by Jims Vincent Capuno
What is one of the world’s most popular drinks? Coffee, that’s what. In the Philippines, eight out of 10 adults drink an average of 2.5 cups of coffee every day.
The popular drink comes from an evergreen tree, which was first discovered in Ethiopia, where its red, cherry-like berries (generally containing two seeds per berry) were used for wine and food before A.D. 1000. Its beans were first ground, roasted and made into a drink during the 15th century on the Arabian Peninsula. The craving for coffee spread throughout Europe the 17th century onward.
In the Philippines, history shows that the first coffee tree was introduced in Lipa, Batangas in 1740 by a Spanish Franciscan monk. From there, coffee growing spread to other parts of Batangas like Ibaan, Lemery, San Jose, Taal, and Tanauan. Batangas owed much of its wealth to its coffee plantations in those areas and Lipa eventually became the coffee capital of the Philippines.
The recent worldwide popularity of special brews and exotic blends of coffee gives a sliver of hope to the Philippine coffee industry. This new trend might be the breath of life that the Philippine coffee industry needs to savor once again the taste of its coffee’s golden years.
Why is coffee getting popular again among Filipinos? “Coffee’s popularity is also largely due to the fact that it is a soothing, flavorful drink that has become very easy to obtain,” says the National Coffee Development Board, whose main objective is to develop and promote the Philippine coffee industry. “Farmers and sellers have made sure anyone who wants a cup of coffee can get one. Coffee producers have created so many ways of packaging and serving the brew that this guarantees that one form or another will appeal to just about everyone.”
Coffee shops, market places, farms, and of course, the groceries, supermarkets, convenience stores, and in the Philippines — the sari-sari store — all have made sure coffee is accessible to anyone at anytime. Coffee dispensers in supermarkets allow aficionados to customize the selection, weight, form, and cost of the coffee they purchase.
In the past, coffee had been seen as something that is not good for one’s health. But in recent years, medical opinion about coffee has been changing.
Of course, a massive intake of caffeine (with which coffee is loaded), or any other substance, isn’t good for anyone, but a moderate intake, the way most people drink coffee, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It can even have specific benefits to one’s health.
For years the public was warned of the dangers of coffee. In one well-publicized New England Journal of Medicine study released in 1981, researchers found a link between coffee and pancreatic cancer. But when at least seven other studies failed to back up that finding, those results had to be retracted.
Now, more than 19,000 dietary caffeine studies have been done, and many experts agree that moderate daily caffeine intake-300 to 400 milligrams, about three to four cups of coffee is not harmful.
The idea that coffee is bad for your heart pops up periodically. A Finnish study found that even those people who averaged five to six cups of coffee per day were not at a higher risk for developing heart disease than non-coffee drinkers. On the other hand, a Harvard study of 45,589 men, published in 1990, found no link between excessive coffee drinking and heart disease.
“For heart disease, I think the issue is closed,” says Dr. Meir Stampfer, an American epidemiologist at Harvard University who has studied many aspects of coffee and health. “Coffee drinking at reasonable levels is unrelated to heart risk.”
Osteoporosis is a condition in which the bones are weakened, which in turn can lead to an increased risk of fractures occurring. Osteoporosis may be caused by many different factors, which collectively result in a weakening of the bones to such a degree that they break easily. Cigarette smoking, lack of exercise, and poor nutrition are all well-established as playing a role in the development of this condition.
Coffee drinking has been implicated because it has been suggested that caffeine, which is naturally occurring in tea, coffee, and chocolate and added to cola and some energy-type beverages, causes calcium excretion which in turn results in weakened bones. However, a government report from the United Kingdom on Nutrition and Bone Health which looked at all the available evidence concluded that concerns about loss of calcium in the urine due to caffeine intake, “are not well founded.”
The National Osteoporosis Society in the UK stated, “We have yet to see any conclusive evidence that moderate coffee consumption is a significant risk factor in the development of osteoporosis.” On the other hand, the Osteoporosis Society of Canada says that two or three cups of coffee are not harmful if you get enough calcium in your daily diet. “As long as women consume adequate calcium (1,000 to 1,200 milligrams per day), caffeine is not a significant risk factor for osteoporosis,” says one expert.
Meanwhile, the US Food and Drug Administration classified caffeine as “generally recognized as safe.” The American Medical Association stated that “moderate tea or coffee drinkers probably need have no concern for their health relative to their caffeine consumption provided other lifestyle habits like diet, alcohol consumption are moderate as well.”
