Last month I attended my 50th High School reunion. My more astute readers can do the math and see that I’m getting really old. It was sobering looking at the “In Memoriam” wall of photos and see all my classmates that have passed away. That coupled with my friend that almost died from a surfing accident a few weeks ago has got me thinking about my health. (update on friend; he came home from rehab two days ago, is working on getting his strength back and living with one eye)
I try to stay healthy by eating well and exercising every day. I have a green smoothie (1) every morning that I make myself in my Vitamix blender (highly recommended, its 20 years old and I use it every day!). I also have blueberries in Greek yogurt to give me some protein in the morning.
Lately I’ve been wondering if I should add coffee to my morning routine. I tasted it a few times over the years but never really acquired a taste for it. As a good Mormon, I never had it growing up, and it was never in our house, so even the smell seems foreign to me.
Just this last week yet another study was released showing the benefits of drinking coffee. You can read all about it in the link, but the TLDR is:
Telomeres, the protective end caps on DNA, naturally shorten over time and is often used as a sign of biological aging and longevity.
Scientists have found a link between three to four cups of coffee and having telomere lengths similar to people 5 years younger.
The findings disappeared when people drank more than 4 cups of coffee.
The study cautioned that drinking coffee full of sugar and cream negated the health benefits of the actual coffee. So I’m wondering if adding coffee to my morning routine might be actually healthy for me? Maybe live five years longer?
We have talked to death on this blog and others the totally inconsistencies in the Word of Wisdom, and how it has lost all credibility on being something that makes us healthy (hold my Red Bull).
What I’d like to ask is what do my readers drink as a breakfast beverage of choice? Have you added coffee to your menu, and if so how did you start? I’ve tried green tea but still no love for the flavor, although I found adding matcha powder to my smoothies was good, but expensive.
Give me some recommendations!
(1) For those that care, below is what I put in my green smoothie
Flax seeds, turmeric, carrots, celery, spinach or kale, apple, frozen banana, ginger, and then whatever else is getting old in the fridge. This week is frozen cranberries bought cheap after Thanksgiving. I make enough for 3 days.
Wheat & Tares 
Mass coffee consumption is also actively destroying the rain forests, impoverishing the farmlands of the developing world, and actively exasperating the global climate crisis. There are plenty of things to critique about LDS Word of Wisdom practices (e.g. most folks seem to skip over the “eat little meat” part; Crumbl Cookie and Sodalicious are far worse for you than Green Tea, etc.), but avoiding coffee consumption is not one of them. Sometimes it’s not about the health of your individual body that matters most, but the planetary one.
You don’t need coffee to be healthy. Beneficial polyphenols and other compounds found in coffee also occur in many other plants. Eating a wide variety of plants and making that the foundation of your diet (it sounds like you are already doing this at breakfast) should be the focus, not any one specific food.
You could try adding skim milk or 1% low fat milk with flavored protein powder to improve the taste of your coffee instead of sugar and cream. Costco has inexpensive and yummy vanilla and chocolate protein powder that has low sugar and fat content.
My first coffee was a cold brew because I’ve never enjoyed high temperature beverages (as opposed to hot beverages as defined by LDS tradition), including hot chocolate and herbal teas. My kids still tease me about that because they say it’s sort of like trying alcohol and going straight to whiskey.
BC
I started drinking coffee at work probably 8-9 years ago because I wanted to avoid caffeinated sodas but I needed the afternoon boost, a real advantage all my co-workers had that I didn’t. And I’d begun reading about the health benefits of coffee. I didn’t love the taste at first, but loved the energy, mental acuity, and mood lift that it provided. I could see why the majority of the world imbibes – it is an amazing beverage in that regard! As time went on, I began to enjoy the flavor and decided I liked espresso-based drinks best (but not Starbucks, which is over-roasted and needs too much sweetener to compensate).
A couple years ago, I bought an Italian fully-automated bean-to-cup espresso machine – and I love it! I look forward to the earning morning ritual of that first cup before exercise, then another one after breakfast to start the day, then a post-lunch treat to power through the afternoon. It may sound like a lot but the single espresso shots in each drink contain only 70-80mg of caffeine, so I’m well within the medical guidelines. Over time I’ve reduced the sweetener to a minimal amount, also with a little milk foam, because I really enjoy the rich coffee taste but still can’t do just plain espresso.
If you use a good quality bean/roast and have a good machine (or get your coffee at a reputable local coffee shop), that will make a difference in how palatable it will be at first. You probably will need a bit more sweetener and milk at first, but like other bitter foods you might not have been used to (e.g., brussels sprouts, kale, shallots), the flavor can really grow on you.
Those who drink coffee in its natural state describe it as having the taste of a dirty label from a can of creamed celery soup. That cannot be intended for human consumption.
Nonetheless, I issue my strongest possible condemnation to the inconsistencies of the Word of Wisdom. One must avoid tea, but will be just fine under the rules if one consumes bucketfuls of Irish nachos and Big Gulps. The proliferation of Dairy Queens and 7-Elevens on the Wasatch Front is a sign of utter hypocrisy.
As for meat eating, that provision was enforced when the Church was in the East. It was not until the members settled on the vast scrublands of the West that the restrictions on meat began to be ignored. For the ranchers could make a profit unless their prized bovines could be turned into burgers.
Modern society wallows in gluttony and excess. Sadly, Church members have exploited the loopholes of the Word of Wisdom to join the trend of a Swig fueled existence. Shameful.
Try black coffee for a week. Just get an 8 oz drip or an 8 oz Americano. After a week it will start to taste good. (The same way I used to think diet mtn dew tasted good. The same way you think Red Bull tastes good). Caffeine will MAKE it taste good. That’s just how it works.
Mushroom Chai
I hate the taste of coffee, but take it as a medication for ADHD. It has fewer nasty side effects than the crap doctors have my family members on. It gives me no energy boost, but lets my brain catch up with what it is doing. Most of the prescription drugs are stimulants and the most common can destroy the enamel on teeth as well as other side effects. One granddaughter feels sick on the medication her doc wants her to take, another g d was causing her to swing into rage. I figure why take a pill with side effects, when two cups of coffee stops my brain from short circuiting. So, I add sweetener, half & half, and enough spice to distract from the flavor. That is after buying the lighter roast and expensive non as bitter stuff to start off with. And no, even after years of drinking it, there has been no improvement in liking the taste of a label off of cream of celery soup.
But my daughter who also self medicates her ADHD with coffee loved the taste of coffee right off. Other people have told me that they developed the taste for it. I guess most people who never developed the taste for it just do not drink it.
I’ve been drinking coffee for about 10 years. It brings me a ridiculous amount of joy. I love the smell, the taste with a bit of cream or milk, and the ritual of preparing and drinking first thing in the morning. My only regret is that I didn’t start drinking it sooner. Don’t delay another minute! (And if you really don’t like it, black tea with milk is also lovely)
I grew up in a similarly decaffeinated Mormon household. I learned to associate the smell of coffee with airports and hotels and adventure in general. When I finally tried coffee I loved it, even black, even crappy hotel room coffee. Over time I switched from multiple energy drinks a day, to multiple cups of coffee a day, and eventually to one cup of coffee a day. I’ll admit that I go sometimes drink excessively sugared coffee (this morning being one of those times) for the sheer decadence of it.
My sister was recommended drinking Cacao, rather than coffee to help with concentration. Apparently this is made from the powder of minimally processed cacao beans, whereas cocoa has first been heavily processed or something. She loves it.
I got a bag of cacao powder, here in the UK, and it’s very fine and soft, and superior to the many cocoa powders I’ve tried, and makes a lovely drink, entirely unsweetened.
I have no idea whether it’s any better for the planet than coffee however.
Hedgehog, I use cacao powder in my protein smoothie I have at lunch some days. Makes it bitter, but if you like dark chocolate, you’ll like it.
I feel little allegiance to the WoW these days, but still do wow a good job of following it. (Old habits die hard.) I’ve never tried coffee. As a kid I found coffee flavored things disgusting. As an adult it is ok, but not something I seek out. I don’t drink tea, either.
Most of my family is literally addicted to caffeine in the form of Coke/Coke Zero/Pepsi. They have headaches when they don’t get their morning fix and probably spend thousands of dollars per year on it. I drink water. Strangely, I can’t detect any impact from consuming caffeine on the occasions that I do.
My son has ADHD and uses caffeine to help regulate that. He finds it better than prescription meds that come with other side effects.
I’ve spent about two-thirds of the past year outside of the United States. If you ever see a comment from me in the middle of the night in the US, that’s probably because I’m in a very different time zone. Like many men, I took advantage of my travels in faraway places to cheat on my wife for the first time—by sampling the various forms of coffee and tea popular in those places. As a more orthodox Mormon, my wife wouldn’t be happy to learn that I’ve “cheated” on her in this way, but I’m pretty comfortable with my decision.
I had my first taste of coffee this year. I’d read that most people who try coffee for the first time really dislike it, but that wasn’t the case for me. My first experience was with straight black, high-quality coffee, nothing added. While I didn’t immediately fall head over heels for it, I found the rich flavor quite agreeable. I’ve since had the opportunity to try a number of coffees in different countries, and I don’t think I’ve encountered any I truly disliked—some I thought were quite good. I’ve definitely acquired more of a taste for coffee over the past year.
Interestingly, I don’t notice any energy boost from caffeine at all. I mostly drank coffee in the mornings, but even when I had a cup late at night, I slept just fine. I don’t enjoy it enough to introduce it at home, where my wife would definitely not be too happy about it (though, to be fair, I think she’d get over it pretty quickly). Even if she didn’t object, I still don’t think I’d go to the trouble or expense of making coffee at home. If someone offers me coffee overseas, I’ll usually accept and enjoy it, but so far I don’t like it enough to buy or make it myself.
I’ve also sampled a number of teas during my travels this year, mostly in the Middle East and Central Asia, where tea culture is very strong. My experience with tea has been a little different. Even though I’ve tried a number of supposedly very high-quality teas, I’ve remained pretty neutral on the flavor. I honestly don’t understand the appeal. It tastes fine, but I would have been just as happy—or perhaps slightly happier—with a simple glass of water.
That’s been my experience with straight tea, with nothing added. Once you start adding milk, lemon, honey, sugar, and so on, those tea drinks can be quite good. Even then, though, I’m not sure the tea itself is enhancing the drink for me; I probably would have liked it just as much if they’d left the tea out entirely. Given the number of studies suggesting health benefits from tea, I could imagine incorporating it into my morning routine at home if I knew it wouldn’t disappoint my wife. I already do smoothies in the morning with a focus on health benefits over great taste, so I could imagine drinking a cup of tea each day—even if I remained neutral about the flavor—purely for that reason.
I will say that it’s been nice to simply accept a cup of coffee or tea when it’s offered in countries where those cultures are strong. In some of these places, sitting down to drink coffee or tea with someone is a simple yet important way people connect. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world to refuse and explain that I belong to a religion that bans those drinks, but I suspect I would have missed out on some meaningful connections. I served a mission in a country with a strong tea culture, where people offered me tea daily, and I still remember how awkward it could be at times to decline.
I do chuckle to myself about how much my wife loves tiramisu. I think she knows it contains coffee and somehow rationalizes her enjoyment of it—but I’m honestly not 100% sure she knows. I don’t want to ruin it for her by pointing out that one of her favorite desserts technically violates the Word of Wisdom. Besides, I also enjoy a good tiramisu, and I suspect my wife might object to my eating it if she were to learn that it contains coffee.
Unless we are willing to stop planting amber waves of grain, putting cattle in feed lots, indeed all agriculture, planetary degradation will continue. All that moaning and groaning is performative. The solution is getting rid of humans, you know the ones who dumped tons of lead into the atmosphere, the ones who dumped so much poison into a river that it actually caught fire, the ones who want to believe that human caused global climate change will go away if we don’t track it. But I don’t advocate that.
As for me, one cup of delicious coffee every morning. A latte made with oat milk. No sweetener.
I lived in Malaysia for a couple of years and attended an LDS branch on a regular basis. One Sunday the sacrament meeting talk with about The Word of Wisdom. The knowledgeable speaker spoke about the 18 different teas available in the area and stressed only 5 of them (mentioned by name) were against the Word of Wisdom. It wasn’t clear to me as to what distinguished “good” tea from the “bad WoW tea”. But it was an interesting talk and one I’ll likely not hear in the USA.
“Unless we are willing to stop planting amber waves of grain, putting cattle in feed lots, indeed all agriculture, planetary degradation will continue. All that moaning and groaning is performative. The solution is getting rid of humans, you know the ones who dumped tons of lead into the atmosphere, the ones who dumped so much poison into a river that it actually caught fire, the ones who want to believe that human caused global climate change will go away if we don’t track it. But I don’t advocate that.”
I came to also address comment #1 but this comment is worded so succinctly and brilliantly I’ll instead give it a hardy hear hear! I mean, cows literally put off methane and the chicken consumption business videos I’ve watched make me ill but sure let’s blame the coffee as if it cannot possibly be purchased/consumed sustainably similar to the Christmas tree market.
If you were raised Mormon in America like I was you probably have a sweet tooth. So it’s fine to perhaps start the coffee journey with some sweetness added. But the goal is to eventually move away the sweet to appreciate the actual coffee. For me, any cold brew/nitro cold brew with a little bit of flavored creamer added for smoothness/variety is my beverage of choice. Most coffee places like Starbucks show you the calorie count so you can better understand if you are actually purchasing a cup of joe vs a milkshake. Most days I make my own coffee but the days I walk to the coffee shop are fun. It was like discovering an entire community I didn’t know as a Mormon. It’s fun being somewhat a regular and getting to know the owners and patrons who also walk from our neighborhood. And an espresso in a French or Italian cafe is always a good time.
I don’t get a huge caffeine boost from coffee either but I have one cup each morning then it’s onto water the rest of the day. Coffee is a diuretic and an appetite suppressor so since I do intermediate fasting permanently, that one cup of coffee is my morning happy drink that fills me until lunch time.
But again to each their own. I have no skin in the coffee game.
My breakfast drink of choice is White Tea. Loose Leaf if possible but if not then bagged tea.
My descent into this breach of Word Of Wisdom orthodoxy is due to a comment years ago from this blog. So yes. One of you is to blame. Some one mentioned off hand that White Tea helped with arthritis. And I was newly diagnosed arthritis in about every joint in both hands and honestly a bit ticked off at God for that since I needed my hands for both making a living and my tenuous link to church attendance (i played piano and organ) and was losing my ability to do all of that from pain and mobility restrictions.
So I was wiling to try anything as nothing my doctor suggested was much better than limited pain management as I got gradually worse.
I now drink tea. Several cups a day, starting when I wake up and drank gradually over the day. Technically warm as I have never developed the ability to drink freshly boiled water without burning my mouth. I think the first time I drank white tea I noticed a slight warming skin flush but didn’t really notice anything else of a caffeine burst. I drink my tea straight. No sugar no cream and the best quality leaf I can afford purchased through companies that pay their workers living wages and practice environmental stewardship.
For anyone curious my hands currently have full mobility, almost full strength and less pain than when I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis ten years ago.
I am grateful never to have tried Swig, Sodalicious or any of the other terrible new products and trends that have come out of Morridor since I graduated from BYU over 15 years ago. I thought Cafe Rio was bad enough when it came out of Utah when I was there and taking over local food culture.
I will still have a root beer or cream soda on occasion to enjoy. Dr. Pepper is great too and is better overseas even. Caffeinated drinks are fine. It’s just that soda in general is as terrible to your health as anything.
When I need caffeine boost at work, maybe once a week, or twice if I get headaches, I just take a 100mg pill and it works well. Two if it is really bad.
God bless you all on your journey.
Green tea is my go-to mild stimulant beverage at work. I enjoy one in the late morning, when I need a boost to get me past the first energy lull of the day, or in the early afternoon, when I need a little help getting over the post-lunchtime energy slump. I like the ritual of it as much as the drink itself. A typical cup of green tea has about half the caffeine as coffee, and that’s enough for me (too much caffeine at once makes me jittery). Green tea has well-studied health benefits, and at least for me, it has mild antidepressant properties that keep me from having to go on harsh medications which often come with negative side effects. I drink the flavored kind (pomegranate or lemon) as it is more palatable than plain green tea, and if available I might add a little fruit juice for flavor. Most Americans don’t care for green tea, I found, because they don’t prepare it right; it should be steeped at 175degF maximum, not a full boil like with herbal teas, otherwise you boil the life out of it and make it bitter. Despite the WoW, I figured a drink with proven health benefits, enjoyed by billions of Asian people every day for thousands of years couldn’t be as bad as I’ve been raised to believe. As much as I like my current bishop, I don’t tell him about my green tea ritual because I don’t think he is capable of thinking with enough nuance to respect my reasons. That, and it’s none of his business.
My relationship with coffee is a little different. I grew up with it being absolutely prohibited, and was tacitly taught to look down on those who habitually drank it. Meanwhile my otherwise-TBM mom had a taste for coffee-flavored ice cream; her favorite is Jamoca Almond Fudge from Baskin Robbins, which she first discovered as an undergrad at BYU in the late 1960s, and represented the maximum extent of her college-age “rebellion”, and she loves it to this day. Our family all kind of knew it contained real coffee, but we never said so out loud because the rest of us enjoyed it too when a tub of it occassionally appeared in our freezer. Also, my mom had a chocolate cake recipe that called for a cup of brewed coffee to be added to the batter, which she kept secret. She got a twisted satisfaction from serving that cake at Church functions, where she knew super-devout TBMs would eat it and enjoy it, even compliment her on it. For that reason, we always had a small jar of Folger’s instant coffee in the cupboard, which was also never really talked about, but understood to be for baking cakes only. Later I learned that it’s well-known among bakers that adding a coffee product (such as espresso powder) to a recipe like chocolate cake or brownies enhances the chocolatey flavor. I like the coffee/chocolate flavor combination very much, but I haven’t really given straight black coffee a chance yet, and not sure if I want to.
My TBM wife, ironically, has a taste for coffee, and is known to drink it on rare occasions “for medicinal purposes”. She grew up in rural southern Utah surrounded by Jack Mormon farmers and ranchers who drank coffee openly, including her grandmother who lovingly shared a few sips when my wife was a curious kid.
All of these experiences and more have reinforced to me that the WoW–one of the most well-known markers of Mormon identity–is malleable, negotiable, open to wide interpretation, and is virtually unenforceable.
My beverage of choice is Crio Bru. I love it so much. I drink it with a french press and add just a tiny bit of Fairlife whole milk (no sweetener). My TBM mom introduced it to me. My mom sounds almost exactly like the woman Jack Hughes describes above (someone who always loved coffee-flavored anything; she always loved Jamoca shakes).
My mom most recently served as RS president in Utah County and is very active. She is married to a current temple sealer and former stake president, whose sister is also a current (and beloved) general authority. I think Crio Bru is her Mormon work-around for coffee; I am sure if she were not temple-worthy LDS she would be drinking coffee.
For those who don’t know, Crio Bru is roasted, ground, and brewed like coffee. Crio Bru brewed cacao has the flavor and aroma of unsweetened, pure dark chocolate. Instead of coffee bean grounds, it’s 100% pure ground cacao. But it also doesn’t have the caffeine of coffee. There probably aren’t enough studies on something as niche as Crio Bru, but I’m quite certain it is healthier than coffee. Cacao is rich in polyphenols, especially flavanols, so it has high antioxidant appeal. It contains theobromine, a mild stimulant that can improve alertness and mood without the jitters of caffeine.
I honestly doubt coffee is that healthy. I am certain the health benefits of coffee consumption are confounded by other positive health behaviors that coffee drinkers have. Growing up, my best friend was the son of Dr. Larry Tucker, who ran the YBFit program at BYU. Dr. Tucker did a lot of research on caffeine and telomeres. Interestingly enough, I saw his research quoted by a respectable sports writer (Alex Hutchinson), where he discussed the protective benefits of caffeine from black coffee versus the harmful effects of added caffeine in sports drinks and supplements. I was always impressed by the academic integrity of Dr. Tucker (BYU professor) to tout the pro-health benefits of coffee consumption even though this didn’t completely comport with the Word of Wisdom’s no-coffee stance.
I suspect that the biggest health benefit of coffee consumption is actually what it displaces. A lot of breakfast foods in the U.S. are processed and high in refined carbohydrates. Starbucks isn’t coffee; it’s a milk/sugar drink. My advice to Bishop Bill is not to adopt coffee for purely health benefits, because your current morning routine of a green smoothie is likely healthier already. But for someone else who is eating a muffin or a Pop-Tart, then perhaps swapping for black coffee is better. If you are looking for health benefits, you must exercise (strength training and interval cardio training).
As far as I know, there has only been ONE RCT that shows causation (not just correlation) between exercise and increased length of life. Almost all dietary studies are correlation, so difficult to disentangle confounding or independent variables.
https://www.outsideonline.com/health/wellness/exercise-colon-cancer-longevity/
I’ve never tried coffee (though I do enjoy foods containing coffee flavors), but have had green tea on occasion, and drink some beverages that contain tea at times. I expect I wouldn’t feel a strong effect from coffee because I’ve concluded from my limited consumption of caffeinated sodas that I’m likely a fast metabolizer of caffeine. What I do consume most regularly is cacao brewed in the style of coffee (the most well known brand is Crio Bru). A family member introduced it to me maybe 15 years ago and I’ve been drinking it regularly ever since, and have a lot of coffee making gadgets that I use for brewed cacao drinks.
I drink Pero, it’s a roasted chicory, barley and rye drink. You can also find similar drinks called Roma or Caffix. My husband teases me that I’m drinking a mug of dirt, but I quite enjoy it. I add a spoonful of cacao powder, brown Swerve and a bit of cream. I grew up on Pero because my mom would buy it at the health food store when she had to give up coffee after she converted before I was born. I’m not adverse to drinking coffee, I really like it too, but Pero is my preferred drink. This thread got me searching online, and I think I need to try Postum. It sounds similar to the others I mentioned but it’s roasted wheat and molasses, sounds delicious!
Jack Hughes, your recommended temperature for steeping green tea was incredibly startling, until I saw it was Fahrenheit. We grow up using Celsius (boiling point of water 100C) in the UK. A mere 80 degrees.. that’s okay then.
@Ghostsmom My Jamoca-shake loving Mom also drank Pero growing up! I probably need to try both Pero and Postum again. Since I quite enjoy Crio Bru, I’m sure I would like both of those.
Loose leaf black tea, preferably Irish Breakfast. Splash of milk. If I’m feeling crazy, one demerara sugar cube.