A cup of joe: friend or foe?

Robyn Openshaw - May 20, 2012 - This Post May Contain Affiliate Links

I’ve mentioned that I grew up not drinking milk and still never do. So why has my bone density “off the chart” for a 20-year old even though I’m mid-forties? I’ve been tested multiple times now using different tests. I don’t know, but these are my guesses. They’re based on what the literature says about what affects bone density:

I do regular weight bearing exercise (I’m hit or miss with weights, but I do a ton of yoga)
I don’t drink soda
I have strong vitamin D levels (it’s a hormone as much as a vitamin) from both sunshine and supplements / sea vegetables
I get a lot of highly bioavailable calcium from greens (by the way, chia seed has five times more calcium useable by your body, than dairy does)

Here’s another thing I don’t do, though, that may have a major impact:

I don’t drink coffee

Yeah, sorry. The coffee thing really has to go, too.

I am doing a speaking tour in July with Dr. Rashid Buttar, bestselling author of 9 Steps to Keep the Doctor Away. (I found him in my cancer studies.) Another doc who is horrified by the fact that his profession has degenerated into almost exclusively drug pushers, and refuses to participate.

We’ll be in Raleigh and Charlotte NC, Atlanta GA, and Columbia SC. He’s about the most colorful doc I’ve worked with so far (and that’s saying a lot because Dr. Tom Lodi is one-of-a-kind)!

Dr. Buttar says in his book that he’d rather have his patients drink a glass of red wine every few days than a cup of coffee in the morning. (Keep in mind he has never tasted alcohol, himself.)

You want caffeine, he says? Get caffeine pills from the drugstore. (He writes this facetiously, and I repeat it with the same intent. Caffeine is a terrible idea. But the point is, if the vehicle you drink to get your caffeine fix is packed with carcinogens, there’s a more direct and less toxic way to deliver that stimulant to your bloodstream.)

Coffee, he says, contains 208 different acids.

Keep in mind---since we’ve been thinking about alkaline water this week, right?---that your body has to expend a lot of energy and resources to neutralize acids. It takes 20 pounds of alkaline to neutralize 1 pound of acid, according to the reigning expert on pH balance in health and nutrition, Dr. Robert O. Young.

And, Dr. Buttar points out, when you shift your body towards acidic---and coffee likely deserves to make a Top Ten list for Most Acidic Foods---you predispose yourself to all the diseases everyone dreads. Because acidic environments are the perfect disease climates.

Osteoporosis. Cancer. Arthritis. Degenerative nerve diseases. Heart disease.

Arthritis for regular coffee drinkers is pretty much inevitable—but earlier rather than later.

So coffee drinkers are wondering, what do I replace coffee with? There is a brewed dark chocolate drink you can make, that is out in health food stores now. It’s called Crio Bru. Anybody else have ideas? I’m kinda useless here because except for an occasional raw kombucha, I don’t really drink anything besides water.

(Kristin has recently committed to her brother to quit Diet Pepsi once and for all, and she shared with one of you last week here in blog comments, that she’s created the “party in her mouth” with naturally sweetened green tea, and chia added. That’s been working for her.

Don’t give up if the first substitute you try doesn’t do it for ya. Something will. Don’t quit till you’ve kicked the demon to the curb for good.

Posted in: Lifestyle, Whole Food