vietnamese weasel gourmet coffee

1. If you like your coffee sweet

If you use regular sugar but want to avoid unnecessary calories, try switching to a small amount of honey, agave or even Stevia™. Stevia comes from a leaf and is a slightly more natural source than a typical artificial sweetener.

If you prefer artificial sweeteners, slowly transition to using very small amounts. I recommend this because, over time, research shows that they can train your brain to want very sweet things. These include sucralose (Splenda®) saccharin (Sweet’N Low®) and aspartame (Equal®, NutraSweet®).

2. If you like to ‘spice up’ your coffee

Spices are not just a great way to add flavor to coffee, but they can provide surprising health benefits:

• Cinnamon stabilizes blood sugar, helps improve LDL (bad) cholesterol and is a good source of vitamin K and iron.
• Nutmeg is a very good source of manganese.
• Cocoa powder is a good source of protein, potassium and zinc, and is also a very good source of dietary fiber, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, copper and manganese. However, it’s also high in saturated fat, so use it sparingly. And go for the unsweetened kind.
• Cardamom is a good source of vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, potassium and zinc, and it is also a very good source of dietary fiber, iron and manganese.
  

3. If you like your coffee creamy

You might ask if it’s really a big deal to use whole milk in your coffee if it’s only a few tablespoons? But even if you are only using two tablespoons, multiply that by 7 days a week/52 weeks a year. Those are empty, unnecessary calories that add up. That’s why I don’t recommend whole milk. Nor can I endorse coconut milk, which is very high in saturated fat.

If you want a healthy cow’s milk, I suggest using 1 percent or non-fat milk. You can also go with low-fat soy, almond or rice milk, which are all good alternatives but are lower in protein than cow’s milk.

4. If you’re at the coffee shop

Coffee drinks are often notorious for empty calories. If you enjoy coffee drinks, the safest way to go is to ask for sugar-free syrups and no whip, non-fat milk.

 5. If you’re choosing between espresso and coffee

Espresso is just a method of preparation and not a kind of coffee. There is no special type of bean used to make it.  The process makes a syrupy beverage and forces the oil from the coffee beans. While 16 ounces of coffee has five calories, one ounce of espresso has five calories (1 shot).

Explore your love of coffee

Another way to really appreciate your coffee is to  learn more about it. You could join a coffee club and find out where it comes from and different ways to prepare it.  Learn about the body, texture,  aroma and caffeine content of different beans. It all can make each hot, flavorful sip more enjoyable.

Weaselcoffees.com Drinking coffee is good for all people -studies

Drinking coffee could help people become more ethical at work, and stave off diabetes, according to two new studies.

Tired workers are less likely to resist unethical influence from senior colleagues, and the equivalent of a large cup of coffee could help stave off tiredness that can lead to immoral behaviour, claims a new study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

Sleepy workers are more likely to give into unethical or deceptive requests from their bosses, the study claims. Providing caffeine in the workplace and reducing long hours could help workers avoid ethical lapses, the authors of the study said.

“When you’re sleep deprived at work, it’s much easier to simply go along with unethical suggestions from your boss because resistance takes effort and you’re already worn down,” said David Welsh, one of the authors of the study. “However, we found that caffeine can give sleep-deprived individuals the extra energy needed to resist unethical behavior.”

Measures such as ethical codes of conduct might not be enough to encourage good behaviour if workers are too tired to carry them out, the researchers note.

Another study has found that upping coffee consumption by about 1.5 cups can lower the risk of developing type two diabetes. The ideal amount to stave off the disease is around 3 to 5 cups, researchers said.

The drink contains a number of compounds that improve the body’s ability to break down glucose, which contributes towards diabetes, the study’s authors said.

Scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health examined 20 years of data from more than 100,000 people, and found that those that reduced their coffee habit by 8 or more ounces a day — around a cup — saw a 17% hike in their risk of type two diabetes.

Drinking an extra cup or more decreased the risk by 11%. Those that already drank more 24 ounces or more a day and didn’t reduce their consumption for the study were around 37% less likely to be diagnosed with diabetes.

Drinking more coffee might lower your risk for type 2 diabetes, a new large U.S. study suggests.

People who boosted their daily java intake by more than one cup over four years reduced their diabetes risk, while adults who drank less coffee saw their odds for diabetes rise, the study of 123,000 adults found.

"It looks like there is a dose-response relationship between increasing coffee consumption and a lower risk of diabetes," said lead researcher Dr. Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health.

"Basically, the more coffee, the lower the risk of diabetes," Hu said. "People who drink three to five cups of coffee a day enjoyed a significant reduction in type 2 diabetes risk."

However, people can drink too much coffee, particularly those who don't respond well to caffeine, Hu cautioned. Caffeine, a stimulant, keeps some people awake, and can also cause the heart to speed up.

"It's hard to pinpoint which components of coffee may contribute to a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes," Hu said. "Current thinking is that it is the combination of antioxidants and other nutrients."

The study, published online April 24 in Diabetologia, shows an association between more coffee and lower diabetes risk but can't actually prove that one causes the other, Hu said. However, experiments in animals and a small human trial did find a cause-and-effect relationship between coffee and reduced insulin resistance, he said. Insulin resistance is a warning sign of diabetes.

Coffee can be part of a healthy diet, but people shouldn't look to it as a way to prevent type 2 diabetes, Hu said. "People should still watch their weight and be physically active," he added.

A cup of coffee or two or three, is it good for you or bad? It seems like each week a new study is coming out touting the benefits or blasting the caffeine-laden morning (or anytime) drink, so what’s the deal?

Featured image: Shutterstock

We’ve compiled a list of several different studies that showcase the good health effects of a cup of joe and those that claim it can have negative impacts, so that you might judge for yourself. Do note, this is not an exhaustive list of pros and cons.

A cup a day keeps the …

Eye doctor away: A study from Cornell University recently found that all caffeine aside, coffee also has chlorogenic acid, which is an antioxidant that prevented degeneration of the retina in mice.

“Coffee is the most popular drink in the world, and we are understanding what benefit we can get from that,” Chang Lee, a professor of food science at the university and the study’s senior author, said in a statement.

Psychiatrist away: A study from Harvard University last year found that those who drank two to four cups of coffee per day had half the of the suicide risk compared to those who drank decaf or no coffee at all. It can also lower incidents of depression.

Cardiologist away: A moderate (keyword moderate) amount of coffee can actually reduce someone’srisk for heart disease. Too much negates this benefit.

In addition to preventing all these possible trips to the doctor, coffee has also be linked to benefits in Parkinson’s disease patients (another study found it also could significantly lower incidents of Parkinson’s all together), reducing Type 2 diabetes risk and reducing the risk of prostate cancer.

It could also help you act more ethically at work and has cognitive benefits as well.

Overall, another Harvard study that tracked men and women for 18 to 25 years until they were in their 40s and 50s found coffee consumption didn’t result in an increased risk of death — even for those who drank up to six cups per day — suggesting that it isn’t associated with any seriously bad health effects in the general population.

The downside to drinking java

One of the most obvious downsides is what coffee does to your pearly whites, playing a significant role in staining your teeth or dentures, but there are some more nefarious effects it could have as well.

If you’re drinking French press or Turkish, you might want to have your cholesterol checked. Why? It contains cafestol, which stimulates LDL cholesterol levels. Using a paper filter though captures this cafestol, making it safer to drink for those with cholesterol problems.

Pregnant women also might want to consider cutting back or cutting it out as the caffeine has been linked to miscarriages and low birth weights.

As one might expect, coffee consumption can result in insomnia, but it can also result in heart palpitations, tremors and headaches.

Then there’s that good ol’ thing that comes with any drug — yes, it is considered a drug by the federal government — when you try to cut back to a safe limit: withdrawal.

There you have it, a brief look at some of the goods and bads of one of the most popular caffeinated drinks in the world.

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Talking about Weasel Coffee today

u might think your $4.25 Starbucks Macchiato was on the expensive side—and you'd be absolutely right—but it's nothing compared to Kopi Luwak, or civet coffee, which can go for as much as 30 bucks a cup.

The civet, a small Asian mammal that looks like a cross between a weasel and a raccoon, is not just a cute logo for the brand. Civet coffee is made from coffee beans found in civet excrement. The civet's digestive enzymes ferment the beans, and after much rinsing, the beans extracted from the feces are said to make a dark, smooth, rich, smokey cup of Joe—or as one tasteless term goes, "crappuccino." 

Now, while there is no good reason why people shouldn't be allowed to waste their perfectly good money on novelty weasel-poop coffee, the growing knowledge and prestige of Kopi Luwak as the most expensive coffee in the world is threatening the wild civet population in Asia. People throughout Indonesia, Java, Thailand, Bali, Vietnam, and Cambodia are jumping on this opportunity to take advantage of the civet coffee trend," says Chris Shepherd, Southeast Asia Senior Program Officer at TRAFFIC, the World Wildlife Fund's wildlife trade monitoring network. "They are catching as many civets as they can, and not just the common palm civet anymore, either, but all different kinds now, and shoving them into cages, and feeding them nothing but coffee berries. It's one thing to make coffee from poop you find on your plantation, it's quite another to capture civets and try to farm them for their caffeinated crap."

Many of the civets now being caught don't even naturally eat coffee beans; they are carnivores that normally eat rats, bird's eggs, and lizards. 

"The problem is everybody has heard of this new exotic coffee, but very few people know what a civet actually is. I've talked to a lot of people who have had civet coffee but had no idea that a civet was even an animal," says Dr. Shepherd. "If people knew what it was, I think they would either be completely horrified and grossed out, or have some compassion for the little guy. Either way, hopefully the crazy demand in America and Europe would go down." 

While some civet species, like the Binturong, are extremely rare, a lot of civets are believed to be relatively common. Unfortunately, donors aren't particularly interested in funding weasel conservation work with so many elephants and tigers in need, so population data is extremely spotty. From his travels throughout Southeast Asia, Dr. Shepherd has seen more and more civets of all different species being sold in wildlife markets, and he says traders are complaining that they are getting harder and harder to catch. Anecdotally, at least, as the coffee fad grows, civets appear to be in serious trouble. 

"You could sell anything to people if you charged them enough," says Dr. Shepherd in amazement. "I've been doing work in Malaysia for 20 years, and this is one of the dumbest yet."

Elephant Coffee , like or more expensive than Weaselcoffee

The most expensive coffee in the world does not hail from Jamaica or Hawaii, but instead from Indonesia.

Kopi Luwak the most expensive coffee in the world does exist, and those who drink the expensive coffee insist that it is made from coffee beans eaten, partly digested and then excreted by the Common palm civet, a weasel-like animal.

“Kopi” the Indonesian word for coffee along with “luwak” is local name of this animal which eats the raw red coffee beans. The civet digests the soft outer part of the coffee cherry, but does not digest the inner beans and excretes them.

Weasel Coffee - kopiluwak indonesia

Kopi luwak (Indonesian pronunciation: [ˈkopi ˈlu.aʔ]), or civet coffee, refers to the seeds of coffee berries once they have been eaten and egested by the Asian palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus).^[1] The name is also used for marketing brewed coffee made from the beans.

Producers of the coffee beans argue that the process may improve coffee through two mechanisms, selection and digestion. Selection occurs if the civets choose to eat coffee berries containing better beans. Digestive mechanisms may improve the flavor profile of the coffee beans that have been eaten. The civet eats the berries for the beans' fleshy pulp, then in the digestive tract, fermentation occurs. The civet's proteolytic enzymes seep into the beans, making shorter peptides and more free amino acids.^[2] Passing through a civet's intestines the beans are then defecated with other fecal matter and collected.

The traditional method of collecting feces from wild civets has given way to intensive farming methods in which civets in battery cage systems are force fed the coffee beans. This method of production has raised ethical concerns about the treatment of civets due to "horrific conditions" including isolation, poor diet, small cages and a high mortality rate.^[3][4] A 2013 BBC investigation of intensive civet farming in Sumatra found conditions of animal cruelty.^[5] Intensive farming is also criticised by traditional farmers because the civets do not select what they eat, so the beans are of poor quality compared to beans collected from the wild.^[6] According to an officer from the TRAFFIC conservation programme, the trade in civets to make kopi luwak may constitute a significant threat to wild civet populations.^[7]

Although kopi luwak is a form of processing rather than a variety of coffee, it has been called the most expensive coffee in the world with retail prices reaching €550 / US$700 per kilogramme.^[8] The price paid to collectors in the Philippines is closer to US$20 per kilogramme.^[1] The price of farmed (considered low-grade by connoisseurs) kopi luwak in large Indonesian supermarkets is from US$100 per kilogramme (five times the price of a high quality local arabica coffee). Genuine kopi luwak from wild civets is difficult to purchase in Indonesia and proving it is not fake is very difficult - there is little enforcement regarding use of the name "kopi luwak", and there's even a local cheap coffee brand named "Luwak", which costs under US$3 per kilogramme but is occasionally sold online under the guise of real kopi luwak.

An investigation by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Asia found fraud to be rife in the kopi luwak industry, with producers willing to label coffee from caged civets with a "wild sourced" or similar label.^[9] A BBC investigation revealed similar findings.^[10]

Kopi luwak is produced mainly on the islands of Sumatra, Java, Bali and Sulawesi in the Indonesian Archipelago. It is also widely gathered in the forest or produced in the farms in the islands of the Philippines (where the product is called kape motit in the Cordillera region, kape alamid in Tagalog areas, and kape melô or kape musang in Mindanao island), and in East Timor (where it is called kafé-laku). Weasel coffee is a loose English translation of its Vietnamese name cà phê Chồn, where popular, chemically simulated versions are also produced.