Spilling the beans on coffee

There’s something naughty about coffee and I can’t quite place it. I’ve never really been one for cigarettes to make me look as ‘bad-ass’ as those 14-year old kids when they light up behind the bike sheds while skipping class. Therefore, I have coffee. I never really skipped class to have a cup, nor did I ever have a French press behind the bike sheds.
Drinking coffee just makes me feel a little… saucy.

Picture it:

-Wake up on a Saturday morning with a slight pang in your head from the countless Bailey’s of the night before
-Roll out of your slumber, clad only in your undies and one sock (half on, because you’re an optimist)
-Perform a zombie-like walk to the kitchen that puts 1982 Michael Jackson to shame
-Prep, brew, and pour some of that beautiful black beverage into your favourite mug
-Sit down, like the boss that you are, and slurp like an absolute cheeky bitch

How bad-ass is that? It’s like James Dean on a Harley cruising down the Autobahn at night on his way to pick up David Hasselhoff and Ronda Rousey for a reunion located at a non-smoking bar in Albania. A bar that specialises in single-malt scotch and only plays the best of Otis Redding and The Doors on its free jukebox.

That’s how I feel when I drink my morning coffee.
So, as you can imagine, every time I’m told that I shouldn’t drink coffee because it’s bad for me, I crumble like the Roman Empire did in 476. Damn you Odoacer.
Never fear, fellow coffee drinking barbarians! I have a little project that starts today! Every week a new coffee fact will be revealed to my hundreds of thousands of readers. 26 weeks of positive coffee facts. 26 letters in the alphabet. Let’s begin:


​A – Antioxidants

I’m going to explain antioxidants, free radicals, and living tissue in your body by using a little situation which makes it easier to understand.

Let’s begin with Bob.

Bob works in an independent market set up by his mum. He and his siblings all work happily in this market together. Bob has some money, but his money seems to disappear whenever he spends time smoking, laying in the sun, or driving around the polluted streets of Manila.
Whenever Bob loses his money, he becomes ‘nasty Bob’ and steals money from whoever is closest to him in the shop; usually one of his brothers or sisters. Earlier today, Bob smoked a cigar and then replaced his lost money by stealing  from his big sister Jenny, who in turn got super pissed off and decided to steal some money from her younger brother Tim. Tim then in turn stole money from poor Ruth who already had little money because she spent too long sunbathing on a beach. Before you know it, everyone is stealing from everyone and the independent market is on the verge of going bust.

Luckily, Ed steps in. Ed is awesome and he  isn’t afraid of lending money. He also isn’t afraid of kicking pugs but that’s not important right now.
Just as the market is about to fall, Ed starts dishing out money to each and every sibling that works there. Everyone is happy, and the market prospers. Ed even gives the market a new paint job; pomegranate red.

Nice one Ed.

Bob and his siblings are  atoms  in your body.
The money they possess is  electrons.
When Bob and his siblings lose money, they become nasty  free radicals.
The independent market is  living tissue  in your body.
Ed is an antioxidant.

Free radicals are just atoms with a negative number of electrons. They attack healthy atoms by stealing electrons, thus creating more free radicals.
This chain reaction is called a 'free radical cascade' and it completely destroys living tissue in your body.

By destroying the living tissue in your body, you expose yourself to horrible things like premature aging and cancer. (1)
 
Antioxidants give electrons to free radicals which returns them to their non-aggressive state.
Antioxidants can also repair previously damaged living tissue. (2)

Back to COFFEE!

Coffee is the world’s biggest source of antioxidants! (3)

It’s not the number one antioxidant provider out there. But, in the western diet it’s our most frequently consumed source of fabulous, free-radical-fighting antioxidants such as polyphenols and hydrocinnamic acids. (4) (5)

Phew. There you have it. Coffee is probably the reason why everyone still guesses 17 when trying to guess my age. Thank you Java.

1. http://www.dermalinstitute.com/us/library/22_article_What_Is_A_Free_Radical_.html
2. http://www.healthchecksystems.com/antioxid.htm
3. https://authoritynutrition.com/coffee-worlds-biggest-source-of-antioxidants/
4. http://phenol-explorer.eu/contents/food/552
5. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21045839

Image credit:
https://pixabay.com/en/users/Christoph-47781/