Better Alternative to Coffee

Young Again.org

A Better Alternative to Coffee

- Roger Mason

It is not good practice to recommend a lesser evil in life. Coffee is such an insidious addiction however that it certainly is better to find a less harmful substitute that provides the same effects.

This column has stressed that coffee is a poison with many harmful effects and drinking coffee-even one cup a day- shortens our lives and lowers the quality of our lives with bad health in general. It is NOT just the caffeine in coffee at all, but the many other ingredients especially contained in the coffee oil. Drinking decaf gives you half of the deleterious effects and none of the energy so that is really an irrational choice. The worst kind of coffee you can drink is the kind that tastes the best- French press and the unfiltered frill flavor rich coffee because the oils are retained.

Coffee addiction is, in fact, a physical addiction with withdrawal symptoms when stopped no different from addiction to narcotics. The addiction is simply milder and the withdrawal symptoms more tolerable. Starbucks just opened a third store here, Dunkin Donuts has three shops, Port City Java is all over town, there are countless independent coffee shops and every fast food chain sells endless cups. Add every restaurant in town as well.

You cannot ask people to give this up as they enjoy it too much. Coffee really does provide energy at work, it makes you feel great for a few hours, it's cheap, it's everywhere, it tastes good and comes in different flavors, it's legal, everyone else is doing it, and it's The National Pastime along with alcohol. Of course the real way to have lots of energy and feel great all the time is to eat well, take good supplements, exercise, lose weight, don't have bad habits and just live a good lifestyle.

Coffee is not the only caffeine based drink for energy. (We will not discuss ephedra and ephedrine today as they are much stronger and only one molecule away from actual prescription amphetamine.) There are two other herbs that contain caffeine, that are just as enjoyable as coffee but only half as harmful. These are guarana and yerba mate. Both are traditional drinks in much of Central and South America.

The guarana is sold both as tablets, guarana tea bags or those overpriced "energy drinks" you see in every convenience store now. If you cough up $1.99 (the usual price) for an eight ounce can, be sure it says "guarana berry extract" in the ingredients or don't buy it. Pepsi will soon offer a carbonated guarana soft drink as they do in Brazil. See "http://www.guarana.com/" for more info.

The yerba mate is not sold in tablet or capsule form or in any energy drinks I've seen. You buy yerba mate as loose tea or in tea bags. It has a typical herbal tea taste. The makers of yerba mate teas will have you believe this is some kind of "native tonic" that is good for you with lots of vitamins, amino acids, antioxidants and other good things; that it is "nutritious and stimulating- a healthful alternative to coffee". The supposed benefits, including mental clarity (true), sustains energy levels (true), brightens mood (true), aids weight loss (nope), improves digestion (nope), boosts immune system (nope) and helps relieve allergies (nope). It is even called "the drink of the gods". Not quite. You can buy guarana tablets in health food stores or on the internet. You can get either tea in health food stores but rarely in chain groceries. Keep a box of tea at your desk as work so you can break the coffee habit. It seems that that these two teas are not as addictive and habituating at all. You will probably not feel the need to drink several cups a day, seven days a week like you do with coffee. Coffee drinkers seem to never take a break, but with these two herbal teas you probably won't find this at all. Please always remember that caffeine (methyl xanthine) is an alkaloid that is not good for us and I'm not promoting the use of it at all, but merely as a better alternative to coffee.