The Caffeine Wars

By Author: pangsiyan
Total Articles: 130
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Caffeine may be the perfect drug of the Internet Age -- cheap, legal and available absolutely everywhere. For a population complaining of fatigue, exhaustion, stress and insomnia, it appears a near perfect antidote. Yet how we deliver our drug of choice changes the results on our brain and body.

So here's a quick review of some of the cultural, social and biological differences between coffee and energy drinks:

Culture: Few drinks can claim a place in the creation of the English, American, French and Russian revolutions, but coffee can. Beyond activating the minds of revolutionaries, coffee drinking is highly social, and for centuries coffeehouse owners have tried to make their businesses centers of community life. You don't bring kids to a bar. Coffeehouses can be a place to meet business colleagues, future mates and listen to the lonely local poet as you surf the net. By comparison, you drink energy drinks alone, unless your sports team is imbibing them together at half time.

Food and food products: Few would dispute that coffee is a food. Though often adulterated with a bewildering list of ingredients ...
... that begin in an organic garden and end in a petrochemical can, coffee does come from trees. Many advertisers hope coffee drinkers believe those trees are tended by picturesque third world planters who love their mountain misted arbors as much as their barefoot children, if only to justify the exorbitant price they pay for each cup. Some researchers argue half the antioxidants obtained by Americans come from their coffee cups, which as Michael Pollan would point out, tells you a great deal about the average American diet.

Energy drinks are not attached to such sentimental images. They are at best food products, legal pharmaceuticals, delivering a certain dose of caffeine plus sugar (with its quick calories) and vitamins. In real ways their "energy" components may originate with energy companies like BP, extending from the PET bottles from which they are normally dispensed to the flavorings, stabilizers and preservatives within.

Caffeine may be the perfect drug of the Internet Age -- cheap, legal and available absolutely everywhere. For a population complaining of fatigue, exhaustion, stress and insomnia, it appears a near perfect antidote. Yet how we deliver our drug of choice changes the results on our brain and body.

So here's a quick review of some of the cultural, social and biological differences between coffee and energy drinks:

Culture: Few drinks can claim a place in the creation of the English, American, French and Russian revolutions, but coffee can. Beyond activating the minds of revolutionaries, coffee drinking is highly social, and for centuries coffeehouse owners have tried to make their businesses centers of community life. You don't bring kids to a bar. Coffeehouses can be a place to meet business colleagues, future mates and listen to the lonely local poet as you surf the net. By comparison, you drink energy drinks alone, unless your sports team is imbibing them together at half time.

Food and food products: Few would dispute that coffee is a food. Though often adulterated with a bewildering list of ingredients that begin in an organic garden and end in a petrochemical can, coffee does come from trees. Many advertisers hope coffee drinkers believe those trees are tended by picturesque third world planters who love their mountain misted arbors as much as their barefoot children, if only to justify the exorbitant price they pay for each cup. Some researchers argue half the antioxidants obtained by Americans come from their coffee cups, which as Michael Pollan would point out, tells you a great deal about the average American diet.

Energy drinks are not attached to such sentimental images. They are at best food products, legal pharmaceuticals, delivering a certain dose of caffeine plus sugar (with its quick calories) and vitamins. In real ways their "energy" components may originate with energy companies like BP, extending from the PET bottles from which they are normally dispensed to the flavorings, stabilizers and preservatives within.