Licking the Razor's Edge (2015)

MYTH #05 – Caffeine (specifically coffee) is NOT harmless to society.
Actually, coffee is the largest agricultural commodity in the world. More coffee is grown
and traded than wheat, or rice, or corn, or livestock, or fruit, or vegetables. But what
makes it so damaging to the global ecosystem is that coffee is also the most heavily
sprayed of all agricultural commodities. It is grown in regions where there are very few
regulations regarding pesticide use. As such, the environmental impact of coffee
production is tremendous. To meet current world demand for coffee, over 70 million
acres of tropical land is devoted to this product that has absolutely no nutritional value to
humans whatsoever.
CAFFEINE – The FACTS
Caffeine is considered the most commonly used psychoactive drug in the world. It is
estimated that approximately 80% of the world’s population consumes caffeine on a daily
basis. After ingesting caffeine, it is completely absorbed within 30 to 45 minutes and then
its effects diminish within about three hours. Interestingly enough, imbibing a mixture of
caffeine, milk fat and processed sugar has a psycho-physiological effect on the human
brain very similar to that of using cocaine. Of course, ingesting cocaine would be far
better for you … Let’s see why:
THE ADDICTION ITSELF …
As many coffee drinkers can attest, when you ingest high levels of caffeine, you may feel
your mood soar and then plummet, leaving you craving more caffeine to make it soar
again. Why is this so? After you ingest caffeine, it initiates an uncontrolled firing of
neurons in your brain, which then triggers your pituitary gland to produce and release
adrenalin into your system. While adrenalin can indeed give athletes a “winning burst of
energy”, it is also the source of our primal “fight or flight” response; the condition that
enabled our prehistoric ancestors to escape from predators. By activating your adrenal
glands, caffeine immerses you immediately into this state of highly elevated level of
stress – a level of stress that is essentially unnecessary in our everyday lives.
And after the adrenal “high” wears off, irritability, confusion and fatigue tend to surface,
in which case most caffeine addicts then reach for the next cup of coffee to “keep me
going”. And yet, like most other addictive substances, the more caffeine you ingest, the
more you then need to consume in the future to experience similar results.
“Caffeine forces your glands to secrete when they don’t have much left to give,
and they have to keep digging deeper and deeper, making you more and more
tired over time. And over the years, it takes more and more coffee to get the same
result.” ~ Dr. Ralph T. Nolan
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