Tis MALU's fault (A scientist complains) (Coffee in general)

Member Name: sidneygee

Product:	Coffee in general
Date:	20/11/02 (189 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: MALU inspires, A challenge !, Can put some science in.

Disadvantages: 200 word 'limit', So much more to say ...., I would not choose this subject

Coffee Beans are imported as 'green beans', then roasted, mostly ground, and then sold as such or used to make ?instant coffee?. As Deputy Port Health Analyst in London I examined shipments of green beans when brought into our Laboratory (off the Walworth Road).

Occasionally, shipments from one country contained discoloured beans, affected by mould. Mould growing on vegetable material often produces mycotoxins, which are carcinogenic, and on occasions our analysis would actually detect specific mycotoxins (Aflatoxins) in these discoloured beans.

I submitted a report to the Department of Health and the coffee companies, who claimed that their 'tests on coffee beans found no evidence of such contamination'. In the Laboratory, we established that roasting contaminated beans certainly resulted in the DISAPPEARANCE of the mycotoxins. BUT I was always left with a nagging doubt ? could the mycotoxins be converted to something else (possibly equally carcinogenic)?

Discussions with an epidemiologist in Edinburgh a few years' later suggested that heavy coffee drinkers were 'more prone' to pancreatic cancer. He was a heavy coffee drinker and, (coincidentally?) about 5 years' later, he contracted pancreatic cancer and died.

Thus I always try to avoid coffee from a particular African country?..

Copyright Sidneygee 2002

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