If you drink decaffeinated coffee daily or even occasionally, you’ll want to know this: A report is showing that most of the best-selling decaf coffee brands contain the active ingredient in paint stripper, which comes with a ton of potential dangers for your health.
THE CHEMICALS IN YOUR DECAF
In lab tests done by the Clean Label Project, a lot of famous brands of decaf coffee had trace amounts of methylene chloride which is listed as a cancer-causing chemical on California’s Proposition 65 list. In November 2019, the EPA banned Methylene Chloride due to “unreasonable risks” to human health. Why is this toxic chemical in your decaf coffee? A lot of coffee processing companies use methylene chloride as a heated solvent to strip the desired amount of caffeine from coffee beans.
HOW DECAFFEINATION WORKS
There are two main decaffeination processes: water-based and chemical-based decaffeination. The water-based method relies on soaking the beans in hot water. Over time, the caffeine separates out, thus avoiding the use of toxic chemicals.
The chemical-based process uses carbon dioxide or a chemical solvent to separate out the caffeine. The initial decaffeination process used benzene as a solvent. When the dangers of benzene were discovered , over 30 other chemicals were tried for use instead. Today, most decaf coffee brands apply this method using either methylene chloride or ethyl acetate.
HOW TO BUY DECAF COFFEE
You should look for wording on packaging like “non-solvent,” “chemical-free,” “certified organic,” and “Swiss water,” all of which point to decaffeination processes that don’t use these toxic solvents
For Safe and Natural Energy, try Maca
Various scientific studies have found Maca to be a great source of energy. It also has been shown it brighten your mood and ease depression