posted October 16, 2010 09:58 PM              

Good News About Coffee
It's been linked to lowered risk of diabetes, and contains soluble fiber, the type that can help lower cholesterol.
By Joyce Hendley, EatingWell.com

Coffee lovers may be raising their cups—and perhaps eyebrows—at the recent news (in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry) that the drink contains soluble fiber, the type that can help lower cholesterol. With about 1 gram per cup, coffee's fiber impact is modest. But the report is the latest in a growing stream of positive news about coffee.

Some of the most promising findings come from studies of diabetes. When Harvard researchers combined data from nine studies involving more than 193,000 people, they found that regular coffee drinkers had a significantly lower risk of type 2 diabetes than those who abstained. The more they drank, the lower their risk.

And, despite coffee's reputation for being bad for the heart, recent epidemiologic studies haven't found a connection; some even suggest coffee can be protective. A study in February's American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported that healthy people 65 and over who drank four or more cups of caffeinated beverages daily (primarily coffee) had a 53 percent lower risk of heart disease than non-coffee-drinkers.

It's even more beguiling when you consider that the immediate effects of drinking coffee tend to go in the opposite direction, raising heart rate and blood pressure and temporarily making cells more resistant to insulin. "But those effects are probably short-lived, as people develop a tolerance," explains Frank Hu, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health, who has studied coffee extensively. "In the long term, beneficial components in coffee may have stronger, more lasting effects."

How coffee might work isn't clear; the studies weren't designed to identify cause-and-effect relationships. Antioxidants, such as chlorogenic acid (related to polyphenols in grapes), are likely players: coffee has more of them per serving than blueberries do, making it the top source of antioxidants in our diets. Antioxidants help quell inflammation, which might explain coffee's effect in inflammation-related diseases like diabetes and heart disease. Magnesium in coffee might help make cells more sensitive to insulin. And caffeine seems to have its own beneficial effects; the diabetes studies found that those who drank regular coffee had lower risks of the disease than decaf drinkers. Caffeinated-coffee drinking has also been linked with reduced risk of Parkinson's disease, gallstones, cirrhosis and liver cancer.

Bottom Line: For healthy adults, having two or three cups of joe daily generally isn't harmful and it may have health perks.

"I wouldn't recommend drinking coffee to prevent disease," says Hu. Exceeding one's caffeine tolerance—which varies—can cause irritability, headache and insomnia. (Signs you might be overconsuming: Yelling at co-workers. Watching infomercials at 2 a.m.) The temporary rise in heart rate and blood pressure could cause problems for people with heart disease, and new moms should be aware that caffeine passes into breast milk. Hu has no plans to change his own two-cup-a-day habit. "For most people who enjoy coffee, there's no reason to cut back."

posted August 11, 2021 01:27 PM            

I have never in my 31 years lived somewhere with cockroaches.

When I first moved in I was using coffee EO. So I didn't really have much of an issue with roaches. But this month OMG! I killed two yesterday. Just fed up I did some research.

I also noticed it was 75 degrees in my home. The perfect temperature!!! But bugs think so too! So I cranked up my AC. I used all my bottle of coffee EO so I switched to cypress.

It's frustrating though because I am way more on top of cleaning than the last place. And the last place was such a sketchy dump.

posted August 11, 2021 11:21 PM            

Get a PRO! It's worth the fee. At first they come once a month for a while, then once a quarter. No fumes. My apartment manager covers this service-- we haven't had to get an inside-visit by pest-control in maybe 5 years. Guy stripes a few skinny lines of bait around a few hinges of your cabinets. (Strips.. the size of a mini-bobby-pin. Not noticeable unless you know what to look for.)
.. Targeted, the critters will come under control in a day. Such peace of mind (and nerves) not to see them, and to have security that you know they are gone (not-there).

Is it the Palmetto bugs? (Hamburger-size! LOL)

STORY
haha. One time I was getting coffee at an old greasy-spoon, next door to a gorgeous old vaudeville theatre {which had been converted into a movie house around mid 1900s}. Was at the end of Main Street of a small town where the University was. OLD Buildings built in the late 1800s.
. .
I was seated on a counter stool, waiting for the short-order cook Old Chris to make my coffee before going back to work for the evening. I sat in the cashier booth selling tickets to the movies. (Sometimes I was assistant manager when the boss was gone.)
. .
I could see the food he was preparing, while the machine brewed my coffee. I could see he had a hamburger bun split open, ready to receive the cooked piece of meat on top of some condiments.... The hamburger patty was laid into place, and while he grabbed a piece of lettuce, he 'didn't' notice that a giant palmetto that scurried onto the meat laying there perfectly still, as he slapped the leaf and top of the bun ON TOP of the critter!! OMG!!! ... I 'tried' to yell to Chris but the place was bustin' busy and loudly noisy!! Being hard of hearing anyway, Chris ignored me!! as he walked the 'bug+burger' to the man seated at the booth towards the back of the store.
...
I left the building before seeing any kind of drama ensue! *skulks away*

So. When I read or hear the word 'roach', my memory goes back to those great big huge GIANT roaches, with long waving antennae I saw that day. I call them 'hamburger-size' roaches.

Love My Coffee
so soothing

posted November 22, 2023 11:00 AM            

Enjoying a coffee and a mousse au chocolat just like those they usually serve around this time at a historic café in Paris. A café which was frequented by great artists, writers and poets, like Paul Cézanne, Modigliani, Samuel Beckett, Honoré de Balzac, Paul Verlaine and Ezra Pound... A café which celebrated along with James Joyce's joy the news that Sylvia Beach - publisher and owner of the iconic bookstore Shakespeare And Company located on the banks of the Seine, opposite Notre-Dame - had agreed to publish "Ulysses". A café which welcomed an intellectual debate in order to Determine the Directives and Defence of the Modern Spirit held by André Breton - co-founder of Surrealism and Dada in Paris - for his fellow avant-garde artists and writers.

posted November 22, 2023 04:51 PM            

A Moveable Feast (1964)

In the dedication page of the book Ernest Hemingway writes:

If you are lucky enough to have lived
in Paris as a young man, then wherever you
go for the rest of your life, it stays with
you, for Paris is a moveable feast.
                                      

                                      
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
to a friend, 1950

Hunger Was Good Discipline

...What did I know best that I had not written about and lost? What did I know about truly and care for the most? There was no choice at all. There was only the choice of streets to take you back fastest to where you worked. It went up Bonaparte to Guynemer, then to the rue d’Assas, up the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs to the Closerie des Lilas.

I sat in a comer with the afternoon light coming in over my shoulder and wrote in the notebook. The waiter brought me a cafe creme and I drank half of it when it cooled and left it on the table while I wrote. When I stopped writing I did not want to leave the river where I could see the trout in the pool, its surface pushing and swelling smooth against the resistance of the log-driven piles of the bridge. The story was about coming back from the war but there was no mention of the war in it.

But in the morning the river would be there and I must make it and the country and all that would happen. There were days ahead to be doing that each day. No other thing mattered. In my pocket was the money from Germany so there was no problem. When that was gone some other money would come in.

All I must do now was stay sound and good in my head until morning when I would start to work again.

posted November 22, 2023 05:00 PM            

A Moveable Feast

Scott Fitzgerald

...He wanted me to read the new book, The Great Gatsby, as soon as he could get his last and only copy back from someone he had loaned it to. To hear him talk of it, you would never know how very good it was, except that he had the shyness about it that all non-conceited writers have when they have done something very fine, and I hoped he would get the book quickly so that I might read it.

Scott told me that he had heard from Maxwell Perkins that the book was not selling well but that it had very fine reviews. I do not remember whether it was that day, or much later, that he showed me a review by Gilbert Seldes that could not have been better. It could only have been better if Gilbert Seldes had been better. Scott was puzzled and hurt that the book was not selling well but, as I said, he was not at all bitter then and he was both shy and happy about the book’s quality.