Y'all. Seriously. Most people are drinking toxic coffee all the time in one way or another, but that does not have to be you.

Let's get into it.

Coffee is natural because it comes form the earth. So it starts off great. It's everything else we do to it and how we drink it that can be very damaging to our health, especially for those of us who drink coffee the same way every day.

Caffeine Is Not Energy

Of course moderation is key to most anything and in coffee in particular, it should not be used to sustain like 90% Americans use it. Caffeine is not a natural form of energy. It's not energy. all it does it trick your mind into thinking you have more energy, so in moderation this is fine, just be aware of that. Think about someone who is extremely tired. Their body is begging them to probably just take a nap and naps are wonderful for our constantly moving bodies.

When you need a nap or maybe you're lacking nutrients and then you go off and keep chugging caffeine all day, you're jacking yourself up big time. Listen to your body and give it what it needs, not something that tricks your mind into pressing harder. The problem really lies in the fact that people do this for years! Thats horrrrible!

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Hot Plastic, Coffee & Infertility

Coffee Pots Suck

Parabens are hormone disruptors and they're in literally everything thanks to Dupoint plastic replacing better alternative like glass or stainless steel about 100 years ago. When your hormones are out of wack, you can't reproduce well, ladies get irregular periods among other issues, but those are a huge deal! If you run hot water through your Coffee Maker coffee pot - STOP - you're running super hot water through a plastic machine. Not only does it make your coffee crappy, its contributing to infertility and cancer.

Get a Pour Over

There are a few different ways to brew coffee in glass containers called pour overs and each one is a bit different in taste and amount. To replace the typical coffee pot, we use a Chemex and its not hard y'all. You just gotta get used to doing coffee a little differently, which I'll explain here in a minute and for you men out there, it's a great chance to wake up each day and make your lady some coffee instead of that stupid coffee pot auto-brewing her some cancer coffee.

If you want to learn about the different Pour Over techniques, stop by 211 Cafe and Mauricio does a great job of it explaining them to noobs like me. Plus you can try them all there!

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Say "Hail No" To K-Cups

These are the epitomy of evil in the coffee world. For one, they cause cancer and infertility and thats super obvious now that you know about plastics, but what else in in them? Aluminum! So you get some heavy metals in that coffee too. Despite what campers think aluminum goes right into anything you cook it in. The only good metal for cooking is stainless steel or cast iron. (That'll be another blog post.) Also the K-Cups are often times very moldy without people knowing, because they sit around for years before they get used sometimes. Do not ever drink from a K-Cup y'all. Period.

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Don't Use a Plastic Lid

Y'all as you probably can see by now, when you drink hot coffee through a plastic lid you get the same parabens, PFAS and likely some heavy metals in your drink as well. Just take it off or bring your own ceramic to-go mug. With plastic cups, sometimes you can't avoid it, but think about even your cold drink comes in a cup that could have been in a very hot truck as it was being transported, which would just leak those into the cup itself (I would think). Thats just me thinking, but the best solution is to bring a better cup.

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Get Fresh Beans! (Here's how.)

Did you know coffee beans only last 2 weeks after being roasted to retain their full flavor? You can certainly keep drinking that coffee until about a month, but after that toss it and go get more. Bearing this in mind, think about all the bags of coffee at the store. Unless you go to Akin's where they local, roasted coffee, there is just no change of getting fresh coffee at the store. This is why mostly of the time you see a dark roast, becasue those have already roasted most of the flavor out to begin with. A medium roast thats done right is just right - another reason why we only buy coffee from 211 Cafe in the Bentonville Library. We know its fresh and I can't speak for the other local roasters, because their operations are a bit bigger. I'd be really surprised if Onyx or Airship can guarantee that all the coffee they put out is fresh. I wonder if Heroes could? They roast on site as well and I don't believe they have as big an operation. So the point is, if you really like a certain coffee shop, give them a call and find out.

A Good Grinder is Key

For a long time Mauricio kept telling us to get a particular grinder and it took us 4 years to do it. He was 100% right and it was worth paying more than $40 for a grinder. The consistency really makes a massive difference in our Chemex. Don't waste your time with those little hand grinders and just go for it on this one. The Baratza Encore Grinder does the job perfectly at a decent price. I'm seeing them on eBay for $85 at the moment. (It was $120 when we bought it back in 2019.) Get. Seriously.

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Clean Decaf is Harder To Come By

Decaf is getting much better and tastier these days, I personally only drink decaf lately because I was hooked on it and I ain't going back. As a result I like a good decaf here and there. You need to know that the same chemicals used in embalming fluid are used to decaffeinate your coffee! Barf! However, that was the old days, in the last few years people have been finding natural way to decaffeinate coffee beans and they produce wonderful coffee. (It's no wonder decaf always tasted bad!)

All you have to do is ask it he baristas if they use Swiss Water Technique to decaffeinate their decaf coffee. more techniques are being learned but thats the best one for sure.

Problem is, its pretty expensive and from what I gather no one around here does Swiss Water anymore, but Mountain Bird Coffee Co is a roaster in Elm Springs who uses a "Mountain Water" technique that seems to work well. That's who I can recommend for now. I've also heard of a Brown Sugar technique but it seems to be less effective. Let me know if you find someone. Ironically every time I travel to nearby town like Tulsa or Branson, if I ask about this they always respond with "Of course we do - who wouldn't!" They make a great point. If the goal is to not get sick, don't drink chemical processed decaf.

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How to Make a Wonderful Nontoxic Chemex for Two

We learned this technique from 211 Cafe back in the day. since then they've of course found better ways, but we love this and find it easy to day every morning.

1. Fill Kettle to about 3/4 full and heat it up.
2. Measure & grind 34 grams of beans using scale.
3. Wet the filter completely.
4. Pour in circles 67 grams of water
5. Wait 30 seconds (don't let the scale turn off)
6. Pour water up to 520 grams - always pour in circles going form the middle to the outside, over and over.
7. Wait for it all drip and you done!

The Best Creamers

Ok this one is so easy. Good cream is literally just cream. Anything else is not good. 99% of creamers are going to homogenized and pasteurized, so if you can find one that isn't then you've done well. There's only one that we are aware, butI'll tell you right now, nothing beats or is better for you than Raw cream. Find a local dairy and we'll have a post on that soon, if we don't already.

Here are two great store bought options. Aldi has Organic Creamer that we like to keep on hand, but Akins has some next level cream from Kalona Iowa called SuperNatural. It's organic of course, but also pasturaized at a low temperature, it's not homogenized, so you retain the cream at the top and its from grass-fed cows. That's hands down the best you'll get at any store in Arkansas.

• Aldi Organic Creamer
• Super Natural Whipping Cream

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Replacements

Below is list of all the items we shopped around for and currently buy as healthy replacements.

• Bamboo coffee cups / lids- Naturezway
• 8 Cup Chemex - on Ebay
• Chemex Filters - William Sonoma (Promanade)
• Baratza Encore Grinder
• Get Beans at 211 Cafe
• Simple Coffee Scale
• Stainless Steel Gooseneck Kettle

Power House Coffee Additives

Lions Mane Mushroom Powder

I add this to my coffee for a mental boost. It gets your brain working quickly, but unlike caffeine it has no crash. We get it from the mushroom guy at the Bentonville Farmers Market on Saturday mornings at the Bentonville Square.

Collagen

We like the collagen at Akins and from Just Ingredients. It helps your skin and keeps your bones strong.

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That how we make coffee and what we like to put in it. when you do something like this every single day it's extremely important to be careful about what goes in you, otherwise you're just contributing to the next time you get sick. Let's eat things that help our bodies, not hurt them. Coffee is a really fun change too, because it'll taste so much better too.!