I’ve been thinking a lot about coffee lately and drinking a lot of coffee lately.
I always grind up my own coffee beans as I KNOW that instant and ground coffee affects me. Not always, but sometimes I get a mild adverse reaction. Sometimes migraines. If it’s just pure coffee I’m OK.
So imagine my horror when I read an article shared with me by Fiona who read my recent blog about itchy palms on Facebook which touches briefly on coffee. The article, “The Surprising Ingredients in Your Coffee” in Good Housekeeping has some startling facts about filter coffee and what’s really in it.
Sticks?
What the?
Yeah you heard me.
There could be wheat, soya, barley, rye and even corn in your filter coffee.
Why?
The article was based on a press release about the state of the coffee industry, “Keeping filler ingredients out of your cup of coffee”
The reason this is done is because coffee harvests are struggling and the demand for more and more coffee is driving the less scrupulous coffee suppliers to use these cheaper ingredients as ‘fillers’ to make the coffee go further.
“In 2012, a study from the U.K.’s Royal Botanic Gardens and the Environment stated that 70 percent of the world’s coffee supply might disappear by 2080 because of conditions caused by climate change. But shortages due to more immediate issues already are occurring. The coffee-rich country of Brazil typically produces 55 million bags of coffee each year. But according to some reports, the projected amount for 2014 will likely only reach 45 million bags after this January’s extensive drought. That’s about 42 billion fewer cups of coffee for this year.”
WOW!
Not all filter and ground coffee will be affected but some could and the link above talks about a test being developed to check for these stray unwanted ingredients that are creeping into one of our countries favourite hot beverages.
So if you are allergic to wheat, corn, barley, rye or soya then you might want to think twice before you grab a filter coffee. How do you know what else has been ground in with the beans?
How is this even possible? Anyone with a wheat, soya barley or corn allergy ever noticed issues with ground coffee? Coeliacs beware – there could be gluten in your filter coffee!
I’m generally shocked by this. Explains why some coffee messes with me…
This isn’t unusual, sadly, Ruth. Ages ago, researchers testing gluten cross-reactive foods thought that coffee was one of them because they found the same reactions to it. However, when they re-tested a while later, they found that it was actually cross-contamination with various things especially corn. Many of my readers react to coffee for that reason alone. Grinding your own beans seems to be OK – I have found the Cafe Nero ones funnily enough are OK for me but if I try to have a coffee in there, i react. Apparently, this is because of the water filter they use in the cafes which contains – wait for it – corn in the charcoal! I buy their beans and take my own in!
Is nothing safe? This really shocked me. With a wheat and soya allergy it could be the reason for many of my milder unexplained reactions, being a coffee lover. But I always try to buy beans and grind myself. Not always easy to get hold of beans that are not already ground though.