Think Before You Drink: Coffee Choice Helps Birds

Think Before You Drink:
Coffee Choice Helps Birds

The Townsend's Warbler breeds in the Pacific Northwest and spends its winters in Mexico and Central America. Photo by Craig Kern © Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Ithaca, NY—A simple lifestyle choice can have a positive impact on bird conservation around the world. Scientists have established that the traditional method of growing coffee—beneath the canopy of a forest, rather than chopping down the trees for sun-grown coffees—provides vital habitat for birds.

“It’s a simple formula: keep the trees, keep the birds,” says Dr. Kenneth Rosenberg, director of Conservation Science at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “When trees are retained, this has tremendous value to birds, especially migratory birds that winter in Central and South America and breed in North America during the summer.”

Research has shown that traditional shade-grown coffee plantations in Mexico can support more than 100 bird species, compared with 6–12 species in sun-grown monocultures.

Support of the shade-grown coffee movement has led to a new partnership between the Cornell Lab and Birds & Beans®, a Massachusetts-based retailer that specializes in shade-grown coffee products certified “Bird Friendly®” by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center. This certification means that Birds & Beans coffee is 100%-organic and shade-grown.

“We started this project to make it easier for bird and nature lovers to do the right thing and enjoy great-tasting coffee at the same time,” says Bill Wilson, co-founder of Birds & Beans. “By partnering with the Cornell Lab, we’re sure we can all make a big difference for tanagers, thrushes, orioles, warblers, and other beautiful songbirds.”

People who buy Birds & Beans Bird Friendly coffee also help protect birds a second way: A portion of all online sales and sales of the coffee from some Wild Birds Unlimited stores goes to the Cornell Lab to help support its ongoing bird research, education, and conservation programs.

“Simply drinking the right coffee is an easy way for people to make a real difference for birds,” says Rosenberg. “We’re happy to support Birds & Beans in this effort and help bird and nature lovers make the right choice.”

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Contact: Pat Leonard, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, (607) 254-2137, pel27@cornell.edu
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The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a membership institution dedicated to interpreting and conserving the earth’s biological diversity through research, education, and citizen science focused on birds. Visit the Cornell Lab’s web site at http://www.birds.cornell.edu.

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Coffee Drinking May Reduce Risk of Alzheimer's

Coffee Drinking May Reduce Risk of Alzheimer's
January 19, 2009

http://www.supermarketguru.com/index.cfm/go/sg.viewArticle/articleId/240

Drinking between three and five cups of coffee per day during your middle years may lower the risk of Alzheimer's disease as much as 60 to 65% later in life, according to a study recently released in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

The study, based in Scandinavia, surveyed participants in several studies over more than two decades. Some 1,409 individuals ages 65 to 79 were part of the follow-up studies and only 61 had dementia and only 48 had developed Alzheimer's disease. The participants were queried about their coffee drinking habits and memory function when younger and in a similar way some 20 years later. As other studies have concluded, researchers believe it is the naturally-occurring antioxidants in coffee that diminish the development of dementia and Alzheimer's disease in coffee-drinking people.

The aim of this study was to study the long-term impact of caffeine on the central nervous system and the pathologic processes leading to Alzheimer's disease, said lead researcher Miia Kivipelto. We now believe the pathologic processes leading to forms of dementia may begin decades before clinical manifestation. Because of the ubiquitous presence of coffee drinking throughout the world, she surmised, the study results might have important implications for the prevention of, or delaying of, the onset of dementia/AD, she added. New therapies for these conditions could be developed if we fully understand the mechanisms by which coffee protects again these diseases, she said. Ms. Kivipelto is an associate professor at the University of Kuopio and the Karolinska Intitutet.

For the study, coffee drinking fell into three groups: zero to two cups per day; three to five cups per day, and more than five cups per day. The lowest risk (65%) was found among those drinking three to five cups of coffee per day.

The conclusions were initially published in the Finnish Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Aging and Dementia (CAIDE) Study conducted by researchers at the University of Kuopio in Kuopio, Finland, the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, and the National Public Health Institute in Helsinki, Finland.

The 1,409 participants were survivors from the North Karelia Project and the FINMONICA Study in 1972, 1977, 1982, and 1987 and the final follow up was in 1998.

Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, Vol. 16, No. 1, January 2009, "Midlife Coffee and Tea Drinking and the Risk of Late-Life Dementia: A Population-based CAIDE Study" by Marjo H. Eskelinen, Tiia Ngandu, Jaakko Tuomilehto, Hikka Soinen, and Miia Kivipelto.

Consuming Acrylamides Boost Kidney Cancer Rate by 59 percent

Consuming Acrylamides Boosts Kidney Cancer Rate by 59 Percent
by David Gutierrez

Source: Natural News - Consuming Acrylamides Boosts Kidney Cancer Rate by 59 Percent


(NaturalNews) According to a new study conducted by researchers from the Netherlands, consuming high levels of acrylamide increases people's risk of kidney cancer by 59 percent,

Kidney cancer is the tenth most common cancer in the world. According to Marji McCullough, a nutritional epidemiologist for the American Cancer Society, smoking and obesity are well-known risk factors for the disease.

"It's best not to smoke and to maintain an ideal body weight," McCullough said. "One way to maintain a healthy body weight is a healthy diet."

But increasing evidence is emerging that dietary factors may also play a role.

Acrylamide is found in coffee and in starchy foods like grains and potatoes that have been baked, fried, roasted or toasted. It has been classified as a probable human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer since 1994, due to its documented genotoxic and carcinogenic effects in laboratory animals.

In the most recent study, researchers looked directly at the effects of dietary acrylamide on cancer risk by studying data from the Netherlands Cohort Study on diet and cancer, which includes more than 120,000 adult female and male participants between the ages of 55 and 69. Researchers from Maastricht University, the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority, and TNO Quality of Life calculated the dietary acrylamide intake of 5,000 random participants, based on food frequency questionnaires filled out when the cohort study began.

The results are presented in the article "Dietary acrylamide intake and the risk of renal cell, bladder, and prostate cancer" by J.G. Hogervorst, L.J. Schouten, E.J. Konings, R.A. Goldbohm, P.A. van den Brandt, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (May 2008, Volume 87, Number 5, pp. 1428-1438).

The researchers found that after 13.3 years, those who had the highest dietary acrylamide intake experienced a 59 percent higher risk of renal cell carcinoma than those with the lowest intake. Renal cell carcinoma is responsible for more than 80 percent of kidney cancer cases.

"We found some indications for a positive association between dietary acrylamide and renal cell cancer risk," the researchers wrote.

A total of 339 cases of kidney cancer, 1,210 cases of bladder cancer and 2,246 cases of prostate cancer were observed among study participants. The researchers did not observe any connection between acrylamide intake and cancer of the bladder or prostate.

The highest average acrylamide intake was 40.8 micrograms per day, while the lowest was 9.5 micrograms per day. Average intake was 21.8 micrograms per day, or slightly less than the amount found in a 2.5-ounce serving of French fries. Every 10 microgram increase in daily intake appeared to increase a person's risk of kidney cancer by 10 percent. Among smokers, the effect of dietary intake was even stronger.

Coffee was the biggest source of dietary acrylamide for the study participants. Among participants in the group with the highest average intake, however, the biggest source was a popular baked snack called Dutch spiced cake.

Prior to 2002, acrylamide was known only as an industrial chemical that consumers might be exposed to through cigarette smoke, cosmetics or the breakdown of certain environmental contaminants such as the herbicide glyphosate (Roundup). Then researchers from the Swedish Food Administration discovered that the chemical also formed at high levels in many popular foods, such as potato chips and bread. Since then, research has suggested that it may also form in dried fruit.

Although acrylamide is generally accepted to pose health risks in humans, some researchers have questioned whether typical dietary intakes are actually high enough to have an effect. The recent study is only one of the latest to suggest that dietary intake is indeed a significant source of exposure to the chemical.

In earlier research conducted by the same team of scientists, also using data from the Netherlands Cohort Study, dietary acrylamide was found to increase women's risk of ovarian cancer by 78 percent and their risk of endometrial cancer (in the lining of the uterus) by 29 percent. Among women who had never smoked, the increase in risk was much higher: 122 percent for ovarian cancer and 99 percent for endometrial cancer.

Researcher J.G. Hogervorst recommended that people limit their acrylamide intake, including from their diet.

"In preparing food at home, fry potatoes at temperatures below 175 degrees Celsius [347 degrees Fahrenheit] and fry them to gold-yellow, not dark brown," Hogervorst said. "The same goes for making toast and cookies."

The darker a food is fried or baked, the more acrylamide it contains. Foods that are steamed or boiled do not contain acrylamide.

Sources for this story include: www.washingtonpost.com, www.foodnavigator-usa.com ;

Starbucks wasting more than 6 million gallons of water a day

Starbucks Wasting More Than 6 Million Gallons of Water a Day
Amount of Water Lost Is Enough to Fill an Olympic Pool Every 83 Minutes
BY PHILIP VICTOR
LONDON, Oct. 6, 2008

http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/SmartHome/Story?id=5964908
http://www.abcnews.go.com/print?id=5964908

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http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/SmartHome/comments?type=story&id=5964908 ]

American coffee giant Starbucks became the target of conservationists today after an investigation by the U.K. newspaper The Sun estimated that the company wasted up to 6 million gallons of water every day, enough to quell the thirst of a small African nation.

As part of a company policy aimed at preventing germ buildup in its taps, Starbucks stores are directed to keep water running constantly into a sink, called a dipper well, to clean utensils and wash away food residue, The Sun reported.

As a result of running water all day, every day at each of the company's 10,000 worldwide coffee emporiums, Starbucks wastes water in an amount The Sun estimated to be "enough daily water for the entire 2 million strong population of drought-hit Namibia in Africa or fill an Olympic pool every 83 minutes."

The investigation was launched after a couple who spotted a running tap at a U.K. Starbucks were told by a store employee that it was left on to clean the pipes. They contacted Starbucks head office to find out more and later received a letter confirming that it was company policy to keep water constantly running into the dipper wells.

The Sun investigation spanned several Starbucks locations in the United Kingdom, including stores in London, Manchester and Birmingham, as well as in New York, Los Angeles, Beijing and Sydney. The practice of leaving taps on during operating hours was consistent in every location; The Sun reported that staff members were banned from turning the water off.

In a statement to ABC News, the company confirmed that "the dipper well system currently in use in Starbucks retail stores ensures that we meet or exceed our own and local health standards."

"Starbucks' challenge is to balance water conservation with the need for customer safety," the statement said.

So does leaving the water on actually make germ buildup less likely?

"They don't need to keep the tap on all the time. & A couple of minutes of running water should [clean the tap]," Jacob Tompkins of Waterwise, a nonprofit organization that focuses on decreasing U.K. water consumption, told ABCNews.com. "You don't keep the water running at home."

The water wastage seems an anomaly for a company that prides itself on its environmental record. In its mission statement posted on the company's Web site, Starbucks claims that it has a commitment to "understand environmental issues, to strive to buy, sell and use environmentally-friendly products, and to instill environmental responsibility as a corporate value."

Apart from the wastage itself, there are potentially other environmental effects. Tompkins said the energy used to pump water from the ground and treat it increases the carbon footprint of the entire operation.

While the company states it is in compliance with the World Health Organization, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and European Union standards, Starbucks admitted that "the opportunity exists to reduce our total water usage."

Tompkins said, "It's really good that they have customer health in mind," but he added that there are other ways to ensure cleanliness and hygiene in its stores.

Tompkins said the aim of his organization is to "reduce waste, not restrict use" and noted that Starbucks deserved credit for its "really good customer health record."

But he also offered some advice on how Starbucks could reduce its water waste and still ensure its stated commitment to customer safety.

He said the company could cut water use when the stores are not extremely busy and also look into ways of "lowering the flow" of water, such as aerating nozzles.

"They can do a water audit and discuss [it] with their staff," he said.

In the statement to ABC News, Starbucks said it has tested more environmentally-friendly ways to maintain its hygiene, including using an ice bath and eliminating spoons altogether.

"Neither of these alternatives was successful," the statement said.

Starbucks stated that other methods are "currently under consideration," including using dishwashers to clean their utensils.

"We continue to routinely re-evaluate our equipment, store design and training opportunities to reduce our overall water use with the goal of ultimately reducing our environmental footprint," the company said.