Replacement coffee

Commercial farmers of perennial crops have an inherent problem.

The cheapest, most efficient, and most cost-effective method of growing something where the roots (or the entire plant) persists from year to year -- which includes fruits, nuts, and tropical products like coffee and cacao -- is to plant a large quantity of a single variety of plant.  The difficulty is that the plants are therefore closely related genetically, if they're not out-and-out clones, and susceptible to the same pests and diseases.  It's what did in the Irish potato farmers during the 1840s and 1850s; late blight (Phytophthora infestans) wiped out the single-variety potato crop five years running, resulting in the Great Famine in which a million people starved to death and another two million left Ireland for good, one of the largest exoduses from a single country in the history of humanity.

This is increasingly the situation being faced by the people who raise bananas.  Virtually all the bananas produced commercially are a single variety -- the Cavendish banana -- all descended from root cuttings of a plant from Mauritius that was in the greenhouse of the Duke of Devonshire.  Those cuttings were sent first to Samoa and other islands in the South Pacific, and thereafter to the Canary Islands, West Africa, and South and Central America, where the variety was found to be resistant to a fungal infection called Panama disease that had wiped out the previous main cultivar ("Gros Michel"). 

The problem is -- as we're seeing from COVID-19 -- pathogens have a way of staying one step ahead of us, and now there's a strain of Panama disease that kills Cavendish bananas.  Unfortunately for those of us who, like myself, love bananas, there is no obvious next strain to turn to.

The other plant in a similarly dire situation is -- and I hate to bring this up -- cacao.  Chocolate producers are fighting an increasingly long list of pests and diseases that target cacao plants, which are notoriously fragile and easy to kill.  As with banana growers, there is no good option for cacao farmers other than to fight the pathogens and insects when they show up and hope for the best.

Hearteningly, the situation is a little better with another of the world's most beloved crops, which is coffee.  

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Julius Schorzman, A small cup of coffee, CC BY-SA 2.0]

In fact, this is the reason why the topic comes up; an article in Nature a couple of weeks ago looks at a different species of coffee (Coffea liberica) that shows real promise in avoiding some of the difficulties of growing the two main varieties, arabica (Coffea arabica) and robusta (Coffea canephora), which make up (respectively) about 55% and 45% of the commercial coffee in production.  The plants have better heat and humidity tolerance, and good resistance to coffee leaf rust and coffee wilt disease.  Liberica coffee (often called "excelsa" in the trade) was initially discounted because of the quality of coffee it produced, but that seems to be because the larger seeds have to be processed a little differently or they lose a lot of their flavor.  Dealt with correctly, liberica coffee has (according to the writers):

...a mild, smooth, pleasant-flavoured coffee of low to medium acidity and low bitterness, as per historical accounts.  Tasting notes include cocoa nibs, peanut butter, dried fruits, Demerara sugar and maple syrup; and for samples from South Sudan, there are notes of raspberry coulis, figs, plums and milk chocolate.

All of which is awesome but a little mystifying to me.  You probably know that there are people called "supertasters," who have a far greater acuity in their senses of taste than average, and who can pick out all the delicate nuances of taste in things like coffee, chocolate, wine, and so on.  I, on the other hand, am the opposite.  I'm a stuportaster.  I have two taste buds, "thumbs up" and "thumbs down."  Presented with most cups of coffee, my response is "coffee good, want more."  (The rest of the time my response is "coffee bad, no thanks.")  I do the same thing with wine, much to the dismay of the sommeliers when we visit wineries, who love nothing more than blathering on about the wine's nose and flavors and notes and finish, and do not appreciate a dolt like me who pretty much just drinks it and looks around for a refill.  So while I'm glad there's someone around who can pick out notes of Demerara sugar and raspberry coulis in their morning cup of coffee, for me it kind of starts and ends with "me like it lots."

In any case, it's encouraging that the coffee farmers may be able to escape dire situation being faced by owners of banana and cacao farms.  It's bad enough facing the prospects of losing two of them; losing all three would just be catastrophic, even for people like me who only have two taste buds.

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The best part of waking up...

Ah, the early morning.  All is quiet, so it's time to put on the coffee, look forward to a nice hot cup of joe.  Because there's nothing better at this time of day than a dark French roast...

... which, I must state for the record, I would prefer to take by mouth.

The reason I have to specify is, unsurprisingly, because of noted scientific researcher Gwyneth Paltrow, who is now selling a device for $135 whereby you can get your morning coffee squirted up your ass instead.

For what it's worth, I'm not making this up, although I sure as hell wish I was.  The device, called the "Implant-O-Rama" (didn't make the name up either, I swear), is basically just a glass bottle with some silicone tubing.  So I can think of a great many other better uses for $135, and that includes using it to start a fire in my wood stove.

It will probably not shock you to hear that this is all in the name of "detoxification."  A coffee enema is supposed to "detoxify your blood," which should only be a concern if your liver and kidneys aren't working properly.  (And if this is the case, you need to see a doctor immediately, not put your morning Starbucks where the sun don't shine.)

[image courtesy of photographer Julius Schorzman and the Wikimedia Commons]

Why coffee, you might be asking?  Why not orange juice or iced tea or Snapple or Mountain Dew?  The answer: I have no fucking clue.  My guess is that Gwyneth Paltrow doesn't know, either.  If you asked her, she'd probably tell you it had to do with the quantum resonant frequencies of your chakras or something.  But we haven't worried about explanations from her before, so why start now?

At this point it will also come as no particular surprise that people have injured themselves administering coffee enemas.  Emergency rooms have reported colon inflammation, perforated rectums, sepsis, and blood electrolyte imbalances from people doing this to themselves, including at least two people who died of the aftereffects.  Then there were a couple of cases where people suffered severe internal burns, since folks who are stupid enough to squirt random liquids up their ass are evidently also stupid enough not to wait until said liquids are cool.

What's wryly funny about all this is the list of things they say a coffee enema can cure.  Implant-O-Rama, says the website, “can mean relief from depression, confusion, general nervous tension, many allergy related symptoms and, most importantly, relief from severe pain.  Coffee enemas lower serum toxins.”

If it gets rid of confusion, you have to wonder why people in the middle of a coffee enema don't suddenly frown and say, "Wait.  Why do I have a tube up my ass?  This is idiotic."

And about relief from severe pain -- I guess getting scalding hot coffee up your backside would take your mind off any pain you're experiencing elsewhere, just as smashing your toe with a hammer makes you temporarily forget you've got a headache.

Then, of course, we have the disclaimer:

The information contained in these pages and on this website is not intended to replace your medical doctor.  This information has not been evaluated or approved by the FDA and is not necessarily based on scientific evidence from any source...  These products are intended to support general well-being and are not intended to treat, diagnose, mitigate, prevent, or cure any condition or disease.

"Not intended to mitigate any condition?"  So what the fuck does "relief from depression etc. etc. etc." mean to you?

The whole thing is kind of maddening, but even more maddening than the idea that hucksters are trying to bilk you out of your hard-earned cash (that, after all, is what hucksters do) is the fact that there are bunches of people just kind of nod and go, "Oh.  Okay."  It apparently never occurs to them to ask how the hell a coffee enema could help you, or even to ask the person making the claim to name one specific toxic substance the body produces that your liver and kidneys are incapable of handling.

So anyway.  My general advice is "just don't."  There's a good reason that the slogan doesn't go, "The best part of waking up is Folger's up your butt."  There's nothing wrong with a good cup of coffee in the morning, but please put it into the correct orifice.

Coffee, hallucinations, and Bing Crosby

A study done by Dr. Simon Crowe of La Trobe University in Australia, has found that coffee is hallucinogenic.

That it is psychotropic falls into the "Tell Me Something I Didn't Already Know" department.  I am barely civil before I've had at least two cups of coffee.  (Some days I'm barely civil afterwards, either, but that's another matter.)  For me, it's not the buzz I'm after; being a nervous, high-strung type to begin with, who gets up at five in the morning every day whether I have to or not, it's not like I really need anything to make me more wired than I already am.  Coffee seems to have the same effect on me that turning the focus wheel on a pair of binoculars does.  Everything suddenly seems to brighten up, have sharp outlines, make sense.  I feel like I'm seeing things clearly.

Now, I'm told, it might also make me hear things that aren't there.

Dr. Crowe's team tested 92 people with varying levels of caffeine.  The test was billed to the subjects as a hearing test, who were told that they'd be listening to a three minute clip of white noise, in which there might or might not be snippets of Bing Crosby singing "White Christmas."  They were instructed to press a buzzer when they heard a piece of the song.  In fact, the clip had no music in it at all.  The non-coffee drinkers did occasionally imagine that they heard Crosby's voice; but the coffee drinkers were three times as likely to press the buzzer.  The effect was even more pronounced with people who described themselves as "stressed" and who drank coffee.

"If you are stressed and have a high level of caffeine, you are more likely to notice things that aren't there, see things that aren't there," Dr. Crowe said.

[image courtesy of photographer Julius Schorzman and the Wikimedia Commons]

Me, I wonder.  I suspect that part of it is that after the caffeine equivalent of five cups of coffee (the standard for "heavy coffee drinking" used in the experiment), the test subjects' hands were simply shaking so badly that they kept setting the buzzer off.  Or, perhaps, sitting still and listening to white noise for three minutes was simply beyond their capacities.

I tend to be a little frustrated by the way that popular media presents medical (and other scientific) research findings.  Let's be clear about what Dr. Crowe found: he found that people who drank the equivalent of five or more cups of coffee were likely to think they were hearing music when they really weren't.  The headline, of course, didn't say that -- it said "Coffee Causes Hallucinations," which might lead the less careful reader to conclude that your average businessman stopping at Starbuck's for a cuppa joe in the morning was suddenly going to flip out on the bus and start seeing flying monkeys.

Frankly, I'm doubtful that caffeine is bad for you at all, at least when taken in reasonable amounts.  In the brain it acts as an antagonist to adenosine, a neural suppressant and signal for metabolic stress.  In studies, caffeine has been shown to decrease reaction time, increase endurance, reduce the risk of heart disease and kidney stones, increase short-term memory and ability to focus, and decrease the likelihood I'll strangle someone in my first period class.  These are some pretty significant benefits to health and happiness, and if because of it I occasionally hallucinate that I'm hearing clips from Bing Crosby songs, I guess I consider than an acceptable tradeoff.  (Now, if I started seeing Bing Crosby, that would be another matter entirely.)

In any case, I'm going to wind up this post with some general advice not to jump to conclusions based upon sensationalized reports of medical research in the press.  First, if you took every piece of medical advice that shows up in the media, you'd be living on bread and water (or just the water, if you're gluten-intolerant).

Second, the coffee's done brewing, and if I don't have a cup soon, I'm going to hurt someone.

Cup of woe

Those of you who are, like me, of the atheist persuasion will no doubt be thrilled to hear that we are already ramping up the War on Christmas.

Hey, if the stores can start putting up Christmas decorations before Halloween, in the interest of fairness it should be okay for us godless heathens to start our diabolical machinations at around the same time, right?

So it's time for us to reveal our strategy for 2016.  Ready?

This year we are going to destroy Christmas and crush the hopes and dreams of little Christian children everywhere by: getting Starbucks to change the color of their coffee cups.

Mwa ha ha ha etc.  *rubs hands together maniacally*

Okay, so I admit that we atheists had nothing to do with the fact that Starbucks changed their coffee cup design.  In fact the first one, which was red, honestly had nothing to do with Baby Jesus, either.  It was just red, as are many things in life, including stop signs and the sweatshirt I'm currently wearing.  The Starbucks marketing arm decided that it was time for a change, and hired artist Shogo Ota to draw a very cool design -- a hundred faces drawn using a single pen stroke.  Ota's design, said a spokesperson for Starbucks, "represents the connections we have as a community. It's meant to be a symbol of unity, and to encourage us to be good to each other."

Which elicited an "oh, hell no" from the evangelical Christians.  Apparently to them Christianity, and Christmas in particular, has nothing to do with unity and being good to each other.  Here is just a small sampling of the outraged responses Starbucks got upon revealing the new design:

• Screw you.  My coffee should NOT (and does NOT) come with political brainwashing.  I dropped Starbucks like a hot rock.
• Frankly, the only thing that can redeem them from this whitewashing of Christmas is to print Bible verses on their cups next year.
• All Republicans boycott Starbucks.
• The giant coffee chain is calling this year’s monstrosity the “unity” cup...  Hmm, what else is unified…. ISIS!!?!  The unified caliphate of the Islamic State!
• Starbucks gets rid of Christmas colour, replaces with Islamic colour, all in the name of "unity."  Get used to this.

Yes!  Islamic green!  Same as those goddamn trees you see everywhere!  And grass!  Even the plant kingdom is trying to brainwash you to accept Shari'a law!  Buy a house plant, and the next thing you know you'll be standing on the street corner shouting "Allahu akbar" and taking pot shots at passersby!

I mean, for fuck's sake.

What strikes me about this tempest in a coffee cup is that these are, by and large, the same people who scream bloody murder about "political correctness" whenever someone objects to derogatory language being directed toward minorities, and yet they consider a change in a coffee cup design to be the moral equivalent of carpet-bombing Whoville.  So I guess their blathering about political correctness translates to "you can't take offense to anything I say, but I'm still entitled to get my panties in a twist over absolutely nothing."

So anyhow.  My feeling is that if we non-believers are going to get accused of waging a War on Christmas, we oughta at least live up to our reputations, and that as a first salvo, changing coffee cup colors kind of sucks.  Time to ramp things up.  I'm thinking of doing my part by carrying around a boombox, and every time I hear sappy Christmas music, revving up some Nirvana or Nine Inch Nails or Linkin Park.  So goodbye, "Little Drummer Boy," "Frosty the Snowman," "Sleigh Bells," and "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer."  Hello "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Closer," and "Waiting for the End to Come."

Which would be a distinct improvement, especially as regards to "Little Drummer Boy."  I freakin' hate that song.

Cancer, coffee, and science reporting

Given the way science is presented in the media, it's no wonder a lot of average laypeople have the impression that scientists don't know what the hell they're doing.

The situation is worst, I think, with respect to health research.  I hear students say it all the time:  "Meh, everything causes cancer."  "Doesn't matter, if they say it causes heart disease today, tomorrow they'll say it won't."  Some of it, of course, is wishful thinking on the part of people would like to live on bacon double cheeseburgers with no impact on their fitness, but a lot of it comes from the way medical research is reported.

Take, for example, the article in The Independent a couple of days ago, "Very Hot Drinks 'Probably' Cause Cancer, UN Says."  Starting with the quotation marks around "probably," which I'm guessing were supposed to indicate that the word was a direct quote from the paper, but comes off sounding dubious.  But worse, take a look at how the research was reported:

The World Health Organisation is due to make a number of announcements today on health concerns and benefits of drinking hot beverages such as coffee.  In 1991, the IARC announced coffee "possibly caused cancer."  However, the health body is expected to revise that today to suggest other than concerns over temperature, there is insufficient evidence to say coffee itself causes cancer...  It is believed the temperature, rather than the substance of the drinks, causes cancer of the oesophagus and becomes a risk once beverages have a temperature above 65 C, AFP reports.  The announcement follows a review of more than 1,000 scientific studies on whether there is a link between coffee and cancer, conducted by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

The impression you get is that the researchers were convinced that coffee was a carcinogen, and now they're saying no, it's not, but hot beverages in general are bad.  Only toward the end of the article do you find out that almost no one drinks beverages at temperatures above 65 C, because that's scald-the-mouth territory.  And the 65+ C liquid would have to still be at that temperature by the time it hits your esophagus (owie) in order to boost your risk of esophageal cancer.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

So in fact, the research is indicating that almost no one is going to see an increase in cancer incidence from drinking hot beverages, which is exactly the opposite of what most of the article leads you to believe.  In fact, the article doesn't even mention the central issue -- that the problem isn't the temperature, it's the repeated tissue damage and resultant inflammation.  Research has shown that anything that causes chronic inflammation of the esophagus will increase the risk of cancer -- thus the connection between gastro-esophageal reflux disorder and cancer.

Of course, that's not the impression you get from a quick reading of the article, and especially not if all you did was read the headline (which I think is sadly common).  A less-than-careful perusal makes you come away with the idea that you're going to get cancer from sipping your nice cup of hot cocoa -- which is clearly not true.

No wonder people get the impression that the medical researchers, and scientists in general, don't know what they're doing.

I know everyone doesn't have a background in science, so I'm not expecting that the average person is going to read and thoroughly understand an academic paper on cancer research.  So it really is up to the media to make sure they're communicating correctly the gist of what's been found -- and this article in The Independent illustrates that the tendency is to do a pretty piss-poor job.