Hello folks!
This topic is something I have to talk about since we are all concerned about our health as well as our prosperity in terms of income. I’ll like to say for the purpose of clarity, this post has nothing against manufacturers or consumers of any product. It is strictly informational and that’s it.
What is cancer?
In a simple language, cancer is an abnormal cell growth that can spread to other parts of the body leading to serious conditions and mostly death. A cell is that functional part of the body that determines a lot of activities towards the tissue then organs such as heart, lungs etc. in others words cells are like the smaller units that form the bigger body compartments. So if anything goes wrong at the cellular level i.e cell metabolism, then the whole bigger compartment is in trouble. Cells are the living part of the body that grows and they can die, hence that means something keeps them alive. In this case, the food we eat is one of the major sources where cells are depending on for growth. We will come back to this later.
What’s the big deal about Coffee?
CNN
To some people, coffee is a religion! Take that from me. Ask an average American, there is this popular quote
The British may have invented “Tea Time” but America invented the “Coffee Break”.
However, today is not a time for history about coffee so I just skip that historical part of it from this write up. Coffee is a brewed drink taken in place of tea by some people. It is prepared from roasted coffee beans, it tastes sweet and with fruity flavor. In a nutshell, coffee is a kind of beverage.
However, there has been some concern about the presence of a certain chemical present in coffee that has been flagged as being a predisposing to cancer. Acrylamide is the name of the chemical and it is the reason for this post.
What is Acrylamide?
It is a chemical used primarily to make substances called polyacrylamide and acrylamide copolymers that are of industrial significance such as the production of plastics, dyes, and paper. They are also found as part of food substance and adhesives. Acrylamide is naturally found in food substances that have been heated to a high temperature in the presence of some reducing sugars.
It has been on record that acrylamide is carcinogenic to humans i.e. it has the ability to alter the cell metabolic activities which can consequently lead to malfunctioning of the cells and this is what’s causes cancer.
Studies carried out on rodents National Toxicology Programhave established the association between cancer and acrylamide, while the result showed the high risk of acrylamide in the initiation of cancer, it has also been variously argued that human metabolism is quite different from that of rodents hence such studies cannot determine the effect in human. Whether these arguments are true or not, one thing that is clearly known is that acrylamide is carcinogenic and it is present in a certain amount in coffee.
javablendcoffee
Coffee roasters are aware of this because when coffee beans have roasted the presence of reducing sugars and the moistures facilitate the desirable browning process and thus creates some acrylamide. Business owners are out to make profit so it is impossible to stop them from selling or roasting coffee because it gives that taste and smell more so that coffee on its own is a tradition in places like America, in fact, it is so addictive more than cocaine or heroin
Way forward
It seems we are not getting near to stopping the presence of acrylamide from appearing in coffee since it’s a natural process. Acrylamide appears in coffee the moment it gets roasted. Now it is known that the longer time it takes to get roasted the less the concentration of acrylamide in it, so it is advised that people should take a dark coffee instead of the lighter one. This is a reasonable thing to do and consumers should watch out for the brand with the lowest acrylamide.
Just like I said at the beginning of my post,
we are all concerned about our health as well as our prosperity in terms of income
it is imperative for us to do the right thing.
About the author
Deliniz is a Lecturer at the University of Lagos, Nigeria a Pharmaceutical Microbiologist by profession and also a creative thinker
You can visit my website https://infomedicament.info
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