Natural Caffeine Advantages
It seems like an oxymoron at first. Energy drinks are usually laced with artificially produced caffeine, High Fructose Corn Syrup, synthetic Taurine (ref: Dangers of Taurine with Caffeine) and of course, for marketing effect artificially produced vitamins. How can any of this be good for you. It isn’t.
More and more people that consume the traditional energy drink regularly or even daily have already or are destined to eventually suffer from stomach, kidney, liver or heart problems. Not to mention the effects these chemical cocktails can have on one’s teeth (premature enamel degradation) or skin (dehydration related blotching).
This generation is graduating into adulthood without the previous generations’ coffee addiction, but with a more potent daily stimulant: the energy drink. Many spend hours surfing the net or watching TV, instead of playing sports, which compounds the problem with soft drinks, increasing the incidence of diabetes and other diet-related diseases.
Why should we worry about this new breed of stimulants? One could say that a cup or two of coffee every day has never caused serious health effects. This is because coffee gets its buzz from natural coffee beans. Not from the chemical laboratories that produce synthetic caffeine.
Like most natural substances, the caffeine in the coffee beans cannot easily be separated as a distinct molecular structure. It comes with many other elements, including fibrous membranes, which actually reduce the speed of absorption of the active caffeine.
With these new drinks, the caffeine is produced in a laboratory, usually in Eastern Europe or Asia. This chemical has one big plus over natural caffeine: it is extremely powerful, perhaps too much so. All of the natural elements that come within the coffee beans or Guarana seeds or tea leaves are eliminated in factory produced caffeine. Synthetic caffeine is also easier to produce than natural caffeine, another advantage from the producer’s point of view. Unfortunately, for us consumers, this potent and purely chemical caffeine shot is absorbed into our circulatory system as soon as it hits the first part of the intestine.
Natural products like the actual coffee from coffee beans, Guarana seeds or tea leaves, are absorbed more gradually by the body. They are also not as concentrated and therefore less toxic than the chemical caffeine in most energy drinks. Here are some advantages of natural caffeine (whether it be in coffee, tea or Guarana). Firstly, the increased mental alertness is longer. Instead of the instant high you get from most energy drinks and then the subsequent downfall, you get a sustained feeling of mental clarity for a few hours and the effect eventually wears off more naturally and gradually.
Secondly, continuous exposure to synthetic caffeine over saturates our nervous system. If this excessive exposure continues, our nerves go haywire. This is Mother Nature’s way of telling us to be careful. Our hands may quiver, nervous habits develop; our body starts to show signs of stress not different from those related to anxiety or depression. Not recommended for anyone.
With guaranine or tea or natural coffee beans, our circulatory and elimination systems can easily eliminate the excess quantities of caffeine without taxing the nervous system. The additional organic matters buffer and slow down the absorption enough so that the body and deal with the toxicity. But even with natural stimulants, they must be used carefully and not in excessive amounts. It is best to stick with one portion a day of coffee or one 12 oz can of an organic energy drink or a serving of warm or cold tea.
Organic coffee doesn’t have any of the artificial additives found in industrial agricultural operations. Whole Foods Markets has many of these types of coffees.
Two energy drinks that I recommend are GURU Energy Drinks from Canada and Syzmo from the US. They are both organic, come with exclusively natural caffeine from Guarana and/or coffee. The big plus for GURU is their taste (tastes great) and the fact it doesn’t have a random cocktail of added vitamins. Syzmo is excellent quality but much more expensive, and the taste needs getting used to. One of the GURU products is sweetened with Stevia (GURU Lite), which is an added bonus (see my post on Benefits of Stevia: (ref: Stevia wins over Chemicals).
With regards to teas; cold, brewed teas will provide the best combination of anti-oxidants and natural caffeine. A brand I like is ITOEN, from Japan. Itoen Teas seems to be the purest, unsweetened product out there. The Zen taste grows on you after a couple of bottles. See their website at: Itoen Teas. Another cool brand is the US based Honest Tea, but they recently sold out to Coke and now it seems they’re selling out to the sweeter American taste buds.