A Cup of Morning Death? How "Big Coffee" Puts Profits Before People

Readers, we simply must rein in Big Coffee. This industry is making billions in profits at the expense of our health.

How? Let's begin with the obvious. Experts agree: coffee produces a wide range of terrible--at times even terrifying--side effects and symptoms:

* It can cause severe hyperactivity in both adults and children.
* Side effects include halitosis, dehydration and tooth discoloration.
* Coffee is directly linked to increased blood pressure. In fact, just 2-3 cups daily can raise a person’s blood pressure substantially.
* This blood pressure risk can lead to other serious cardiovascular risks, including heart attack and stroke.
* There is a widely known--but strangely under-reported--link between coffee consumption and spontaneous bowel evacuation.
* When combined with sugar (an addictive substance linked to obesity, hyperactivity and even tooth decay) coffee becomes even more dangerous.

Toxins lurking in your morning Joe
However, no discussion of the risks of coffee is complete without addressing the most dangerous toxin lurking in your supposedly "safe" cup of morning joe: the chemical 1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6(3H,7H)-dione 3,7-dihydro-1,3,7-trimethyl -1H-purine-2,6-dione.

Let’s start off with something no one can object to: It is never a good idea to put anything into your body that you can’t pronounce. If there’s one truth about Big Food and all the processed crap they foist onto us it’s this: the most dangerous and unhealthy foods almost always have ingredient lists loaded with long and unpronounceable words.

We also know, beyond any doubt, that Big Food hides the use of dangerous chemicals and additives by giving them harmless sounding names. We've seen this insidious practice in the branded boxed cereals aisle, where both ingredient naming and ingredient manipulation techniques are used to mislead consumers into thinking a food has less sugar than it really does.

This is absolutely no different. The 1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6 (3H,7H)-dione 3,7-dihydro- 1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6-dione lurking in our coffee has all sorts of both known (and unknown) side effects:

1) Known sleep inhibitor. This chemical severely impacts our ability to sleep, and there are hundreds (if not thousands) of studies proving a link between insufficient sleep and all sorts of health and lifestyle problems, such as depression, obesity and a compromised immune system. It also leads to a much greater risk of traffic accidents and industrial injuries.

2) Known vasoconstrictor. It causes our blood vessels to become narrower, impacting blood supply to all parts of our bodies. As we've already seen, long-term heavy use of coffee can cause serious cardiovascular problems.

3) Known to be highly addictive. Many people drink coffee all their lives, little knowing that this beverage is a delivery mechanism for such a highly addictive and dangerous chemical. Many have argued that breaking an addiction to 1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6(3H,7H)- dione 3,7-dihydro- 1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2, 6-dione can be as difficult as breaking an addiction to powerful narcotics like cocaine or heroin.

4) Known to have potentially severe withdrawal symptoms. As with any highly addictive substance, there are potentially dangerous withdrawal symptoms to be concerned about, including severe headaches, mood swings, irritability, drowsiness, spontaneous anger and impaired cognitive function. Once Big Coffee hooks us, they want to make sure it's as difficult as possible to get off the 1,3,7-trimethyl-1H- purine-2,6(3H,7H)-dione 3,7-dihydro-1,3,7-trimethyl- 1H-purine-2,6-dione train. Result? We remain steady, profitable consumers dying for our morning caffeine fix.

5) Known fatality risk. Most importantly--and most horrifyingly--in large doses, 1,3,7-trimethyl- 1H-purine-2,6(3H,7H)- dione 3,7-dihydro-1,3, 7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6-dione can be fatal.

Unholy alliance
As someone who cares deeply about public health advocacy, I simply cannot fathom why the FDA and our government haven't taken steps to protect defenseless consumers from this dangerous beverage. Could it be that all isn't as it seems in the hallowed halls of our government?

It could be. Did you know that the largest coffee brands found in our stores--household names such as Maxwell House, Folgers and Starbucks--are owned by gigantic, powerful, multi-billion dollar companies? Many suspect Big Coffee is in some unholy alliance with the government, covertly limiting efforts to regulate what has become an extremely profitable cash cow.

Despite these risks, the powerful companies behind Big Coffee will do anything to sell us more and more of this clearly dangerous beverage. Today, coffee is served in gigantic serving sizes, with twenty ounces now the norm. In the 1950s, this would be enough to serve three people! No one needs that much coffee.

It's clear: by themselves, consumers simply don't have the tools or the weaponry to resist Big Coffee’s enormous marketing machine. Therefore, in order to convince people to stop drinking a known dangerous beverage, something must be done to change the default coffee-drinking environment. Clearly, the time has come for some sort of tax--or better still, a ban--on large coffee sizes. We will do whatever it takes to rein in this greedy, powerful industry.

And yet given all the dangers, given all the health risks and given all the damaging side effects of this beverage, Big Coffee isn't required to put even the tiniest warning label on what they sell. Even something as simple as...

WARNING: this product contains 1,3,7-trimethyl- 1H-purine-2,6 (3H,7H)-dione 3,7-dihydro- 1,3,7-trimethyl- 1H-purine-2, 6-dione, which is linked to hyperactivity, high blood pressure, stroke, heart attack and spontaneous defecation. In large doses 1,3,7-trimethyl- 1H-purine-2,6 (3H,7H)-dione 3, 7-dihydro-1,3,7- trimethyl-1H-purine-2, 6-dione can be fatal.

...written in a reasonably readable font size, would only cover half of the outside of a basic 7-ounce coffee cup. Is this too much to ask? Apparently it is--when Big Coffee is involved. Obviously there's far too much money at stake to take even this tiny step forward to warn unsuspecting, uneducated consumers about the danger lurking in their daily morning beverage.

Clearly, Big Coffee puts profits before people. They simply do not care that their efforts to thwart badly-needed regulation put us--and our children--at risk. It's time to stop these powerful corporate interests from running rampant, and it's time to eliminate this dangerous beverage from our diets and our daily lives.

We've got to stop Big Coffee from exploiting us.


* NOTE: The preceding was satire. If you're not sure WHY it's satire, please read this post. And then this post.


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.