Coffee: Good or Bad?

Main thing I am reflecting on coffee, is that I drink a lot of it and I like it, but try stopping cold turkey and it causes major severe migraine and some other horrid unbearable symptoms.

This happened to me at least once in the past, when I forgot to drink any and I got a major splitting headache, and actually I ran out on last Friday and had no access to shops until Monday and I basically experienced those symptoms again, until today when I went and got some more….

So should I continue to drink coffee? I honestly think it would be a good idea to stop completely by weaning off gradually, but I don’t think that is practical, given the ubiquitous presence of the beverage in just about every facet of life.

Yes there are performance work and study and alertness benefits and lots of antioxidants, but tellingly, you go without for a 12 hour period and woe betide you.

Below is a vid of a girl I recognise from Youtube Rewind 2018, and she does a good demonstration here of what its like going without coffee.

 

I think Id need a substitute beverage. Theres tea. But tea also has caffeine. Also Decaf coffee. Decaf I have tried in the past and I found it tasted different and was more costly than regular coffee. Still tea and decaf might have to be it. When I was a kid I went through a phase of drinking Caro, which is some kind of bitter beverage that kind of tastes like coffee. I dunno what its made of, perhaps Chicory Ive heard of Chicory coffee.

Could also do different tea varieties, such as green tea, or herbal teas, such as black currant tea, lemon ginger tea, Rooiboos tea etc etc etc – so many teas out there and some have no caffeine at all.

Also I think the whole appeal of coffee, is its ability to combat tiredness, and most folk these days are perpetually tired from working and managing family life. So then if one can get full regular sleep, – somehow – they might not ‘need’ coffee any more.

I watched some YT vids on coffee and one main point I got was that coffee doesn’t contain energy, it has basically zero calories, yet it gives a buzz, a feeling of energy.

And the above image shows the common withdrawal symptoms from when you go cold turkey (Dont go cold turkey!) These are true things, if you want to experiment and try for yourself just stop drinking for 1-2 days. I don’t recommend it though. Instead best method looks to be basically gradually reduce cups-per-day and replace with same amount cups of something else ie tea or decaf.

According to the internet, coffee is the main source of antioxidants in the Western diet, so if I cut out coffee, Id need some other source of antioxidants. The best thing there seems to be (A) putting spice in everything and (B) making delicious smoothies that contain cacao, goji berries, black berries and rasberries, strawberries and this kind of thing. Main draw back on this is the price of these things is rather high. I also wonder how Id feel, if I had no caffeine in my system, would I be really Zen and chill and in the zone, or what.

One Youtuber I follow actually got in hospital with a kidney stone, because he had went to a naturopath and they said eat heaps of spinach, so he ate heaps of spinach and it has a thing in it that causes kidney stones!, My point being, there are so many diet ideas floating around that some of them can be counter-productive. I believe Jordan Peterson and family do a meat-only diet. That sound like my kind of diet but I dont think I could afford it and basically Id miss bread pasta etc.

With coffee I am a coffee-fiend and I intend to reduce my daily cup intake, but I dunno how successful Ill be, but anyways that’s my take on that at this time.