Raised in a European household, I had stuff at home that seemed strange to my anglo friends, like the light green ceramic Melita coffee filter and pot. I loved the way the glass filter holder wedged into the tiny pot – making just enough for one person. When the coffee was made, you could remove the filter attachment and pop on the ceramic lid – so cute. To add to the coffee mystique, my mother would often heat up a bowl of milk for me, and add just a little coffee for flavour. There I was…hooked.
Coffee is my friend. Big pots of coffee kept me company through nights of studying. (Though nowadays a tanker full of coffee wouldn’t keep me awake all night.) Coffee is the excuse I use to meet friends. Coffee keeps me company while I work. Coffee gets me going before a run.
But there’s always the fear that all this coffee is unhealthy. I worry that one day the US Surgeon General will issue a warning that coffee consumption is a known cancer causer – Think of it: warnings on the side of coffee packages. Shunned coffee drinkers huddled outside their workplaces, sipping on their steaming cups of cancer-causing java.
These days, however, coffee is beginning to seem like a downright healthy choice. For example, a recent study found that coffee seems to lower the risk of stroke.
While I can sit back, for the moment, and not worry about any personal harm from coffee, I can’t ignore that coffee may not be so healthy for our planet. Shade-grown coffee seems to be the least environmentally harmful way to go. Here are a few links about coffee growing and its impact on the environment:
Cheap coffee threatens to wipe out wildlife and ruin farmers, The Independent, April 2003.
Green Coffee-Growing Practices Buffer Climate-change Impacts, Science Daily, Oct 10, 2008.
Coffee cultivation good for diversity in aggrarian settlements but not in forests, Stokholm University, Feb 20, 2009
