BS: I've gone black.

Subject: BS: I've gone black.
From: Wesley S
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 01:12 PM

That's right - I no longer put creamer in my coffee. I'm feeling leaner, stronger and more liberated. Life is simpler now. And that's a good thing.

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 01:29 PM

A life with fewer chemicals in it, is always a good idea.

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 01:44 PM

Try eliminating the damn stuff completely! ;-D You'll feel even better after awhile, and life will be simpler yet.

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Bert
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 02:10 PM

Sure would be simpler LH; I'd be asleep all the bloody time.

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 02:14 PM

Al Johnson threads above the line please. ...

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 02:17 PM

After having some kidney stones removed I was told by the specialist that I ought to avoid having black tea, but it would be OK if I made sure to put milk in.

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 02:33 PM

Hmmm. Well, Bert, I think that's a temporary effect that is physiologically connected to the caffeine habit itself. You get to where you need it as a regular thing because you got yourself programmed to need it. All I can say is, I drink NO coffee now, and I often have trouble sleeping at the best of times, suffering much from insomnia. I might NEVER sleep AT ALL if I went back to adding coffee to my daily regimen! ;-)

Here's a really good way to wake up your system first thing in the morning. Splash cold water on your face. Drink a tall glass of water. Take some deep breaths. Eat something. And yer good to go. ;-D

Then there's getting up early. That helps. But how do we accomplish that? Well...for me, about the only thing that really works is to have a damn good reason for getting up early. Like...if you were to hire this guy who you absolutely KNOW will follow orders to the letter, and you tell him: "Check on me each morning at 7:00 AM sharp, and if I'm not out of the bed by 7:05, shoot me with this machine gun. If I should be shot by you in accordance with my own orders as set out above, my lawyer will see that you are properly paid when the contract is completed, providing these orders are followed to the letter. Repeat each day as long as required."

Yeah. That would probably do it. ;-D

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 02:58 PM

Surely that should be Al Jolson.

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Ebbie
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 03:35 PM

"All I can say is, I drink NO coffee now, and I often have trouble sleeping at the best of times, suffering much from insomnia." Little Hawk

Your argument weakens, LH! I drink lots of coffee- regularly 5 cups, and more when the occasion presents itself- and I sleep very well. Might it be that coffee or the lack of it has nothing whatever to do with feeling well?

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Becca72
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 03:58 PM

I have literally drank a cup of coffee while sitting in bed, finished it, shut out the light and went to sleep. Caffeine has no effect on me whatsoever. I drink one coffee every morning (except weekends) because I enjoy it. I eliminated sweetener of any kind a few years back, but I have it with cream or half and half(real,never "creamer") and will never give that up. A bit of milk fat is actually good for you.

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 04:00 PM

Good for you, Ebbie. ;-)

So...What is my argument?

People generally say that drinking coffee helps them wake up and stay alert, and I think that's probably true...partly because of the caffiene boost...partly because of the sugar boost (if they add sugar). Most of these strong stimulants give a person a quick boost by encouraging the body to release certain reserves of vital energy that are stored up for emergencies.

If you repeatedly stir up such responses in the body, the effectiveness of the substance tends to weaken over time, perhaps because the nervous system becomes depleted or "jaded". When that happens, a stronger injection of the substance is required to get a comparable effect from it.

This is true with all addictive drugs. The user tends to get less "kick" from the drug after awhile, therefore opts for bigger and stronger doses. This is just as true with sugar or caffeine addiction as it is with heroin or alcohol (another concentrated sugar) or cocaine.

Since virtually everyone alive today is addicted to something, including myself, I'm not judging or condemning people for this...I'm merely observing it and witnessing it and trying to understand it better.

Coffee also helps to stimulate bowel action...because it irritates the lining of the bowels...so it's a pretty good laxative...until your bowels eventually get exhausted...then it doesn't work nearly as well anymore. This is also true of most commonly sold laxatives. They work less well after awhile, and your bowels get badly damaged by them in the long run, and function worse than ever after that.

In your case, Ebbie, coffee may not affect you much in terms of insomnia or other unpleasant aftereffects, because of your particular bodily strengths. I can't say. What I can say is that in my own case, regular coffee use did affect my health adversely in several ways.

1. it made me more nervous and physically tense
2. if drunk later in the day, it did interfere with sleep patterns
3. it made my digestion worse
4. it stained my teeth

It was also enjoyable in several ways.

1. it smelled great!
2. it tasted good (at the time)(but I hate the way it tastes now)
3. provided a sense of comfort (but I get that from any hot drink)
4. provided some quick energy (but sometimes you "crash" later)
5. made for a nice little ritual (also obtainable in other ways)
6. sometimes helped get stubborn bowels moving (see the paragraph above that)

My own experience suggests I'm better off not drinking it. Your experience suggests you have no problem with it. We may both be right.

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 04:06 PM

Here's what I think I actually DO need to have more of each day:

Water.

And exercise.

With that in mind, I think I'll go have some right now.

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 04:24 PM

Hmm! From the thread title, it sounded like someone had undergone a race change operation.

The following is from the book I'm currently writing. This part introduces the subject of coffeehouses before I go on to describe the high level of folk music activity that took place, and still takes place, in many coffeehouses. I posted it on some thread here about five years ago, but here it is again.

Pour yourself a—er—cup of coffee—sit down, and prop up your feet. This will be a fairly long post.

As early as Homer, there were stories of a black and bitter brew that had the power to endow increased alertness on those who drank it, but it was not until much later that the details of the discovery of coffee comes into sharper focus.

One of the many legends that surround the discovery of this universal solvent of intellectuality and sociability holds that sometime in the 9th century, in the part of north Africa now called Ethiopia, a young goat-herd named Kaldi noticed that his goats became particularly alert, frisky, and playful after eating the red berries that grew on certain leafy bushes. Kaldi tried a handful of the berries, and soon found himself experiencing a refreshing lift of spirits and a pleasant sense of heightened awareness. He eagerly recommended the berries to his fellow tribesmen, who subsequently agreed that Kaldi's discovery had indeed been a worthy one.

News of these wonderful berries spread quickly. Local monks heard of them, tried them, and noticed that the berries had the salutary effect of producing more alertness and less dozing off during prayers. They dried the berries so they could be transported to other monasteries. There, the berries were reconstituted in water. The monks ate the berries and then drank the liquid.

Coffee berries soon made their way from Ethiopia to the Arabian peninsula where they were first cultivated in what today is the country of Yemen. Coffee then traveled north to Turkey. The Turks were the first to roast the beans. Then they crushed them and boiled them in water. The result was pretty stout stuff, hardly what we today would call gourmet coffee, but it was well on its way. They sometimes added spices to the brew, such as anise, cloves, cinnamon, and cardamom.

Venetian traders carried coffee to the European continent sometime in the 16th century. Once in Europe, enthusiastic imbibers regarded this new beverage as the Elixir of Life and the Invigorator of Thought.

But, as frequently happens when humankind discovers something pleasurable, there emerged those people whose lips are stiff and whose faces are grim. These unhappy souls declared coffee to be "the beverage of infidels" and "the Drink of the Devil." Some members of the Catholic Church called for Pope Clement VIII to ban it. Consider their dismay when instead, the Pontiff, wide awake and alert because he'd already had his morning coffee, blessed it and declared it a truly Christian beverage.

The first coffeehouse in Britain, called "The Angel," opened in 1652, not in London, but in Oxford. This is, perhaps, not surprising. After all, Oxford had been a college town since the 12th century. Soon thereafter, coffeehouses began flourishing in London. They swiftly became gathering spots for artists, poets, and philosophers, along with their disciples and groupies. Since coffee at these establishments cost a penny a cup, coffeehouses became known as "penny universities." James Boswell and Samuel Johnson were two well-known coffeehouse habitués.

King Charles II considered coffeehouses to be hotbeds of discontent and a breeding ground for revolt, so in 1675 he banned them. This act nearly caused a revolt. The turmoil was so great that eleven days later he rescinded the ban.

In 1732, Johann Sebastian Bach composed his "Coffee Cantata." The work is an ode to coffee. At the same time, it takes a poke at a movement extant in Germany at the time that sought to forbid women to drink coffee because some people thought it made women sterile.

In the late sixteen-hundreds coffeehouses made their way to the New World: to Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, where they prospered just as they had in England. They were also patronized by musicians, artists, poets and other suspicious and undesirable characters. Such as Tom Paine and Ben Franklin. In fact, when the United States were still "The Colonies," the Continental Congress, in protest against the excessive tax the British levied on tea, declared coffee to be the national drink.

So when coffeehouses sprang up like mushrooms in the dank undergrowth of the 1950s, they were nothing really new; they were just another phase of a centuries-old tradition.

© Copyright 2008, Donald Richard Firth

And further:

In a fascinating book entitled Around the World in Six Glasses, author Tom Standage, explains how early farmers saved surplus grain by fermenting it into beer, the Greeks took grapes and made wine, and Arabs learned how to distill spirits. Water was often unsafe to drink because of the prevalence of water-born diseases, and not knowing that the cause was bacteria, which could be killed by boiling the water, most people tended to avoid water and drank beer or wine, in which the alcohol killed the germs.

Which is to say, most people wandered about half-splashed most of the time!

When coffee spread from Arabia to Europe and coffeehouses became popular gathering places, for the first time in history since the early discovery of fermentation, people were drinking something which was not only safe to drink (boiling having killed the bacteria), but didn't send them into a foggy stupor! Suddenly, lots of people were alert and could think clearly! Standage credits coffee with being the Universal Solvent that brought about what we now call the Age of Enlightenment. He refers to coffeehouses as being "the Internet of the Age of Reason, facilitating scientific and rational thought."

So it seems that Charles II was right to be apprehensive about coffeehouses. The "Rights of Man" movement started over cups of coffee.

So—drink up!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 04:47 PM

Great story, Don.

Drinking wine with their meals seems to have been a perfectly normal thing for Middle Eastern people back in the Biblical era. Indeed, it is a normal thing for most Italians, Spaniards, Greeks, and French people right to the present day.

Seems like a kind of nice tradition to me. If one doesn't overdo the various things one consumes...including food...they all seem to work out fine. The Middle Path of moderation between extremes is generally the best one.

****

The American Indians were delighted with coffee when it was introduced to them by White traders and explorers, and they've been drinking it ever since. (There's an amusing scene in "Dances With Wolves" about that.) It's also been, along with sugar, tea, tobacco, and salt, one of the most lucrative trade goods of all time. I loved it when I was in my 20s and 30s, but it tastes pretty awful to me now, after about 15 years away from the habit.

****

Now...imagine Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell....and NO cigarettes! I bet Bob would have added 15 or more years of full range and good tone to his voice by not smoking. But smoking was totally "normal" all around him when he started. That's why people do almost everything they do, and they never think twice about it. They just figure it's normal.

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: kendall
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 04:52 PM

The first thing I do in the kitchen when I get up is make a cup of coffee with my yard sale Keurig coffee brewer with Newman's own k cup of strong coffee. It not only wakes me up, it also makes my attitude more positive. I do not use any sweetener, but I do use a bit of heavy cream.
With the aid of Melatonin I sleep well.

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Wesley S
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 04:56 PM

Good Lord but some people have a tendency to over-think the simplest things...

I like coffee. I drink it black now. I have no trouble sleeping.

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 05:17 PM

Thinking about something (it could be anything) in depth is interesting and pleasurable. It stimulates thought. It's a way of exercising the mind. That's why people do it. That is a very simple thing.

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Bobert
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 05:33 PM

"Once you go black, you never go back"...

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 05:51 PM

I don't drink coffee or tea black, but I do drink decaffinated. That has made a big big difference. My only worry, is if it contains horse meat!

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 06:08 PM

Yeah. ;-) That would be upsetting.

Meanwhile.... Goin' Black!!!

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: gnu
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 06:48 PM

This is gonna sound NUTS! but... trust me. Do what you always do when you make your morning brew. Just don't use any coffee or tea.

Told yas it was gonna sound nuts. But, if yas don't try it, you'll never know that it works. And, water is good for you. Helluva a lot better than coffee and tea.

No... I am not shittin yas. Try it.

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 07:01 PM

You're quite right, gnu. And a neat thing you can do to jazz up the hot water in a healthful way is to squeeze some lemon juice in it or put some chopped up ginger in it for a spicy tang. Which reminds me...gotta buy some more lemons.

Hot apple cider is also a wonderful drink to have now and then.

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Ed T
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 07:17 PM

Some people like Expresso, some perked. Then there is the french press, the drip type, cappuccino, latte, instant, keruig, and even iced.

Maybe this is more of what you are talking about?


http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/02/a-brief-history-of-coffee-enemas/273076/

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Ed T
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 07:19 PM

Oops, here it is:


Coffee enema

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 07:34 PM

Yes, but it works from either end...it's a lot faster if done as an enema.

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Ed T
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 07:37 PM

If so, it is likely best taken black.

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Elmore
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 07:50 PM

Black is bautiful.

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Elmore
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 07:52 PM

er... beautiful

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: gnu
Date: 14 Feb 13 - 09:07 PM

LH... that subverts the whole premise of my postulate and renders my post inert. Inert as yer bowels if ya don't try it. It works.

Yes, you should have six drops of lemon juice (min) every day as it helps to prevent gall stones, kidney stones, parotid gland stones... all stones... but that ain't what I was addressing.

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Feb 13 - 08:36 AM

Latest studies show that coffee with caffeine lowers the risk of certain types of cancer.

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 15 Feb 13 - 09:00 AM

I started drinking coffee with extract of neither cow nor cane when I was around 18 or 19 (in the mists of pre-history...)

I really wasn't much of a coffee drinker, but when I drank it at work I put a bit of sugar in it. Never caught the cream craze (except recently with iced coffee).

Anyway, I was on a dinner date one night at a fairly good restaurant, but found that the coffee tasted like cat litter. But, as conversation continued, that cup was drained (the conversation was good enough to keep me from paying attention to the coffee) and the waiter refilled my cup. Since I really didn't expect to drink it, I didn't add anything. Of course, I ended up taking a few sips to keep the throat lubricated and, low and behold!, the coffee (from the same pot) tasted 100% better.

I've been drinking coffee black ever since.

Until the 1980s, I usually put lemon in my tea, but, as with coffee, I've drunk that black, too, for decades.

Since Tom broke his ankle and that and his vision have conspired to keep him from bringing me tea in bed or coffee on weekends as he's done for 30 years, I now make the coffee and tea. For awhile the past few months I was drinking more coffee than tea, but cut back on the coffee when I started to recognize some adverse symptoms (mostly acid reflux and stomach discomfort). A couplathree cups a week don't bother me. If I feel the urge for something brown in a cup on the other days, I'll drink tea.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: I've gone black.
From: Ed T
Date: 15 Feb 13 - 10:26 AM

""you should have six drops of lemon juice (min) every day as it helps to prevent gall stones, kidney stones, parotid gland stones... all stones... but that ain't what I was addressing..""

People tell me that a daily dose (teaspoon or less) of cidar apple vinegar prevents gout and the possible impact of it on joints and gout-type kidney stones (they differ in material).