make all coffee pods recyclable by 2020, among other ecofriendly efforts. The company says it's evaluating the type of plastic used in the cups, exploring potential biodegradable and compostable packaging, and coming up with an easier way for customers to easily prepare them for recycling.
Some competitors already have recyclable or biodegradable versions of this single-serve pod; Nespresso's lid and pod is made entirely from aluminum. A Canadian brand, Canterbury Coffee, makes a version that it says is 92 percent biodegradable (everything save for the nylon filter can break down). Finding a substitute is an interesting challenge, says Keurig spokeswoman Sandy Yusen, because coffee is perishable, and so the material used must prevent light, oxygen, and moisture from degrading the coffee.
Another reason to look beyond plastic is a concern with what could leach out of the material when heated. Yusen confirmed that the #7 plastic used in K-Cups is BPA-free, safe, and "meets or exceeds applicable FDA standards." But new evidence suggests that even non-BPA plastics can test positive for estrogenic activity. (Our "Frightening Field Guide to Common Plastics" contains more information about this.)
"No. 7 plastic means 'other,'" says the NRDC's Hoover. "You don't know what it is." One concern with this plastic mix is the presence of polystyrene, containing the chemical styrene, which Hoover warns is especially worrisome for workers. A possible carcinogen, styrene can wreak havoc on the nervous systems of those handling it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The chemical also shows up in tobacco smoke and home copy machines, and in the Styrofoam used in food containers.
The New York Times determined that single-brew coffee ends up costing more than $50 a pound, even for Folgers.
Keurig would not tell me what types of plastic go into its #7 blend,
saying the information was proprietary, nor would it confirm or deny the
presence of polystyrene in the mix.Keurig does make a plastic and mesh reusable coffee filter. But why use a filter that necessitates cleaning—and also requires a fancy-schmancy brewing system—over the traditional method? As Hoover points out, "you're essentially giving up the convenience of the little teeny tiny cup."
It's not just convenience that's sacrificed. By my calculations, a K-Cup-worth of coffee will run up your tab way more than grounds and a filter (not including the cost of the brewer); a standard pod of Green Mountain coffee costs 68 cents, while one cup of the company's Vermont Blend brewed the traditional way costs about 44 cents, filter included. The New York Times did a more comprehensive analysis of the actual price of single-brew coffee, and determined that it ends up costing more than $50 a pound, even for standard brands like Folgers, compared to the less than $20 you can expect to pay for a bag of roasted beans. Call me a cheapskate, but I'll stick to freshly ground coffee that doesn't require a bulky brewer and billions of plastic pods to be delicious.
Coffee capsule designed by Stefan Brechbühl from The Noun Project.
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