Caffeine or No Caffeine?

There are a whole lot of misconceptions about caffeine.  It's found naturally in many of your everyday favorites, including coffee, tea, and chocolate.  Caffeine is also added to all sorts of soft drinks, energy drinks, medicines, and more.  Chances are quite high that caffeine is a part of your diet, one way or another.  Yet there's so much controversy behind it; why? Over the years, studies have come out stating that caffeine raises blood pressure, can potentially cause cancer and increase chances of coronary heart disease, and other terrible things.  Scary, right?  Until you realize that there have been plenty of other studies that say caffeine lowers blood pressure, protects against cancer, and doesn't have anything to do with heart disease.  So who are you supposed to believe? Let's get back to basics: caffeine is a stimulant that acts on the central nervous system.  It tells your brain to release adrenaline, helping you become more alert and active.  This is good for you...so long as you don't go overboard with it.  As with almost anything, caffeine is good in moderation.  Don't use it as a substitute for sleep (we're talking about you, college students!).  No matter how much you love coffee, don't drink 20 cups a day.  And, perhaps most importantly, pregnant women should limit their caffeine intake; while you might feel fine, your baby can't handle that much caffeine.  Pregnant women should stick to about a cup of coffee a day. Here are a few other tips about your caffeine intake:

• Drink Arabica coffee; it has half the caffeine that robusta beans have.  CoffeeAM only sells 100% Arabica coffee beans, despite the fact that robusta is much more common.
• A cup of Arabica coffee has about 75mg of caffeine.
• Dark-roasted coffees have less caffeine than their lighter counterparts.
• Decaf coffees contain almost no caffeine; they're perfect if you're trying to avoid caffeine!

Enjoy!