July 14, 2010

We know that single serve coffee has changed our lives, but has it changed it enough to make us a feel motivated to become an astronaut or scientist? According to Astronaut Leroy Chiao a coffee maker was just the thing that got him through school, and changed his life putting him on the track for space.
I had a few machines before, but the game changer was a Salton Three-for-All, that I acquired back in 1984. In addition to regular coffee, it could also brew espresso, and given a little talent for controlling the limited amount of steam it generated, one could also make a cappuccino of sorts. This machine served my roommates and me well during my graduate student days.
So - perhaps we all need to look at that single serve coffee maker in our lives, and realize it's probably doing more than just making us caffeinated. It might just motivate us to the moon and back.
Via Gizmodo and learn more about Leroy Chiao here.
July 7, 2010

[Jeremy Brooks]
We love drinking single serve coffee, and according to a new metastudy, coffee might help lower the risk of head and neck cancer. The study, conducted by Mia Hashibe of the University of Utah, cross-referenced data from nine studies of head and neck cancers with the coffee-consumption patterns of subjects in the studies. The results:
"Her analysis showed that people who drank more than four cups of coffee a day had a 39% decreased risk of cancers of the oral cavity and pharynx combined, compared with those who didn't drink coffee.
The study doesn't point to a specific ingredient in coffee as being helpful, but hey it's coffee that's making the difference so at least it's not tea. It's just nice to know there may be an extra benefit to that head and neck of yours because of your single cup coffee consumption as long as you drink four cups of single cup coffee that is.
Via The Consumerist at Guardian.co.uk
May 18, 2009

That's right - coffee is good for you, but remember coffee is not caffeine, and caffeine is part of coffee. Oh so confusing, but this really amazing article points out the health benefits of coffee from reducing risk for Type 2 diabetes, cirrhosis, high blood pressure, and other medical issues. One thing to note - the article recommends drinking filtered coffee, and not coffee made in a french press method. Why? Filtered coffee, which most Americans drink, is much better because the paper filters catch a substance called cafestol, which boosts "bad" cholesterol (LDL).
...Twenty studies worldwide show that coffee, both regular and decaf, lowers the risk for Type 2 diabetes, in some studies by as much as 50 percent. Researchers say that is probably because chlorogenic acid, one of the many ingredients in coffee, slows uptake of glucose (sugar) from the intestines. (Excess sugar in the blood is a hallmark of diabetes.) Chlorogenic acid may also stimulate GLP-1, a chemical that boosts insulin, the hormone that escorts sugar from the blood into cells. Yet another ingredient, trigonelline, a precursor to vitamin B-3, may also help slow glucose absorption.
Full read at Good to the last drop
March 16, 2009

According to Time, Caffeine is #6 on the list of top 10 food trends for this year - especially caffeinated foods. We love caffeine in our single serve coffee, but we're not sure we need more of it from other sources throughout the day. But if you do really want to eat some caffeine, there are now caffeinated sunflower seeds, potato chips and candies.
At TIME
May 7, 2008

It's really no secret the entire staff here at Single Serve Coffee often through periods of bad weather, long nights, and tired mornings look to get optimally wired with caffeine. Sometimes we look to shots of Nespresso, or to the wilds of making a perfect latte with our Lavazza Blue. Other times, we go for the extra bold K Cups praying there's going to be enough caffeine for us to ingest and hopefully make it's way to our veins so we can even stay awake in those late afternoon hours.
We just found an article at Lifehacker stating caffeine may increase the speed with which you work, may decrease attentional lapses, and may even benefit recall-- but is less likely to benefit more complex cognitive functions. Bummer. We always were under the impression that if taken properly, any single serve coffee we produce is going to help and not hurt our ability to recover.
What we learned from the article at Developing Intelligence is that small frequent doses, and not large cups of mixed coffee/caffeine substances. Also, if you count on caffeine to get you through your day, you may want to really space it out and also reduce the amount you consume to feel the benefits. There's also a bunch of recommendations on other caffeine rich items you can consumer along with your single serve coffee.
Read
July 10, 2007
We read just about everything you can find on caffeine and coffee here at Single Serve Coffee. We also read what other people write about the things we've written. Here are some juicy links on caffeine and coffee.