Featured, Food, Health Unwrapped - 3rd September 2021

Is Coffee Bad For You? | Health Unwrapped

I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to do this one. When I first decided to do this Health Unwrapped series, coffee was one of the first things I thought of when I was drafting my first list of foods to feature. So here it is, finally my ingredient of the month, in September. Is coffee bad for you? Good for you maybe? I don’t know about you, but I’ve read all sorts of negatives and positives about coffee consumption, so we’ll see where the conflict comes from.

Want to check out a coffee recipe in the meantime, take a look at my mocha smoothie bowl recipe.

Mocha Smoothie Bowl Recipe

A thick and creamy mocha smoothie bowl recipe, creamy chocolate, like dessert for breakfast, with a little caffeine boost to get you going first thing on a morning.

Check out this recipe

mocha smoothie bowl recipe in a bowl topped with granola and chocolate chips

What is coffee?

This sounds dumb, but for the sake of what we’re talking about today, it’s quite important. Because some of the negatives that come along with coffee consumption for a lot of people aren’t anything to do with the coffee at all.

Coffee is a plant (Coffea) and the name of the drink that is made from this plant. The drink is made from the seeds of the coffee plant, called coffee beans.

As I’m sure we’re all aware, regular coffee contains caffeine, which can be a problem for some people. And some of the other negatives I was referring to? Fat and sugar. A simple cup of black coffee is very basic in terms of nutrition. It contains about 2 calories, zero fat and zero sugar. A 7 pump this, extra whip that? Well, that’s a different story.

Reported Negatives About Coffee

Can be bad for anxiety
Stimulant
Too much caffeine can cause insomnia, nervousness and restlessness, stomach irritation, nausea, increased heart rate and respiration, and other side effects. Larger doses might cause headache, anxiety, agitation, and chest pain.
Liquid calories – I don’t mean that all liquid calories are bad, a soup or smoothie can be extremely nutrient dense. But people often don’t consider their drinks when tracking meals, especially a coffee grabbed on the go. But a large vanilla soy latte from Starbucks contains nearly 300 calories, 11g of fat and 37g of sugar. For reference, a can of Coca Cola (UK) contains 35g of sugar.
Not great for pregnant/ lactating women.

Reported Positives About Coffee

The taste. Okay, this one isn’t health related, but it deserves a mention.
Natural stimulant
Coffee isn’t just caffeine, it contains lots of antioxidants called polyphenols, and they’re likely to confer various health benefits.

Moderate coffee consumption can be linked to a lower likelihood of:

Type 2 diabetes
Heart disease
Liver disease
Parkinsons
Now that all sounds pretty good.

mug of coffee on a grey tray with a coffee card

What the science says

It can be conflicting. Older studies tend to show coffee consumption in a negative light. However, closer inspection of those studies also showed a higher correlation between people who drank large amounts of coffee and smoking. Now, we all know there’s a long list of negatives linked to the latter, so the data was seen as less reliable as it can’t directly correlate the coffee to the negatives that are also closely related to smoking.

The more recent studies tend to see coffee as a positive, as long as it’s consumed moderately. As you’ll see from the list of negatives above, most of them are related to too much caffeine rather than the coffee itself. And some of the positives, like the reduced risk of heart disease, are related to the antioxidants in the coffee, meaning you get the positives from decaf too.

You’ll notice I included stimulants in both lists. A cup of coffee as a natural stimulant after a rough night’s sleep is a good thing if you compare it to other artificial means of keeping you awake and alert. However, relying on it as a stimulant regularly and using it as a means to neglect a healthy sleep pattern is obviously detrimental.

How Much Caffeine Is Too Much?

You could be surprised by this. A moderate (healthy) amount of coffee consumption is classed as 2-5 cups a day. Too much caffeine is classed as more than 400mg a day. Now, obviously, 2-5 cups means nothing because we all drink our coffee at a different strength, but one shot of espresso contains an average of 63mg of caffeine.