Instant coffee: the benefits and harm of the drink

Instant coffee is very popular - it is bought for office tea, prepared at home, taken on trips and even served in small cafes.This is due primarily to the simplicity and efficiency of its brewing, affordability. The article will look at what the soluble product is made of, and how it affects its composition, and most importantly - human health.

Instant coffee is a powder, which is enough to fill with hot water to get a coffee drink. It is made from coffee beans, which are pre-crushed, roasted, and then steamed. However, despite the presence of real coffee beans in the drink, it is difficult to call it natural.

To say that instant coffee is useful or characterized by the same taste as natural coffee, is hindered by the high content of components of synthetic origin. They are necessary for the reason that in the process of preparing coffee beans, essential oils and other substances that provide the taste and aroma of the beverage evaporate from them. Return it allow flavor enhancers and flavors.

As a result, the volume of natural raw materials in dry instant coffee hardly reaches 15%. And in most cases, a cheaper Robusta is used, and not Arabica. In this case, the soluble product usually consists of substandard, that is, grains that cannot be sold as natural. They may be debris and dust or may be disturbed during processing.

Sometimes the process of decaffeination is carried out, so that so-called decaffeinated coffee appears on the shelves. However, such a statement is a marketing ploy, since caffeine, although in smaller quantities, is present in the product. At the same time, the beneficial properties of the grains are removed along with caffeine; for this, chemical components are used.

Given that there are almost no natural ingredients in a soluble drink, one can hardly speak of its benefits. The harm becomes obvious - the contained "synthetics" can cause allergic reactions, and also gradually poison the body. This drink is not recommended in the first place to people suffering from allergies, asthma, since its consumption can provoke a dangerous attack of suffocation.

If natural coffee contains useful acids that help improve digestion, then soluble coffee can cause stomach pain, bloating, heartburn. The reason for these negative phenomena - all the same chemical additives. To a greater extent, people with gastritis, ulcers, and pancreatitis are susceptible to problems with the gastrointestinal tract when drinking an instant drink. In acute forms of these diseases, coffee consumption should be abandoned.

In soluble coffee, the caffeine content is higher, so it has a more aggressive effect on the nervous and cardiac systems, and caffeine also flushes out calcium from the body. After 50 years, it is better to abandon instant coffee or make it less strong, add milk to compensate for the calcium deficiency, which is already characteristic of the body of older people.

A large amount of caffeine that enters the body every day, especially when combined with flavor enhancers, is addictive. Without the usual volume of drink, a person feels overwhelmed, lethargic. Reduce the amount of concentrated soluble drink should be with heart problems, high blood pressure. But hypotensive coffee is useful.

It is better, of course, to use its natural version, but in conditions of lack of time, a good sublimated product will do. However, if you dilute coffee with milk or put less dry matter, you can get an invigorating drink that helps you wake up, activates brain activity, and allows you to concentrate.

There is an opinion that coffee contributes to weight loss. However, this is true only for a natural drink, which, accelerating the metabolism, can really help in weight loss. And even despite the low calorie content of instant drinks (about 94 kcal per 100 grams of dry matter), such coffee adversely affects the figure. BZHU product - 15/0 / 3.5 g per 100 g of product.

By facilitating the leaching of protein, such a drink deprives the body of the material necessary for the structure of the muscles, as a result of which the structure of the body becomes flabby. In addition, coffee, as already mentioned, retains moisture, which becomes the cause of edema, cellulite. You can hardly say that coffee is useful for losing weight.

Caffeine in large quantities, as well as harmful additives contained in the product in question, adversely affect the reproductive system of women.

But a moderate amount of a good instant drink will help relieve a slight headache, pain during menstruation. Favorite taste and aroma will distract from unpleasant sensations and lift your mood.

For men, instant coffee is also not the most useful drink. We should start with the fact that, due to social reasons and peculiarities of the nervous system, men are more at risk of developing heart disease. Drinking coffee only exacerbates the situation. If we talk about low-grade soluble product, it can also reduce the sexual activity of men, become one of the components of those factors that cause infertility.

Soluble analog due to the contained "chemistry", on the contrary, slows down the processes of digestion of food, retains water in the body. Especially dangerous for losing weight are the bags "3 in 1". They contain a large amount of sugar and other high-calorie components (their number reaches 90%, while coffee powder is only 10%).

If you make a similar drink even from an instant powder and add sugar and cream yourself, it’s better not dry, or milk, the calorie content of the drink will be 2-3 times lower than that prepared from the bag. The calorie content of “coffee from a bag” is 70 kcal, while a cup of freeze-dried coffee “from a can” with sugar and cream (a teaspoon of coffee and sugar and a tray of 10 ml in volume) is 30 kcal. If you replace the cream with milk, you get even less.

It is also true that the coffee in the 3 in 1 drink is contained in an insignificant dosage, usually it is replaced by chicory, barley. The composition of the cream is also suspicious, since it uses not a dry natural cream, but a vegetable analogue. It contains vegetable fats and milk protein, and the taste and aroma, as well as the desired consistency, are given by stabilizers and emulsifiers.

The ambiguity of the composition of such "powders" should be the reason for abandoning its use in the period of gestation and breastfeeding. In addition, due to the high content of caffeine in a soluble drink, it affects the nervous system much more aggressively, increases blood pressure, speeds up the work of all systems, which can lead to uterine contractions, causing miscarriages.

Children under 14 years should not be offered coffee, especially soluble. Coffee is contraindicated in cataracts, glaucoma, serious heart disease, atherosclerosis, osteoporosis (a disease characterized by a lack of calcium in the body).

You should not drink coffee (any) on an empty stomach. Optimal coffee break after 30-40 minutes after a meal. It is important to follow the recommended dosage - no more than 1-2 cups a day. It is better to drink them in the morning.

Depending on the method of processing beans, instant coffee is of the following types:

• freeze-dried, implying freezing of the grains and their dehydration in vacuum space;
• powder, for the preparation of which the raw material is exposed to dry hot steam, because of which it turns into a powder;
• granulated is the same powder product that was treated with water and dried, with the result that the sand grains of the powder “stuck together” with each other, forming granules.

The most qualitative and more expensive is the sublimated look, the most affordable and of little use - powder.

To taste, freeze-dried coffee is more similar to natural coffee, since in the process of freezing most of the coffee bean components remain. For the same reason, it is also considered more useful.

Depending on the grains used, the raw materials may be based on arabica or robusta. The latter has a more bitter and tough taste. It is optimal if granules based on arabica and robusta blends are poured into the container.

A few years ago, instant green coffee appeared on the shelves, which immediately gained popularity. It is due to the fact that green grains, as the manufacturer claims, help to lose weight. Technologically, it can only be sublimated, since when exposed to high temperatures, the grains lose those components that are responsible for fat burning.

By itself, instant green coffee does not have a pleasant taste, aroma, and appearance in general. In this regard, it is usually mixed with a rich black coffee.

Speaking about the choice of instant coffee, it should be noted that the higher quality is sublimated. Do not buy the powder version, and granulated is an "intermediate" link.

Quality coffee is packed in glass or tin containers. And they should be darkened.

You can check the quality of the purchased product by placing a teaspoon of coffee in a glass of cold water. After mixing (it will take 2-3 minutes), the granules or powder should be completely dissolved, without forming a precipitate. By the way, coffee should dissolve in hot water for no longer than 30 seconds.

Now you can add to it (or prepare a new one) a few drops of iodine. If the color of the drink has become bluish, this indicates the presence of synthetic additives in it.

It is important to appreciate the aroma of coffee, if bread notes are made their way, the manufacturer saved on coffee beans, replacing them with barley. Instant coffee cannot produce a strong aroma a priori, since it lacks essential oils. If the open bank distributes a strong coffee aroma, no matter how seductive and “natural” it may seem, this is just an increased dose of flavors.

A good taste and less harm has the drink, which included a larger number of coffee beans, while they themselves were exposed to minimal exposure to hot temperatures. Such a product may not have too low a price.

In response to this question, the acceptable dose should be measured not by the number of cups, but by the caffeine content. A healthy adult who has no contraindications is allowed to consume no more than 300 mg of caffeine at a time. However, this is an extreme figure, and caffeine is also found in other products, so for coffee its rate should be reduced to 200-250 mg.

For example, caffeine is found in tea, bitter chocolate, cocoa, desserts, and coffee-based drinks, many painkillers. This should be remembered, counting a safe amount of drink per day. So much contain 2 teaspoons of coffee, the number of servings at the same time should not exceed 1-2 per day.

Regardless of whether you drink coffee from a large mug or a small one, the amount of caffeine does not differ, you should pay attention to the number of spoons that are put into the cup. Just the taste becomes more or less concentrated depending on the volume of water added.

If you put sugar in a drink, then its caloric content increases by 6 kcal with each teaspoon. Cube refined contains 20-40 kcal, depending on size.

No less popular is a drink with milk. Caloric content of the latter also affects the nutritional value of coffee, increasing it. How much - depends on the fat content and the volume of milk. Thus, 1 tablespoon of 3.2% fat milk contains up to 12 kcal. While in the same amount of milk 1.5% - only 9 kcal.

Despite the fact that to prepare instant coffee is quite simple, there are also tricks that will allow you to get the most delicious drink. So, you first need to pour into a glass of coffee, and then pour water, the temperature of which should be 80-90C. Do not use boiling water. Sugar and milk are put in the finished drink. If dry cream is used, then they are poured into a glass immediately with coffee.

Coffee drink goes well with cloves, star anise, cinnamon. It is better to grind spices immediately before adding to the coffee with your own hands. They are usually added to brewed coffee, and after a few minutes - removed (if it is a star of cloves or star anise, cinnamon stick). This coffee has a warming effect, has a more weeping tart taste. You can add milk to it.

Interesting is the combination of light bitterness of coffee and lemon. A slice is added to the finished coffee, kneaded a little with a fork to make juice, and removed from the cup.

Connoisseurs of delicate creamy flavors will appreciate the latte. To do this, you need to make strong coffee, putting 1.5-2 teaspoons of raw materials in 70-100 ml of water. At this time, you need to warm up and beat the milk with a blender or mixer so that it turns into a froth.

This milk is poured into a slightly warmed glass, and then carefully, along the walls, coffee is poured. If done correctly, the coffee will drop, and milk froth will remain at the top. The middle layer will also be represented by milk, which after mixing with coffee will become beige.

If you mix equal amounts of brewed coffee and warm milk in a shaker, add vanilla and regular coffee to a teaspoon, you get coffee raff. It will appeal to those who do not like coffee bitterness and appreciate the delicate creamy taste.

Coffee frappe can be prepared from a glass of water, 2 teaspoons of coffee and sugar. In the shaker, you should pour the dry ingredients and pour them with water at room temperature. Shake the contents vigorously until foam appears and pour into a 250 ml high transparent glass. Instead of a shaker, you can use a blender, then the foam will be softer and more airy.

It remains to add a few ice cubes to the drink to get a refreshing frappe. You can enter 30 ml of cold milk to get a creamy frappe. The optimum temperature of the drink is 10-12C.

In the summer heat on the basis of instant coffee, you can make a drink with ice cream. To do this, 2 teaspoons of instant coffee and sugar need to pour in 30 ml of hot water. Pour into a shaker, where add 200 ml of chilled milk, whisk thoroughly. Put 1-2 balls of ice cream on the bottom of a high transparent glass and pour coffee. Decorate the resulting "hat" with grated chocolate or cocoa.

To make it, you need to pour 1.5 teaspoons of coffee and sugar with 1.5 cups of hot water, and then put it in the refrigerator until it cools. After that, the coffee is poured into a tall glass of clear glass and 1 teaspoon of brandy is poured into it. You can add a couple of ice cubes and decorate with a “cap” of whipped cream. Topping in the form of nutmeg will make the taste of the drink even more piquant.

Read more about instant coffee in the video below.