Nothing can beat the sound and smell of coffee brewing in the morning. The exhale of relief as those last drops land meaning its time to enjoy my morning cup of joe. Do you start your morning off with a piping hot cup of joe (also known as joy) or are your first sips full of pesticides? Unfortunately, those sips are probably full of pesticides. While a lot of attention goes to foods that are full of pesticides, coffee is often overlooked as a nonfood crop even though it is a heavily sprayed product.  Coffee and pesticides often go together. Approximately 90% of the coffee sold is non-organic, which means it’s likely your daily kick starter is harmful to your body. That’s a shame because there are many benefits to coffee.

You thought the only benefit is to get your day going? Nope! There’s more! It has numerous bioactivities and compounds that have surprising positive health impacts. Coffee is full of antioxidants and it is an easy way to get an abundant number of them into your daily diet. Drink them!  There are benefits to your cardiovascular system, for your blood sugar levels, for your liver, it’s anticarcinogenic, and it’s neural-protective. It may reduce your risk for depression or obesity. Overall, if you are a regular coffee drinker of 2-3 cups it can reduce your risk of death. 

Another cool thing about coffee is it drives things into the cells, ideally nutrients. So, what does that mean? If you drink your coffee with healthy, nutritious ingredients or a healthy breakfast all those nutrients will be absorbed more effectively by your cells.  If your coffee comes with pesticides, other toxins like mold, or even processed sugars people like to add to their coffee, then those will be driven into your cells. That makes coffee and pesticides a big problem.

Pesticides Have Harmful Effects

Studies have also shown that pesticides can mess with your gut by disrupting the flora in your microbiome and those who are exposed have less bacterial diversity in their gut. Now, if you have been following The Wellness Way, you know how important the gut and a healthy microbiome are to your health. Your gut is key to your immune system and if your gut is off then it can open the door to a whole bunch of problems. That might be why studies have linked pesticides to a whole bunch of ill effects.

Certain pesticides have been linked to an increase risk in Parkinson’s disease and an increase in Alzheimer’s disease.  Higher levels of organophosphates, a pesticide, in the urine of mothers and children has been linked to developmental problems. Oh, but your kids aren’t drinking coffee? If it’s toxic for children, there is a good chance it’s toxic for adults. Those pesticides also impact sperm and male fertility, so that’s something to think about. 

I could go on and on about the adverse effects. There are more than 900 pesticides affecting 2600 products, like coffee, that people are using or ingesting every day. Pesticides are linked to a wide variety of illness and causes of death for those who have chronic or acute exposure including neurodegenerative disorders and various cancers.  An extensive study looked at the health effects of high pesticide exposure on farmers in China over 3 years and found there were long-term and short-term health effects impacting the white blood cells nervous system, liver and electrolytes.  If they can identify adverse health effects from pesticides over 3 years that are still used by farmers today, what long-term effects are we missing for the general public?