Replace it with a juice and read this article by Frederic Patenaude (my mom’s favorite raw foodie). If it doesn’t make you stop, hopefully it will make you think.

Article below from: http://www.alivefoods.com/coffee.html

“The effects of caffeine on the body are well researched, but you never hear about it in your newspaper. You never hear about it anywhere because the whole nation, if not the whole world, is addicted to caffeine. Doctors, journalists, scientists, writers, everyone drinks coffee. Those whose job is to inform us are usually heavy coffee drinkers. And few of them ever rise up to speak against this popular drug. But one did, his name is Stephen Cherniske, and he’s a scientist who spent 10 years of his life researching the effects of caffeine on the body and compiling them in a shocking document, ‘Caffeine Blues.’”

“On the first page of this book we can read: ‘Caffeine can’t provide energy, only chemical stimulation and induced emergency state that can lead to irritability, mood swings, and panic attacks. Caffeine’s ultimate mood effect can be letdown, which can lead to depression and chronic fatigue. Caffeine gives the illusion of heightened alertness by dilating pupils, quickening heart rate, and raising blood pressure. In fact, caffeine does not increase overall mental activity.’”

“What I quickly learned was that everyone has been snowed – researchers, doctors, journalists, and especially the public. The deception has been well coordinated by an industry whose goal is quite simple: to get as much caffeine into our bodies as possible. The caffeine industry knows caffeine saps your natural sense of vitality, leaving you dependent on their products to get through the day. They know that you actually crave their products and, more importantly, that you suffer when you don’t consume them. “It’s a marketing dream, and it’s legal. No wonder more and more companies are jumping on the caffeine bandwagon, churning out products from specialized coffees and teas to ‘herbal’ caffeinated energy pills, caffeinelaced fruit beverages, ’supercharged’ soft drinks, caffeinated beer, and even caffeinated bottled water.” (Caffeine Blues, page 4)

“The body has absolutely no use for it as it is a danger to its living function. It must detoxify it through the liver and reject it with great effort. The ’stimulation’ we feel after drinking coffee is nothing more than the expended effort in eliminating this poison. The Law of Excitation Herbert Shelton clearly explained the delusion of stimulation in his classic book, ‘Orthobionomics.’ ‘Whenever any irritating substance or influence is brought to bear upon the living organism this occasions vital resistance and excitation manifested by increased and impaired action, which, always necessarily diminishes the power of action and does so in precisely the degree to which it accelerates action; the increased action is caused by the extra expenditure of vital power called out, not supplied, by the compulsory process, and therefore the available supply of power is diminished by this amount…’ ‘Under all circumstances, vitality or energy of any character whatever is invariably manifested or noticed by us, as energy, in its expenditure, never in its accumulation.’ In other words, what appears to give us energy is draining our energies. The stimulation people get from drinking coffee is an expenditure of vital forces, not real energy which can only come from rest.”

“Cherniske who well understands this, wrote: ‘Caffeine does not provide energy – only chemical stimulation. The perceived energy comes from the body’s struggle to adapt to increased blood levels of stress hormones… Using coffee for mood enhancement is a short-term blessing and a long-term curse. While the initial adrenal stimulation may provide a transient anti-fatigue ‘lift,’ caffeine’s ultimate mood effect is a letdown, either subtle or profound. Advertisers and coffee ‘institutes’ have kept this side of caffeine from public view… ‘While caffeine users may feel more alert, the experience is simply one of increased sensory and motor activity (dilated pupils, increased heart rate, and higher blood pressure). The quality of thought and recall is improved no more than the quality of music is improved when played at a higher volume or speed.’ The energy we get from caffeine is similar to the ‘energy’ a horse gets when whipped. It is not energy gained but power spent responding to an injury.”

“Coffee is not a food, it is not a drink – it’s a poison. It’s a “mild” drug containing a whole array of toxic substances. In addition to caffeine, coffee contains hundreds of volatile substances including more than 200 acids. These the body must reject by a great expense of energy, which is the strange stimulation perceived as “energy.” ‘Caffeine is a biological poison used by plants as a pesticide. The caffeine gives seeds and leaves a bitter taste, which discourages their consumption by insects and animals. If predators persist in eating a caffeine-containing plant, the caffeine can cause central nervous system disruptions and even lethal side effects. Most pests soon learn to leave the plant alone.’ (Caffeine Blues, page 17) But humans have fooled their instincts and tastes bud and transformed coffee into a drinkable beverage, often mixed with milk and sugar. The same holds true for chocolate. No one would ever think of eating cocoa beans, because of their horrible taste. So we mix it with sugar and fat and call it chocolate. But our sense of taste was right in detecting that poison – used by the plant as a pesticide to repel insects.”

Get more facts in the link above! This is interesting stuff.

(Image from Intoxicoligsts.files.wordpress.com)