Gourmet Coffee Beans

Last week I traveled to Houston to visit a sick cousin. Having never been to Houston I learned a couple of thing.

1. The hospital systems are a money making machine and keep everything clean and looking like new to keep the money flowing.
2. No one eats breakfast.

I woke up early on Sunday and went for a drive looking for a nice breakfast thinking surely I would find a Denny’s or IHOP. Nothing! Not even a bagel shop or a greasy diner. I drove 45 minutes up and down the main roads by the hospital district and Reliant Stadium and found nothing. Then I thought Denny’s is always near a highway exit so I got on 288 and still nothing.

I had to resort to one of the fast food restaurants so I stopped at Burger King. Their coffee was called BK Joe so I said to myself “this must be the gourmet coffee that I read about.” A nice marketing spin so it must be good. Then I read a sign at the dispenser that said “Turbo coffee only available behind the counter.” Being a gourmet coffee aficionado I had to go the Turbo route or I would regret it the rest of the day.

So I grabbed my puny breakfast burrito and sat down to enjoy the Houston version of a gourmet breakfast. The Turbo tasted like they used a double shot of coffee grounds. Fresh but very strong. I don’t mean like a nice dark roasted coffee full of flavor but just a powerful punch of regular coffee. My first thought was to dump it out and get a regular coffee but then I decided that since I am a coffee junkie that I needed to tough it out and get the full effect of the BK Joe Turbo coffee.

In case your are wondering, I will refrain writing about the first lesson I learned since I don’t want to depress you down with the main purpose of my trip.

Canadian research suggests that high levels of coffee consumption may reduce the risk of breast cancer among women with BRCA1 gene mutations. A matched case-control study published in the International Journal of Cancer examined the association between coffee consumption and the risk of breast cancer among 1`690 high-risk women with BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations. The odds ratios for breast cancer among BRCA mutation carriers who drank no coffee, 1 to 3 cups, 4 to 5 cups, or 6 or more cups of coffee were 1.00, 0.90, 0.75, and 0.31, respectively. When the women were stratified by mutation status, there was a significant protective trend for increasing caffeinated coffee consumption among women with a BRCA1 mutation. The authors say that coffee is an important source of phytoestrogens, which may have chemoprotective effects. “The mechanism by which phytoestrogens may beneficially influence the risk of breast cancer has predominantly been attributed to their structural similarity to endogenous estrogens and their ability to bind to estrogen receptors. Coffee consumption has been associated with a higher level of circulating sex hormone binding globulin, which decreases the level of bioavailable estrogen,” they say.