Ill Effects

Strong black coffee taken after dinner tends to retard the digestive processes somewhat, and for this reason it should be avoided by dyspeptics; but to persons with sound digestion who, perhaps, have eaten rather more food than they need, this influence may not prove a disadvantage, and meanwhile its stimulating effect may arouse the overtaxed digestive functions.

Many persons find themselves able to perform much more active brain work by the stimulus afforded by drinking coffee and strong tea. If one is obliged to work late by night at severe mental labour, sleepiness may be avoided by this means. The continuance of this practice, however, soon results in forming a coffee or tea habit, in which the individual becomes a slave to the beverage and feels an imperative need for it at certain hours of the day, when, if it cannot be obtained, the system suffers from languor, prostration or restlessness, and craving. Exceptionally the coffee habit takes the form of eating the coffee beans. By drinking two or three cups of strong black coffee at every meal muscular tremors sometimes are developed with "nervousness," anxiety, dread of impending ill, with palpitation and feeling of precordial oppression, bradycardia vertigo, heartburn, dyspepsia, constipation, and insomnia. In such cases the symptoms usually promptly subside on suspending or restricting the beverage; but if they have been long continued, the use of sedatives may be necessary to control the ill effects. Extreme cases suggest the condition resulting from some drug habits, and there is irritability of the whole nervous system and mental excitement.

Emaciation is common, and pruritus ani has been observed by Brown-Sequard. Those who are habituated to immoderate tea or coffee drinking do well to stop the habit abruptly in order to observe the degree of craving which results and the influence which these beverages is acquiring over the system. As an aid to breaking off the coffee habit, "postum" may be used. It is composed of cereals and has a flavour which many find agreeable. The published analysis gives 13.13 per cent protein, 66.11 per cent carbohydrates, 1.60 per cent fat, besides salts and water. In children the habitual use of coffee gives rise to insomnia, night terrors, nervousness, and tremor. Acute coffee poisoning differs from the chronic form in producing greater excitability, with tendency to delirium and tachycardia.

Quantity Consumed

In connection with the comments often made in regard to the nervousness of temperament which characterises many Americans, it is not without interest to note a fact which may stand in the relation of either cause or effect to this condition - namely, that the people of the United States consume one third of the total coffee produced, which in 1899 amounted to 831,827,063 pounds, or more than Germany, Austria, Hungary, France, and the United Kingdom combined. On the other hand, England and her colonies consume one half of the world's output of tea, and the United States consumes but one fifth of it.

Adulteration

The adulteration of coffee, more particularly when it is ground, is so easily accomplished that it affords great temptation to unscrupulous dealers. Almost all ground coffee sold to the poor is adulterated, but the adulterants are not usually of a character to render them injurious to health. Chief among them is chicory, which is added both for dilution and for its influence on the colour and flavour of the coffee. This substance, however, is actually preferred by many persons, and, as it is in no wise injurious, it is hardly fair to consider it as an adulterant when its admixture with coffee is acknowledged.

Chicory is prepared from the root of the chicory plant, or wild endive, which is roasted and ground. By roasting, an aroma is developed, as in the case of the coffee berry. Chicory contains no caffeine, but it holds a volatile oil and a bitter principle. Its admixture with coffee is detected by bleaching with chlorinated soda, which acts promptly on the pigments of chicory, but very slowly on those of the natural coffee.

In France, coffee is frequently flavoured with caramel instead of chicory, which is more extensively used in England and the United States.

Coffee is also diluted with various substances, such as peas, beans, peanuts, dried sweet potatoes parched, and ground acorns, corncobs, or date stones are sometimes used.

Imitation coffee beans are composed of pellets of roasted wheat flour, or sometimes wheat flour and chicory, or even sawdust. Rye, corn, and barley are also mingled with wheat for the same purpose.

Fat globules are present in impure coffee in considerable quantity. The substitutes for coffee are easily detected by the fact that, unlike the true coffee bean, which, unless overroasted, floats after roasting, they usually sink to the bottom of a glass of water.

Colouring matter, like ochre, burnt umber, charcoal, Prussian blue, and lead chromate, is added occasionally before the roasting, as well as burned sugar and sirups, in order to affect the appearance and colour of the beans. The beans are sometimes polished in cylinders, in which they are made to revolve with soapstone.

Substitutes For Coffee

A substitute for coffee may be made from wheat, rye, or oatmeal, to which butter is added in the proportion of one part to eight of meal. The butter is melted in a hot iron frying pan and the meal is sprinkled over it and briskly stirred without burning. Thus prepared, the meal resembles roasted coffee, and when half an ounce is boiled in a pint of water it makes a beverage which is rather agreeable in taste. In Bavaria this substitute for coffee is used largely by the peasants, and it is also supplied in some charitable institutions in this country. Its use necessitates boiling the water, which, if it contains any impurities, is thus rendered harmless. There are several cereal substitutes for coffee sold in open market which are advertised as being highly nutritious. A number of them were analysed for the United States Department of Agriculture (Bulletin 122, 1900) by C. F. Langworthy, who says of them:

"The average cereal coffee infusion had the following percentage composition: Water, 98.2; protein, 0.2; and carbohydrates, 1.4, while the fuel value was 30 calories per pound. Skim milk, which is ordinarily considered a rather "thin " beverage, contains 3.5 per cent protein, 0.3 per cent fat, 5.15 per cent carbohydrates, and 0.8 per cent ash, or almost twenty times as much food material as the average of the beverages made from cereal coffee. If made according to directions, one would have to drink 4½ gallons of an infusion of one of them which made an especial claim to high nutritive value in order to get as much food as is contained in a quart of skim milk".

Mate, called also Paraguay tea, is manufactured from the dried leaves of a plant resembling holly. It is a mildly stimulating beverage which contains theine, but it has no special dietetic advantages over tea or coffee.