Caffeine

[emmline]

I drink coffee, maybe 2 mugs, every morning.
Although I am not all that sensitive to the effects of the morning caffeine dose, I'm sure that the drug aspect contributes to my overall enjoyment of the coffee, but the coffee itself could almost stand alone, sans caffeine. If it tasted as good. It usually doesn't. It would not do for me to drink bad coffee just for the caffeine--the coffee has to be really good coffee.
Hence, I brew organic, song-bird happy, arabica, yummy, really good coffee.
Oh, I also make it half-decaf, so I can drink twice as much.

I will get a headache for up to 2 days if I go cold-turkey. I try to avoid this.

I occasionally drink tea--usually green or assam, but tea does not delight me the way coffee does. And I find it a little drying.

I drink a rare Coke--maybe once every couple weeks, but I never like it much after the first couple ounces.

I think that for most people, caffeine is a reasonably safe way to self-medicate, and that it can be done deliciously it a big plus. I wouldn't do it otherwise.

[missy]

But I buy some ground coffee and make it three times in a week and forget about it and the next time I look at the coffee it's gone mouldy.
.

You can freeze ground coffee. It needs to be in a completely non-permeable container, or it will absorb "odors" and off flavors from the other stuff in your freezer. Since you make it so rarely, I'd find something that you could freeze single pot amounts in.

I don't drink coffee (even though I worked with the darn stuff for years). I can't taste bitter, so all I get is the burnt flavors (the pyrazines especially).

[jim stone]

By the way, there is now apparently good evidence
that green tea forestalls the onset of dementia (Alzheimers)
by four years or so. There may be other health
benefits too. Green tea is available as a cold
drink in small plastic bottles, and there are big bottles
of it too; also diet versions, which actually
taste very good. So integrating this stuff
into one's life is pretty easy and enjoyable.

There isn't much caffeine in green tea, though.

[Jack]

So what about the aspartame in diet soda? Does it do anything like prevent diseases?

[emmline]

By the way, there is now apparently good evidence
that green tea forestalls the onset of dementia (Alzheimers)
by four years or so.

Four years is not enough. Find something that forestalls it for 40 years and I'll be a'swillin' it.

[djm]

There was a bunch of arguments back and forth about aspartame causing mood swings in some people. It may still be true, but the furor seems to have died down.

There are supposed to be health benefits to black teas as well as green. Both taste like water that's a little "off" to me, so I just make one big mug with one bag Ceylon green, one bag Ceylon black with orange and shove that down me gob once a day.

djm

[Jack]

By the way, there is now apparently good evidence
that green tea forestalls the onset of dementia (Alzheimers)
by four years or so.

Four years is not enough. Find something that forestalls it for 40 years and I'll be a'swillin' it.

Four years is better than nothing. Besides, once you reach the common ages for Alzheimer's disease, you're probably not going to live 40 years anyway (even with the youngest cases).

[Innocent Bystander]

But I buy some ground coffee and make it three times in a week and forget about it and the next time I look at the coffee it's gone mouldy.
.

You can freeze ground coffee. It needs to be in a completely non-permeable container, or it will absorb "odors" and off flavors from the other stuff in your freezer. Since you make it so rarely, I'd find something that you could freeze single pot amounts in.

I don't drink coffee (even though I worked with the darn stuff for years). I can't taste bitter, so all I get is the burnt flavors (the pyrazines especially).

Sound advice. I'll try that, thanks.

[BillChin]

I drink coffee, but not every day. I've given up most soda because I don't think it healthy, even the diet kind. A cheap form of caffeine is tea made from cheap tea bags. I often see 20 to 100 tea bags for the price of one 2-liter bottle of soda.

[Doug_Tipple]

My wife makes a small pot of coffee in the morning, but I never drink any of it. Instead I drink instant Maxwell House coffee. I heat up a half mug of water in the microwave (55 seconds) and put in a half spoon of instant coffee, no cream or sugar. Throughout the day I probably drink more than five of these half mugs. Whenever I go out to a restaurant, the brewed coffee is rarely the way I like it, usually way too strong for me. I like weak coffee. I get the shakes if I drink too much strong coffee.

I have read about all of the benefits of black and green tea. Naturally, I have tried to drink more tea in my diet. However, for me, tea acts as a diuretic. I probably have a year's supply of green tea that I have decided not to drink.

[Jack]

I can't taste bitter, so all I get is the burnt flavors (the pyrazines especially).

Let me bite you and see!

Just kidding! How come you can't taste bitter?

[jim stone]

By the way, there is now apparently good evidence
that green tea forestalls the onset of dementia (Alzheimers)
by four years or so.

Four years is not enough. Find something that forestalls it for 40 years and I'll be a'swillin' it.

Wait till you're 66, Emmline, me dear.
Glugg, glugg, glugg!

[emmline]

By the way, there is now apparently good evidence
that green tea forestalls the onset of dementia (Alzheimers)
by four years or so.

Four years is not enough. Find something that forestalls it for 40 years and I'll be a'swillin' it.

Wait till you're 66, Emmline, me dear.
Glugg, glugg, glugg!

Yes...'tis an affliction I'm all too familiar with...hence my eagerness for a preventative tonic. Live in close proximity to a loved one's dwindling brain for a few years and you do begin to second guess your own forgetful moments. Trust me on this.
Perhaps if I drink 10 times as much tea....hmmm....

[mutepointe]

I drank way too much coffee in my younger days, even when I was a small kid. I still have a cup in the morning but only because my wife makes a pot on weekdays or expects a pot on weekends.

BillChin was right, get teabags for emergencies.

[jim stone]

I just want to add that green tea is delicious stuff,
I mean especially the cold drinks. It's just great.
Very popular in Japan in vending machines, instead
of coke.

So plenty of reason to drink
it even if it didn't save you from horrible
maladies.