The Caffeine Conspiracy

reply to post by Jezus


I agree "drugs" is a purely social construct.


Take a "zen" look at what is actually happening when you ingest anything.

Go ahead, think about it.

All you are doing is taking in molecules. Some your body was "designed" to work with to support your life, some not so much, even in the same piece of "food" or "drug." Many foods have chemical additives that are harmful "drugs." Many "drugs" are also edible food (ie marijuana plants and seeds -- edible and nutritious).

So the line drawn is clearly an arbitrary one and the exact scientific definition either bears this truth to light (ie any substance that enters your body and alters your bio-chemistry -- which is the WHO definition and necessarily includes foods), or else in itself is arbitrary and changes depending on context.

Originally posted by Jezus
My personal opinion is that the biggest conspiracy in the world is convincing people that food and drugs are different.

The FDA says the definition of a Drug is Any substance you put into the body that changes the body in any way. This includes food.

I learned this years ago while studying nutrition.

About Coffee. it is funny for many years I could drink hot coffee in the summertime while outside doing things like roofing. It didn't bother me at all. I used to drink strong espresso by the pot fulls. Now I'm in my 40's and if I have a large cup of strong coffee I get jitters that I don't like. And that's regular coffee.. I can't drink espresso anymore.

I will never stop drinking the stuff though. I Love it!

Tea also. I make an awesome Chocolate Tea at home. YUMMY! If you buy Chocolate Tea in the store it is a gourmet product that's very expensive. I take a cup of hot water and steep 2 teabags then add a few teaspoons of Ovaltine then add pepperment. I use what I have on hand, peppermint extract, or Altoids or cushed peppermint hard candies.

But Hey, if you never tried Chocolate Tea try and make some. Most people have never even heard o it. You can substitute any chocolate for the Obaltine too.

As good a place as any to plug this book... Caffeine Blues... very interesting information. Almost convinced me to quit drinking coffee (did for about a day) but then went back to it... haha. Good read though, great info. on the psychological and physical responses to caffeine.

Amazon.com Review Get ready to give up that morning latte and kiss cola goodbye. Here comes Caffeine Blues, by Stephen Cherniske, M.S., the first book to expose the dark side of America's No. 1 drug: caffeine. If you are one of the nearly 80 percent of Americans hooked on caffeine--a natural component of coffee, tea, and chocolate and a common ingredient in drugs, soda, candy, and other products--this book will be a wake-up call. In Caffeine Blues, Cherniske, a nutritional biochemist with more than 25 years of academic research and clinical experience and author of the bestseller The DHEA Breakthrough, reveals the truth about caffeine and explains how to kick the habit forever. Cherniske discusses how caffeine affects the body and brain and why it can increase your risk of dozens of health disorders ranging from osteoporosis, diabetes, and PMS to hypertension and heartburn. After spending 300 pages documenting all of caffeine's evils, Cherniske finally offers a decaffeinated life line: "Off the Bean and on to Vitality," a step-by-step, clinically proven program to help readers kick the habit and boost energy levels naturally. --Ellen Albertson

From Library Journal Nutritional biochemist Cherniske claims that people who consume more than 300 milligrams of caffeine per day are victims of caffeinism: a state of chronic toxicity resulting from excess caffeine consumption and a major contributing factor to heart disease, hypertension, stomach ailments, diabetes, and sleep disorders. Cherniske also warns that most coffee beans are contaminated by pesticides, which harm not only drinkers but also exposed agricultural workers. For conservationists, he highlights the effects of the pesticides on the land and water surrounding the plantations as well as the destruction of the rain forest to make room for coffee plantations. The presence of caffeine in over-the-counter medicines, candy, and soft drinks is stressed, especially in the addiction of children. Cherniske also suggests alternatives to caffeine and ways of quitting the habit. While his book is thought-provoking, its rhetoric is somewhat extreme. Not a necessary purchase.?Janet M. Schneider, James A. Haley Veterans Hosp., Tampa, FL Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

amazon link

Originally posted by LadySkadi

Here comes Caffeine Blues, by Stephen Cherniske, M.S., the first book to expose the dark side of America's No. 1 drug: caffeine. If you are one of the nearly 80 percent of Americans hooked on caffeine--a natural component of coffee, tea, and chocolate and a common ingredient in drugs, soda, candy, and other products--this book will be a wake-up call.

Nah, caffeine is not our #1 drug, I can do you one better.


Sugar.


What caffeine drink can you think of that doesn't have sugar also? There is sugar in everything.

Sugar is also addictive! You will actually start craving sugar, start craving something sweet to eat or drink, if you intentionally stop consuming it.

Excessive sugar consumption also leads to a number of health complications. Off the top of my head it increases your risks of colon cancer, destroys your teeth and bone density, and of course diabetes.


I tried to stop consuming sugar from any source one time. It didn't go over too well. Not only because it's nearly impossible to completely avoid it (including high fructose corn syrup and all other sweeteners), but you will start to craaave something sweet. Just the thought of it becomes so enticing...

reply to post by bsbray11


Entirely agree. Sugar is much more of an addictive drug than caffeine. It is possible to rid your diet of excess sugars. I don't take in any HFCS. Ever. The only sugars I get are from carbohydrates. Works very well for me.

reply to post by bsbray11


Yep.. Sugar is a Killer. There are links to refined white sugar use and the rise of cancers and other diseases that didn't occur before the modern sugar industry.

But, Natural Sugars do not have these effect like the glucose and fructose found in fruits and veggies. They don't cause harm to cells or brain, they don't get stored as fat and are broken down properly by the body for elimination.

Just found this article from the Mercola newsletter and it reminded me of this thread:

The Links Between Sugar and Mental Health

Noted British psychiatric researcher Malcolm Peet conducted a provocative cross-cultural analysis of the relationship between diet and mental illness. His primary finding was a strong link between high sugar consumption and the risk of both depression and schizophrenia.

There are at least two potential mechanisms through which refined sugar intake could exert a toxic effect on mental health. First, sugar actually suppresses activity of a key growth hormone in the brain called BDNF. BDNF levels are critically low in both depression and schizophrenia.

Second, sugar consumption triggers a cascade of chemical reactions in your body that promote chronic inflammation. In the long term, inflammation disrupts the normal functioning of your immune system, and wreaks havoc on your brain. Once again, it’s linked to a greater risk of depression and schizophrenia.

I have asick addiciton to coffee, have since i was 12, 34 now. Been drinking prb a good pot and a half everyday!! Ive had my moments, waking up late morning, slow grumping to kitchen. arms are useless and msucels hurt, im semi unaware of whats going on around me, dying to get that cup of coffee in me. make it, and instanly bam! im alert awake relaxed. for me, usualy in about 20 minutes it makes me have a bowl movement.
I'' drink at home, and since im a night owl, im used to drinking it before bed, and usualy sleep like a baby, but have had my nights, where i could not sleep at all, feeling a igraine coming on. coffee does this to me. NOT easy to kick the habbitt, andit feels SO good

Well, I'll be. I just quit drinking coffee every morning just a few days ago.

I'm only 19, and have only been drinking it since about a year ago. I noticed a little while ago (as I have ingested copious amounts of ... alternative substances) that I feel like I'm addicted, and I know what that feels like trust me. When I got up in the morning I didn't feel like I could start the day until I had a big cup of black coffee. The rush. I could literally feel my stomach pumping endorphins and then I had to take a massive dump, as the above poster said, about 20 minutes after.

Now I have stopped drinking it for a few days. I feel fine and normal. I've replaced drinking coffee with green tea (contains no caffeine). Much healthier and tastier too!

BTW: for the record, I quit drinking coffee along with smoking cigarettes.

I'm having a harder time with the cigarettes.

Coffee and caffeine usage are anecdotal for most. Some respond terribly to it, others wonderfully.

No one should lecture on the Evils of something that exists in nature and is demonstrably tolerable for a few billion people.

Just adjust the strength, frequency, use of sweeteners and dairy products - even use it decaf.

A good drug overall - and catalytic to improved thought processes, asexual socializing, minor jogs to brain chemistry needed every few hours.

There is literature on how anything you can think of being harmful. Studies, graphs, charts.

Reading too many published studies on foods harmful to your health has been shown to be harmful to your health.

Alcohol's even better than coffee. Dangerous for some, you just have to learn what you personally can tolerate.

Never be afraid to alter your mood, state of mind, hormonal balances, blood chemistry. Your body is designed for it. Craves it. Needs it.

Going too far can be dangerous. Also true for love, religious beliefs, self-imposed inhibitions. The worst thing you can do to yourself is not test yourself and find out what works best.

They guy in the white lab coat with his tests and warnings about the dangers of what makes you feel good is not your friend. He makes a living out of you being miserable. Don't listen to him. Listen to your own body and your own mind.


M

reply to post by Jezus


Marijuana is not as easily taxed as coffee or tea. Indeed, the taxing of tea was a major reason the colonies rebelled against King George. Marijuana is a weed and can grow pretty anywhere with little effort. Not so for the coffee bean or tea leaf. Taxation is probably the biggest reason for the prohibition of marijuana. The next most likely reason is that marijuana as a black market product is easy to detect as it comes with a pungent smell and its bulk is much larger than something like coc aine or heroin. For those who are enforcing this drug war, marijuana is an easy scapegoat that allows those enforcers an opportunity to produce needed arrests and convictions to show they are winning.

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
reply to ]post by Jezus[/url]

The reasons MaryJane is illegal are multiple. One being it's a more Eastern comteplative state inducing substance which our society doesn't want because it comptomises productivity. Every culture has it's type of drugs. We like ones that make us wired, not chill out.

MJ was endemic to America from the very beginning. A good cash crop valued for it's fibre, heartiness, ability to grow anywhere. The psychotropic benefits of the flowering plant were a vestigial bonus. Us by medicos and popular with black musicians, bohemians, intellectual experimenters.

Ironically in the 30s when a new process was developed that could make quality paper out of hemp and timber industries freaked out. Newspaper chains had invested heavily in forests all over, in Canada and Mexico. So a major campaign was launched propagating the evils of the dangerous drug Thomas Jefferson had once grown on his plantation.

So a Prohibition on a fairly innocuous substance has been in effect for over 70 years. But it grows readily and is easily available - just pricier than it should be.

The US will finally break down and decriminalize it soon. Economics. Costs $90,000 a year to imprison a few hundred thousand people whose crime was ingesting smoke from a mood altering weed.