Good and Bad News for Coffee Drinkers

Let’s be honest with ourselves here.

While I may recommend most people cut back on caffeine, not all of you are going to do that.

My stance on coffee/caffeine is this. If you’re not addicted to it, then it’s not a big deal.

Consider the fact that there are studies indicating drinking several cups of coffee will actually increase the quality of your life.

Don’t believe me? Check out this article I wrote showing how “too much coffee” could actually be good for you. 

Apparently drinking generous amounts of coffee can benefit health.

Who knew?

So, that’s the good news about coffee.

The bad news about coffee I mentioned in the subject of this article?

There’s a chance some of the coffee you’re drinking may be infected with mold, and/or laden with tiny toxins made from fungi called mycotoxins.

It’s not what the average coffee drinker wants to hear, I know.

In a world where “everything is bad for you”, hearing your coffee may be making you sick isn’t fun.  

First things first, don’t get upset. There’s no reason to be mad about your coffee containing mold or mycotoxins because coffee roasters who care about such things won’t serve you a bag of coffee that’s gone bad.

However, I’d like to discuss how mold and mycotoxins may negatively affect your health.

   Mold In Coffee May Be Worse Than You Think

Mold isn’t the kind of thing you’d expect to affect a food (coffee comes from beans) that’s roasted at high temperatures.

Sadly, it is.

Studies on coffee support the claim many of the more popular brands of coffee contain mold. The journal Food Additives and Contaminants conducted research on 60 different brands of coffee in Brazil and showed that 92% of the brands had mold on them before they were roasted.

Now, you’d think roasting coffee would kill the mold.

It does.

However, the problem is before the roasting takes place the mold actually leaves behind mycotoxins.  Biologically speaking mycotoxins are mold “poop.”  Mycotoxins also come from fungi, as well.

And I don’t care who you are. If you cook a piece of chicken till it’s done and all the bacteria are killed… you wouldn’t eat it if you knew it was covered in poop before you put it in the oven, would you?

Of course not. 

Well, just because a company roasts coffee before they bag it and sell it, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the kind of coffee you want to be drinking.

Another study published by the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology discovered as many as 52% of brewed coffees could have mold and mycotoxin particulate in them. They also observed that same occurrence in 52% of green coffee beans (the unroasted bean).

The prevalence of mold and mycotoxins in coffee is concerning.

So too is what they can do to you. 

Dave Asprey, a well-known Silicon Valley biohacker and one of the original people to preach against mycotoxins created a brand of coffee called “Bulletproof Coffee.”

Asprey didn’t start roasting Bulletproof Coffee on a whim. In college he realized that though coffee provided him with a number of benefits, it seemed that drinking coffee also contributed to a number of his health problems.

So he gave up coffee entirely.

In doing that, many of the symptoms he’d been dealing with disappeared. That included joint pain, jitters, and brain fog.

He ended up going caffeine free for 5 years.

But, Asprey knew coffee was good for people, and he investigated how “bad” coffee could make you feel bad. That’s when he discovered the introduction of mold into beans and the mycotoxins they produced could affect your health.

He writes on his blog.

“The data on coffee consumption goes back and forth.  Some studies show health benefits, while others show negative outcomes.  This might seem confusing, but the reason is simple: bad coffee is bad for you, and scientists suck at differentiating types of coffee when they run studies on coffee.

Studies on coffee and health don’t control for processing methods or the source of the beans.  This means the coffee beans are almost always contaminated with mycotoxins.  Mycotoxins are damaging compounds created by molds which grow on coffee beans (among other things).  These compounds cause all sorts of health problems like cardiomyopathy, cancer, hypertension, kidney disease, and even brain damage.  They also make your coffee taste bitter, like it needs sugar.

Some types of coffee have more mycotoxins than others, which is why you see some studies showing a benefit to drinking coffee, and others showing negative health outcomes.  The problem isn’t coffee per se, it’s the mold on your coffee. It even can vary by individual batch, especially for large coffee producers. (like ones with big ugly green logos on every street corner).”

It’s hard to believe, but the evidence is there.

Now, Some More Good News about Coffee

Here’s the thing about drinking tainted coffee.

Avoiding bad coffee (as Asprey calls it) doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to get any healthier.

But drinking bad coffee could certainly make you sick.

If you put drops of motor oil in your coffee every day you’d expect to get sick after time, wouldn’t you?

So, if you’re a coffee drinker and you’d like to drink it and avoid potential problems with mycotoxins it would behoove you to drink coffee free from mycotoxins and molds.

That’s where coffee like Asprey’s brand of Bulletproof Coffee comes into play.

Asprey and his company created an extraordinary process to ensure Bulletproof Coffee does 2 things for you.

#1: Bulletproof coffee delivers a high-quality coffee that’s not been corrupted by microscopic freeloaders (and their poop). They do this by testing all batches of their coffee after they’ve had their team hand pick them from Rainforest Alliance approved farms. Which means it’s not only free and clear of mold and mycotoxins, it’s also ethical for you to drink.

#2: Just as important, their brand of coffee fills your favorite mug with an absolutely delicious cup of coffee. Which, if you’re a coffee snob, is obviously pretty darn important. The reviews for this product are through the roof when it comes to taste, value, and how it’s helping people who’ve switched from their old coffee to this one.

If you’re a coffee drinker that doesn’t want your coffee to make you sick...

And, you don’t want to kick the caffeine, then I recommend trying Bulletproof Coffee.

They have various flavors, roasting-styles, as well as ground and whole bean.

Click here to select which ones you’d like.