A day late with Monday's Musings this week. I expect it will happen again before the end of the year. Even more than once! The last six weeks of the year are usually full of so many things we feel we 'have' to do that routine 'things' get pushed aside. One would think that being retired would eliminate that aspect of 'the holidays.' But unless we choose to sit by the fireside, rising only to do those normal chores necessary to everyday living, the 'need to's' continue if we keep up any activities. Actually I'm just thankful I'm still strong and healthy enough to be able to do a few 'need to's'. And, hopefully such will be the case as long as God gives me on this earth. The below column, written several years ago, harks back to the beginning of my love of that nectar of the coffee beans!
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I love the smell of freshly made coffee in the morning. Or afternoon. Or evening. I can drink it anytime and used to have a cup of java in my hand many times a day. That in spite of dire warnings that coffee, and the caffeine it contained, was really bad for us. So be it, I loved it and not the decaffeinated stuff, after it hit the market in my teens. Since I have now sojourned on this earth longer than either of my parents, and also my older sister, I'm not too concerned.
My love affair with coffee began at a very early age. My parents were fond of it and saw no reason to deny coffee to their children if said children wanted it. I did. I don't remember that my siblings especially cared for it then though as adults they do.
But in the last decade or so I've shifted to having coffee mostly in the morning and imbibing only water the rest of the day. I didn't decrease my caffeine intake due to those dire warnings, but because I came to the conclusion that water was a much more desirable beverage for the human body.
What sparked this rumination on the end result of harvesting and roasting the fruit of the coffee bean plant? It was a recent report published in the American Journal of Medicine by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, second largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. These scientists followed 65,000 women for eighteen years and the results seem to indicate that those who drank more coffee had fewer cases of tinnitus (ringing in the ears).
Okay, I've had a touch of that, maybe more since I decreased my coffee intake? Hmmm. Never mind, anyway. Probably next month or next year another group of researchers will release their study showing the Harvard bunch is totally wrong and coffee and all caffeinated beverages should be banned from human consumption.
Now I'd better go set up the coffee pot so I can just flick the switch when I get up in the morning.
My love affair with coffee began at a very early age. My parents were fond of it and saw no reason to deny coffee to their children if said children wanted it. I did. I don't remember that my siblings especially cared for it then though as adults they do.
But in the last decade or so I've shifted to having coffee mostly in the morning and imbibing only water the rest of the day. I didn't decrease my caffeine intake due to those dire warnings, but because I came to the conclusion that water was a much more desirable beverage for the human body.
What sparked this rumination on the end result of harvesting and roasting the fruit of the coffee bean plant? It was a recent report published in the American Journal of Medicine by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, second largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. These scientists followed 65,000 women for eighteen years and the results seem to indicate that those who drank more coffee had fewer cases of tinnitus (ringing in the ears).
Okay, I've had a touch of that, maybe more since I decreased my coffee intake? Hmmm. Never mind, anyway. Probably next month or next year another group of researchers will release their study showing the Harvard bunch is totally wrong and coffee and all caffeinated beverages should be banned from human consumption.
Now I'd better go set up the coffee pot so I can just flick the switch when I get up in the morning.
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