We all want to live long and, if possible, happily. It is strange that our desire sometimes diverges from our actions: we have not learned to eat properly, we ignore the need for sleep and a healthy lifestyle. And all the time we charge ourselves with additional drinks: coffee, tea, cocktails of vigor.
But do we know everything about how to drink coffee and its effect on our body?
Today we decided to answer 5 important questions about coffee:
- When is it better to drink coffee before or after meals?
- How to drink coffee correctly to perk up.
- Which coffee is better, instant or ground?
- How to combine coffee with exercise to lose weight.
- Coffee in the morning or evening.
There are a predominant number of coffee lovers around, this is an established fact, although you may well be a tea lover and now raise your eyebrow suspiciously. But...think about it. They meet for lunch, where you will come to give preference to tea drinks. You can see them rushing to the subway, having managed to buy a plastic cup from a newsstand. They even take the form of a young mother out for a walk or a flock of girlfriends who have gone out on a daytime promenade. In shopping centers we are surrounded by coffee machines, in parks among the aromas of corn and popcorn we will certainly find the smell of fresh beans, we become addicted to coffee. And, to be honest, this fact does not scare us at all.
After all, coffee is always pleasant, tasty, and affordable. And yet, to ensure that the coffee treat is not only tasty, but also beneficial for our charming citizens, we analyzed some aspects of the life of coffee lovers. It turned out that for many people the question becomes relevant:
How long after can you drink coffee?
If, after eating a meal, you immediately drink an invigorating drink, the undigested food begins to pass through the gastrointestinal tract, causing heaviness in the stomach and bloating. In addition, the digestion process has not yet had time to properly start. Chlorogenic acids and caffeine penetrate the walls of the stomach, leading to their irritation.
Therefore, you should know when is the best time to drink coffee. After a meal you need to wait at least thirty minutes. By this point, active digestion will begin, and additional gastric juice will help to cope with this task more easily.
It’s even better if the interval between a meal and a cup of Americano or espresso is an hour and a half.
Coffee in different situations
Drinking coffee correctly does not just mean following a daily routine, etc. There are various actual situations when a drink can bring significant toxicity or, on the contrary, improve your mood and well-being.
So, for example, with varicose veins, the drink is contraindicated because it reduces the tone and elasticity of blood vessels, and this aggravates the course of the disease. You can replace the drink with chicory. But in case of cardiac arrhythmia, the drink reduces the possibility of hospitalization due to worsening of the disease. Research in this area was carried out in the USA and Denmark, where uniform results were obtained confirming the absence of a connection between caffeine and the development of the disease. In this case, drinking an invigorating drink is useful.
There is no need to drink coffee before a blood test for hormones, biochemistry, or HIV. Some characteristics may have an inaccurate meaning, especially if you drink a strong drink. Before and after tooth extraction, you are allowed to drink warm and not very strong tea and coffee. At the same time, they try to prevent liquid from getting on the wound. Hot drinks are prohibited.
Before tattooing, it is also not recommended to drink stimulating and invigorating drinks. They increase blood flow, blood pressure and can cause bleeding of the skin and soft tissues. A similar ban applies to patients with cancer. There are a lot of facts against coffee here. This concerns the load on the heart and blood vessels, stomach, and excretory system.
Any deposits on grains or suspicious particles in a ground or instant product may indicate a threat to humans.
Coffee can and even must be consumed in almost all situations, the main thing is not to drink too much, so as not to cause poisoning and disgust for such a wonderful drink. It is especially pleasant to drink coffee on Volkova in Rostov-on-Don in the Pitkofe coffee shop chain.
Coffee after meals.
It is clear that coffee after meals is a beautiful tonic. To improve digestion, many eat it a couple of times a day. But is this right?
In sunny Italy, it is customary to drink coffee after meals, since drinking the drink on an empty stomach is prohibited. All people in the world wash down their food with various liquids, including this invigorating delicacy. But there are a huge number of aspects that are worth considering when drinking coffee after meals.
What is the best coffee to drink after meals?
You should not choose dark roasted beans for preparing an after-dinner drink. They contain large amounts of caffeine. Preference should be given to a cup of espresso. The concentration of the alkaloid in it is relatively small, since the product is in contact with water for a minimum time. In addition, espresso will not be so harmful if you add a spoonful of milk to it.
Coffee drinks that do not contain caffeine should not be preferred. They also contain chlorogenic acids. Accordingly, the harm from coffee will not be much less.
About balance
The balance of water in the body consists of its consumption and excretion.
With food, a person receives about 700 ml of water per day, in the form of drinks and pure water - about 650 ml, about 350-600 ml of water is formed during the metabolic process in the body itself as a result of the oxidation of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. On average, consumption is about 2 liters of water without any self-abuse.
When breathing and evaporation from the surface of the skin, about 800 ml of water is released per day, 100 ml of water is excreted in feces, and about 800 ml is excreted by the kidneys. The average minimum daily water excretion is about 1700 ml.
Coffee after junk food
It is not always possible to have lunch in a cozy home environment. Therefore, you have to visit establishments that specialize in fast food preparation. There, in addition to all kinds of hamburgers and hot dogs, they also sell coffee, which many brave souls use to wash down their already unhealthy food.
Canadian scientists conducted a study in which volunteers who did not have health problems took part. Some of them ate only fast food, while others also drank several cups of espresso after that.
The results of the experiment showed that as a result of eating fatty foods, blood sugar levels increase by approximately thirty percent. Under the influence of caffeine, changes in this indicator reach sixty percent. At the same time, the risk of developing diabetes mellitus increases significantly.
Based on this, it becomes clear that when fatty foods interact with caffeine, especially if they are consumed systematically, the activity of the entire body is disrupted. People who eat fast food are strongly advised not to drink coffee after such a meal. The effect observed after it will last up to five hours.
It is extremely dangerous to drink coffee drinks with a high content of sugar and milk after eating unhealthy, fatty foods.
This further increases the concentration of sugar in the blood. The most dangerous is considered to be a soluble product in sticks, which is called “3 in 1”.
Coffee and circadian cycles
Caffeine increases the amount of cortisol in the blood. It is a stress and mindfulness hormone. Its level fluctuates throughout the day: the peak occurs at 8-9 a.m., then at noon and 5-6 p.m. During these periods, the nervous system does not need artificial stimulation.
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But after every peak there is a decline. At this time, drowsiness and decreased performance are observed. A small dose of caffeine contained in a serving of coffee or a few slices of dark chocolate can give your body a boost.
There is a lot of cortisol in the blood within 1-2 hours after waking up. If you drink coffee at this time, you will gradually develop a dependence on caffeine and small doses will no longer work. It is correct to drink coffee in the morning, 2 hours after sleep.
Everyone has different sensitivity to caffeine; for some, its invigorating effect lasts up to 5-6 hours. Espresso and other strong coffee drinks can be consumed only in the morning, and a latte is acceptable in the afternoon, but no later than 2-3 hours before bedtime.
Is it possible to drink a coffee drink on an empty stomach?
Speaking about when it is better to drink coffee drinks, before or after a meal, we can definitely say - in the afternoon. Drinking coffee before meals will cause the chlorogenic acids it contains to begin to create an acidic environment in the stomach. The result is heartburn. As a result of irritation, the mucous membrane begins to release hydrochloric acid, which also negatively affects the condition of the digestive tract.
The situation gets worse if you don’t eat anything immediately afterward. Hydrochloric acid begins to literally digest the stomach. In this case, gastritis develops, and an ulcer is later diagnosed. If other unfavorable factors appear, then the onset of malignant processes is possible.
Is it healthy to drink tea?
The tannins contained in tea dampen the sensitivity of the stomach and intestinal mucosa, causing the ability to absorb food to decrease. The intestines fall into a kind of apathy, become lethargic and indifferent. Thus, when the digestive system is required to be most active to absorb what the body needs, the action of tea forces it to work less efficiently. Ice cream has a similar effect. It is useful to completely stop drinking tea immediately after a meal for an hour and a half.
Many cannot live without this pleasant and aromatic drink. But is the habit of drinking a cup after a meal beneficial? Experts advise not to do this, since tea contains tannins that interfere with the normal absorption of food. This is especially true for the proteins that build human cells. Due to substances such as tannin, protein and iron harden.
Coffee for weight loss: before or after meals
In order to lose excess weight, it is recommended to drink green coffee rich in chlorogenic acid. The drink is brewed according to the same procedure as black, but its taste is not nearly as rich. To lose weight, you should drink it half an hour before meals. Due to this, the body has time to prepare for the process of digesting food. In addition, the feeling of hunger is suppressed. Accordingly, a significantly smaller portion is eaten, and it is digested faster.
You can follow this regimen, but not in the morning. Drinking this drink on an empty stomach is harmful. In order to lose weight, you need to drink about six cups per day. This will also negatively affect your well-being and health. A safe norm is no more than three cups per day.
For weight loss, it is better to drink green tea with lemon. It does not have such an aggressive effect and is more useful.
There are many dangerous coffee diets and fasting days on this drink. It may be possible to lose weight with their help, but this will cause significant harm to the excretory, nervous and digestive systems. Therefore, you should not resort to such radical methods.
Lovers of aromatic espresso, delicate cappuccino and latte often resort to drinking them during meals. Such actions are highly undesirable. To avoid harm to health, any coffee drinks should be drunk at least half an hour after a meal and under no circumstances before it.
What happens in the body
It has been established that the digestion processes begin directly in the mouth. First, the food is crushed by the teeth and mixed with saliva. And the more chewing movements are made, the easier it is for the stomach; the products are abundantly moistened with saliva. The intake of fluid dilutes saliva and weakens its splitting effect.
Drinks also weaken the effect of saliva on food. Further, the liquid dilutes the digestive juices in the stomach, which complicates the digestion process. When drinking, a person often swallows without chewing, and this is harmful. As a result, food unprocessed by gastric juices does not go through the necessary stages of digestion in the stomach and ends up in the lower parts of the digestive system, where it undergoes rotting, fermentation and bacterial decomposition, followed by absorption of these products into the blood. As a result, further development of diseases and poisoning of the body.
In addition, by drinking drinks, you provoke a feeling of hunger, because the time food stays in the stomach is reduced.
How much water should you drink per day
It is believed that the daily fluid requirement of an adult is 20-40 ml per 1 kg of body weight. It turns out that the minimum daily consumption of a person weighing 70 kg is approximately 1700 ml. Maybe 2 liters. Maybe a little more.
This means TOTAL liquids. Comes with food (soup-tea-coffee), and with vegetables and fruits.
Subtract from these 2 liters what was absorbed in food. You need to fill the remainder with pure water. Pure water should be taken in sips between meals.