I am obsessed with coffee. I drink many, many cups a day, interrupted only by many, many cups of hot tea. Basically I love warm beverages. I eat coffee ice cream. My favorite dessert is tira misu. My favorite candy is Coffee Nips. I wish I had invested in Starbucks stock.
I grew up drinking coffee. Luckily my mom was perfectly capable of thinking for herself and saw no reason to believe “coffee stunts kids’ growth.” When I think about my mom, I think about us talking over our coffee cups at the kitchen table after school. To this day, when I hear the sound of a teaspoon tapping the inside of a coffee cup, I think about my mom. She lives in another city, and that sound brings a wave of missing her every time.
My kids have also grown up drinking coffee. Of course, they drink those sweet iced coffees and frappaccinos, which I kind of can’t stand, though I will drink them in July. (I shock waiters ordering hot coffee in July all the time; they always have to make a fresh pot.) They came by their love of coffee honestly, since they basically main-lined it in utero.
So imagine my joy this week when I read that coffee seems to protect against Parkinson’s disease, type 2 diabetes, and liver cancer. It might even reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s and other dementias. The only possible problem still hanging out there is elevated cholesterol. But drink decaf and no problem!
With my coffee habit, I’ll never die!
Of course, what I drink is almost not coffee. When I go to Starbucks, I order a caramel latte, skim milk, sugarless syrup, decaf. Once a barrista called out, “I have a ‘why-bother’ caramel latte for Lisa.”
Well, apparently I bother for the health benefits. So there.
alisaacarter
Alisa A. Carter 