Caffeine Blues_ Wake Up to the Hidden Dangers of America's #1 Drug ( PDFDrive )

by Неизвестный

  Natural food companies saw the opportunity to provide consumers with an organic version of their favorite addictive product, and they invested significant capital to develop the market. At the same time, natural food supermarkets were built with space aplenty and a broader mix of consumers than the original diehard health devotees. The face of the industry changed as the original visionaries sold out to conglomerates for whom profit superseded health principles. The proliferation of organic coffee bins in natural food stores took off, and before you knew it, manufacturers of healthfood products discovered what the food and beverage industry has known for decades: Caffeine sells.

  Know the Coffee You Drink

  The purpose of this book is to give readers the information they need to make informed choices about both the amount and the type of caffeine products they consume. In this regard, it’s important to note that there are very significant differences among the caffeinated products available today. As it turns out, the choices you make can have a significant influence on the fate of the planet.

  Pesticides Travel a Long Way to Your Coffee Cup

  Commercially grown coffee is the most heavily sprayed food or beverage crop in the world (overall third, behind cotton and tobacco), and the chemicals that are liberally used include some of the most dangerous herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides.13 In fact, many of the chemicals sprayed on coffee plants are banned in the United States, and there is evidence that these chemicals are present at high levels on coffee beans.

  A report published by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) explains the problem. First of all, FDA surveillance of imported food is spotty.

  Only a small fraction of shipments is analyzed. Secondly, analysis does not cover all possible pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. Thus, chemicals that are not included in the analysis may be present in high amounts.

  Then there is the problem of analytical methods. While FDA analysis may show low levels of pesticide residue, more sensitive analysis provides a much different picture. In one such testing program, multiple pesticide residues were

  found on every sample of green coffee beans tested.14 For example, Brazilian coffee beans (the most common type sold in the United States) were found to contain residues of DDT, BHC, lindane, aldrin, and chlordane, all known carcinogens.15

  Now, the common claim is that these deadly chemicals are “burned off” in the roasting process, but this also may be inaccurate. Careful testing by NRDC

  found that roasting did in fact reduce most chemicals to below detectable levels.

  But the key word here is most. The toxic metabolite of DDT (known as DDD) remained at nearly the pre-roasting level.16

  The Other Side of the Issue

  Whether pesticide residues are a major health risk for those who drink coffee is a continuing debate, but that is only half of the pesticide issue. The other half concerns the chemical exposure of the growers and processors, as well as the horrific environmental impact of this massive quantity of deadly chemicals. We may be safe from harm as we sip our cappuccinos at a sidewalk café, but the picture at the other end of this commodity chain is anything but rosy.

  Studies by international health agencies have documented rampant misuses of pesticides and herbicides throughout coffee growing regions, with little or no protection given to agricultural workers who spray, dust, and in some cases apply by hand chemicals that would require a full protective suit and breathing apparatus if used in the United States.17–18, 19

  “[Developing countries] suffer from illiteracy, overpopulation, and low standards of living. Their deficient economy and infrastructure hinder their ability to regulate efficiently registration of pesticides.

  Their inhabitants are at high risk due to the acute and chronic adverse health effects induced by pesticide exposure. … Their legislations, regulations, technical capabilities, and medical care need to be upgraded to a reliable standard. This is essential for the global welfare because any hazardous pesticides dumped or released in the environment in these countries will not be dissipated but can reappear as residues in imported raw foods or by destroying terrestrial and aquatic life, through their transportation within the atmosphere, or in liquid discharges to soil and water.”

  Source: A. H. el Sabae, “Special Problems Experienced with Pesticide Use in Developing Countries, ” Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, June 1993;17(3):287–91.

  Pesticides that seem easy to regulate in the first world can get completely out of control in the third world due to illiteracy and lack of government regulations.

  I’ll never forget watching a villager in a small rural community in Mexico grind her corn. She was nearly covered in white powder that looked almost like flour.

  Because of the characteristic smell, I looked at the bag on the floor of her hut and saw that it was a well-known pesticide. Apparently, the government had distributed the chemical to help villagers keep insects out of their stored corn.

  There was no warning label or instructions on the bag that this woman could read; not that it would matter, considering the high rate of illiteracy in that area.

  Pesticides to dust your corn? Who in the United States would dream of using deadly chemicals in their food?

  The export of pesticides and fertilizers to developing countries is a huge business. Pesticides that have been banned in the United States due to their carcinogenic properties are still allowed to be exported to developing countries whose governments don’t have up-to-date regulations. They end up in the hands of the least educated people who have the least amount of information about appropriate use. They then contaminate crops being grown for export and reappear in the first world countries on imported foods.

  Fertilizers in the third world wreak their own destruction. Governments support the spread of fertilizers through free distribution programs to rural communities. But government programs are fickle. They may exist for one or two years and then not the next. In the meantime, the soil has been altered. Many fertilizers kill off the natural microorganisms that keep soil healthy, so humus is no longer broken down into plant nutrients. Chemical fertilizers used for a couple of years produce lifeless soil that will grow crops only if more fertilizer is added. You could liken the use of fertilizers to an addiction, with the soil and the farmer being codependent on chemicals in order to produce a crop. This dependency leads to the breakdown of plant health, in this case the coffee trees, which are negatively affected by poor soil nutrients.

  Fertilizer-weakened plants are prone to insect infestations because their natural immunity is compromised, and now you need more pesticides. Then there is the runoff of excess nitrogen from the fertilizers, which is excessive on the steep slopes of coffee plantations in rain forest climates. The nitrogen kills fish in streams and lakes and eventually finds its way to the ocean. There, the

  pristine coral reefs that grace the coastlines of tropical countries slowly perish under the onslaught of nitrogen-stimulated algae overgrowth.

  This pollution of the coastal waters is a tragedy of immense proportions.

  Coral reefs, often extending for thousands of miles, are like the ocean’s rain forest in that they support an astounding abundance and variety of sea life. In fact, such habitats support nearly 25 percent of all marine species. But algae overgrowth is choking off the supply of light and oxygen to the coral polyps and the coral reefs are dying. In the last forty years, pollution of the oceans has devastated coral reefs that have existed for 260 million years. Environmental groups are fighting to reverse this trend, but without concerted action on the part of industry and government, experts fear that we may lose 70 percent of all coral reefs within the next fifty years.

  The rise of organic agriculture using sustainable practices is the only program that can halt this terrible cycle and return the soil, plants, and we humans who depend on their harvest to a balanced relationship. If you intend to keep coffee in your diet after reading this book, I urge you to become a consumer who demands organi
cally grown coffee from your retailer or your local coffee shop. Vote with your dollars for a more sane, safe, and healthy planet.

  You Can’t Eat Coffee

  In addition to the exposure to pesticides and pollution, there is another perspective I would like you to consider regarding the people who grow our coffee. When you walk past the coffee display in your market and read the labels —Java, Kenya, Colombia, Guatemala, Brazil—what goes through your mind? If you’re like most people who have never visited a coffee plantation, you may have the image of a tropical paradise dotted with coffee trees, with happy laborers picking the crop, receiving a fair wage and working in good conditions.

  In reality, this is rarely the case.

  I remind my students that coffee is not indigenous to the countries where it is grown. People do not go picking coffee the way you might walk through a forest picking blackberries. Coffee is grown on huge plantations that arose during the colonial period when massive amounts of land were placed in the hands of a small aristocracy. Sometimes the landowners were the Europeans who “discovered” the country. Later, enormous tracts of land were apportioned to multinational corporations. No matter who the landlords are, the indigenous people of these nations have little choice but to pick coffee (or sugar, cotton, rubber, or bananas) under oftentimes slave-labor conditions for someone else.

  rubber, or bananas) under oftentimes slave-labor conditions for someone else.

  Rain Forests, Songbirds, and Your Coffee Cup

  I remember the moment when this realization hit me. It was in botany class and we were looking at the destruction of the planet’s rain forests. Much of this devastation was due to logging, but the greatest cause of deforestation was due to agriculture and livestock. The professor talked about the growing world market for beef and how rain forests were being destroyed to raise cattle. But the agriculture issue was never explained, nor was it covered in the materials we were reading. I might have passed it off as well except for an agricultural table that showed massive acreage devoted to coffee plantations throughout the same region. I noticed that the latitude and elevation of these plantations matched the area previously covered by rain forest. In fact, the countries with the greatest loss of rain forest were those with the highest production of coffee. I thought I had been tuned in to the ecology movement. Why hadn’t I heard about this before?

  The Coffee Cover-up

  When I contacted members of the coffee industry, I heard a familiar story.

  Coffee, they claimed, was actually saving the rain forests by providing the people with income other than logging. “Except,” I replied, “that the coffee plantations appear to occupy the same regions that used to be rain forests.” This of course set off a defensive reaction that went in circles. “Look,” I said, “my question is really simple: Have rain forests been destroyed to plant coffee?” I was told that “minimal” clearing had been conducted, but that coffee plants grow well in the shade, so the rain forest did not have to be destroyed. This, I later learned, was only half true.

  The Whole Truth

  There are two types of coffee trees, commonly referred to as shade and sun coffee. Traditionally, coffee trees grew under the protection of taller shade trees.

  Plantations on rain forest land destroyed the understory part of the forest, but left the overstory or forest canopy intact. This forest canopy is essential for diversity in wildlife. Monkeys travel from tree to tree as they swing through the forest in

  in wildlife. Monkeys travel from tree to tree as they swing through the forest in search of fruit. Birds sip nectar as they pollinate flowers that later produce fruit for monkeys and other animals. If you’ve ever visited a rain forest, you know that most of the life you hear but can rarely see is happening high in the upper story of the rain fqifest’s canopy. So coffee was relatively compatible with the rain forest. Coffee plantations would affect plant diversity and species on the ground, but at least the plantations would maintain the continuity of the canopy, allowing animals (who are often the carriers of seeds and pollen) to travel from one patch of undisturbed rain forest to another.

  But in the late 1980s some of the large coffee growers started shifting to a new hybrid coffee that grows in full sun. Without competition from other trees and plants, these plantations were planted more densely. Yields from sun coffee plantations were three to four times higher than traditional shade coffee farms, resulting in greatly increased profits. Faced with competition from sun plantations, more and more growers started clear-cutting rain forest to increase their yields. This increased production coincided with two years of bumper crop production worldwide—and suddenly, in the early 1990s, there was a glut of coffee on the world market.

  Prices plunged as importers bid lower and lower for an oversupply of green coffee beans. Exporters in developing countries went bankrupt by the dozens.

  But the real tragedy happened in the rain forest. Both plantation owners and small landholders couldn’t afford to harvest their coffee beans for the pennies per kilo they were being offered by exporters. While more and more Americans were queuing up at trendy espresso bars, coffee plantations were being torn out all over Central and South America. The small farmer slashed and burned his coffee-rain forest hectares and planted corn and beans to feed his family. Finally, from a combination of poor harvests and the exhaustion of excess coffee inventories, prices began to climb again. But by that time, not only was the damage already done to the rain forest canopy, but farmers were advised to replant their land with sun coffee. No more graceful tall shade trees keeping the forest canopy intact. Sun coffee was here to stay.

  The loss of forest canopy has devastating effects on plants, animals, birds, and insects alike. To get a sense for the loss of life, let’s look at just one small group of birds that are near and dear to North American hearts: songbirds such as orioles, warblers, and thrushes, the birds who usher in the return of warm weather to the woods of North America with their songs. These birds, along with hummingbirds and many other species, traditionally spend their winters in the rain forests of Central America dining on tropical flower nectar, insects, fruit,

  and seeds. The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center discovered that between 1966 and 1996 the numbers of these songbirds have been drastically reduced. By studying the number of species inhabiting small plots of shade coffee trees versus large plantations of sun coffee, the Smithsonian discovered that the population of songbirds has been dramatically affected by the switch from shade to sun coffee. In the scientific literature, sun plantations have been referred to as “biological deserts.”20

  Many tropical countries face the almost complete elimination of natural forest cover by the end of the century. Few countries will have any substantial tracts of moist tropical forest left by the middle of the next century if present trends continue.

  Source: Marcus Colchester and Larry Lohmann, The Struggle for Land and the Fate of the Forests.

  The bottom line regarding rain forest destruction was put succinctly by a university ethnobotanist. “South American nations such as Brazil and Colombia were once predominately rain forest. Now, tens of millions of acres have been turned into coffee plantations. You do the math.” In Brazil alone, more than half a million square kilometers of Amazonian rain forest were destroyed between 1975 and 1995.21

  Silent Death: Water Pollution from Coffee Processing

  If you’ve been reading environmental journals, you may have heard about rain forest destruction for sun coffee plantations or the reduction of wildlife species and songbirds. What you haven’t heard about is the deadly pollution caused by the processing of the fresh coffee “cherry” in large and small coffee-washing facilities that dot coffee growing regions. Most of these facilities are quite rudimentary, since the process is not complex. The idea is to remove the pulp of the coffee cherry from the bean and dry the green bean. The process takes large amounts of water over several washing steps. There are two main end products: coffee beans ready for export and coffee p
ulp.

  The beans go off to market, but what happens to coffee pulp and the processing water? This water, now laden with pesticides, fungicides, and nitrogenous waste, goes directly into local streams, rivers, and lakes. With no filtration or reconditioning, the water pollution harms aquatic life as well as the health of people who live alongside those same bodies of water. And the coffee

  health of people who live alongside those same bodies of water. And the coffee pulp? It sits in huge, rotting piles, leaching out its high nitrogen discharge into the groundwater and eventually into the same polluted waterways. You can’t stand downwind of one of these piles if you visit a coffee-washing facility.

  You’ll gag. Sadly, the pulp could be turned into rich compost to feed the coffee trees. But that takes money, labor, and transport—three elements in short supply in rural areas where people are preoccupied with survival.

  The Power of One

  It always comes down to you, the choices you make for your own health and your family’s health, and the information and motivation that guides those choices. My task is to give you the best information so you can make the best decision. My hope is that you will use this information to look at your life, see if you’ve fallen victim to caffeine addiction and whether it is serving or harming you.

  If you decide to drink coffee, then look for organically grown coffee from shade groves that you can feel good about putting in your coffee cup. If you decide to drink caffeinated soft drinks, your task is harder because you can’t control how the coffee that produced the caffeine in soft drinks was grown. But at least you don’t have to be swayed by the latest brand advertised as providing youth and sex appeal. And you can teach your children not to become bamboozled consumers.

  Coffee Doesn’t Have to Leave a Bitter Taste in Your Mouth The difference between exploitation and fair market boils down to the way profits are divided. In regards to coffee, all significant profits are made by the processors who export, roast, and grind the various blends, including instant and decaf products. Until recently, they have all been’owned by foreign corporations, not the people on whose land the coffee is grown. Thus, third world peoples have been forced to sell their crops for what is often little more than the cost of production.