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Canadian Sugar Juice
98 Plays4 years ago
So many of us start our days with that sweet, sweet jolt of glorious caffeine. But it comes at a price. And not just the exorbitant cost of going to a Starbucks. There are environmental costs as well. On this episode John leads the crew in a discussion about coffee. So grab a cup of your favorite brew, spike it if you need to, and join us for an energetic discussion. Who you callin' a psycho??!!
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Transcript
Georgia's Political Battleground
00:00:00
Speaker
The battleground this election is Georgia. We got a fight like we've never fought before. A historic rematch for governor. Democracy only works when we work for it. In control of the Senate. It is time for me to get out and fight. We'll all be decided here. Welcome to the blue Georgia. Know what's really going on with the politically Georgia podcast from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. We were there before all this media attention. Our team of journalists are the authority on the campaign trail. The results will have implications for years to come.
00:00:28
Speaker
Politically Georgia hosted by AJC political insiders Greg Blustein and Patricia Murphy follow the show on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts He's got he's got a really old butthole It's been overworked over my butthole does walk around with a walker My butthole takes Garret's all
00:00:55
Speaker
My butthole's favorite band is the butthole servers. My butthole goes to dinner at four o'clock. Alright, I'm done.
Introducing History Defeats Itself
00:01:30
Speaker
Hello and welcome to History Defeats Itself. My name is Kevin Rosenquist. I hope you're doing great wherever you may be. History Defeats Itself is a comedy podcast where we explore if we as people learn from our history or if we are doomed to forever repeat it. As always, I am joined by my glorious cohorts and co-hosts who are not permitted to do the intro this week.
00:01:51
Speaker
First, out there in Los Angeles, we have John Banks. How are you, buddy? I'm doing fantastic because I did not go to work today. I took the day off, did some stuff around the house. It was amazing. Are you going in tomorrow? I am going in tomorrow. I'm doing one day, and then I get the weekend off. That makes a real easy week, then.
00:02:10
Speaker
and then I'm working three days next week and I'm taking Thursday and Friday off, so. Oh, wow. You're a model, you're a model employee. Well, here's the thing. They won't let me drink at work, so if they're not gonna let me drink at work, I'm not gonna go in. That's true, that's true. Yeah, I can drink at work so it works out.
00:02:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's nice. Wait a minute. Wait a minute, they don't let us drink at work? Also out there in Los Angeles, and also John's co-worker, so he's very curious to hear about the alcohol consumption rules while on the clock. Mr. Greg Mitchell, how you doing, buddy?
00:02:47
Speaker
I'm doing fantastic because John Banks didn't come to work today. Oh, that's just mean. Such a dick. I know. I sat in your lap on Christmas. Or was that New Year's? What day did I sit in your lap? It was... no, I think it was in between the holidays.
00:03:05
Speaker
That was an unexpected diversion. Anyway, if you like our podcast, despite the disturbing image of John sitting on Greg's lap, please subscribe to us on your favorite podcast player. And if you're willing to leave a rating or review, we would be forever in your debt. It really does help us out. And you can also follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and we are on YouTube as well.
00:03:28
Speaker
So the format of HDI is as follows. Each episode, one of us will pick the topic and do the research, while the other two don't do a damn thing. They don't even know what we're going to talk about until we hit record. And as always, please remember that we are a comedy podcast, and while we do put time into our research, we are not historians, and we will undoubtedly get some things wrong. We haven't had to do a true retraction or correction though yet, so that's good.
00:03:55
Speaker
Greg, are you done pantomiming in the camera there? No, I'm just thinking about the retraction I made about Dolly Parton, but I guess you just gloss over Dolly. I said we haven't had to do a true retraction. That was a true retraction, motherfucker. What do you think, I faked it? No, that wasn't a retraction. That was just you adding that she was an American- Treasure. Sweetheart or something, yeah.
00:04:19
Speaker
That was just you feeling bad for making fun of the way she looked. That's different. Yeah. Oh, okay, fine. We have a perfect record. It's like you're like a pitcher that's pitching a no-hitter and you're talking about pitching a no-hitter and now we're gonna blow it. That's probably a good point. Okay.
00:04:35
Speaker
All right, we'll get ready. I got a lot of things that are wrong here. Yeah, if we're ready. John is our fearless leader this week, so John- No, no, no, no, no. He's just your full leader today. I don't want to listen to whatever you're going to say. Okay. I didn't expect him to go down that easy. All right. That's what she said. Yeah, I was waiting for that one. John?
Caffeine: A Psychoactive Exploration
00:05:00
Speaker
All right. So tonight,
00:05:03
Speaker
We all love it. We all use it. Well, most of us do. Is this going to be about your bidet? Just an hour and a half about your bidet. You know, I'm trying to get people to come to my house. So just let me do what I need to do to make that happen. Oh, wait. I do want to say this.
00:05:24
Speaker
It's caffeine, the history of caffeine and how it has affected the world. Greg Mitchell, are you gonna be okay with this being that you're off caffeine right now? Yeah, I'm gonna be fine with it. In fact, actually, there's only a third of our podcast uses caffeine. And when I say uses, I mean, like a drug. That's you, Kevin. I do drink a lot of coffee, yeah. You fucking addict. I'm sorry, what are you drinking right now?
00:05:48
Speaker
I'm drinking something without caffeine, it's Fresca, bro. But you called me an addict. It's Fresca, okay, and what else? Did you pour the Michelobe in the Fresca? No, that'd be disgusting. I've tried that once. It's called a Michelobe. What the fuck did you do that for? When was the last time you had a Michelobe?
00:06:09
Speaker
It's been a minute. Never? It's been a minute. I've never had one. I took a sip when I was like 16. Can you imagine going up to a bar and telling the bartender, it's like, hey, what you have? And you're like, I'm a Michelob.
00:06:21
Speaker
Just a regular Michelob. He's like, we haven't sold a Michelob since 1975. It's like going and just ordering a Miller. I just want a Miller. Yeah. All right, so caffeine. And it's mostly going to be about coffee and how coffee's kind of fucked the world. Because I mean, that seems to be the theme of our show, is how have things fucked the world? And did we learn from them? Probably not. So caffeine.
00:06:47
Speaker
is a central nervous stimulant. And so this stimulates the brain, speeding up both mental and physical processes. Caffeine is the most widely used psychoactive substance on the planet. And there are around 62 manufactured pharmaceutical stimulants in the US. The most commonly known are Adderall and Ritalin. I think right now we should probably put Greg on some Ritalin to go with that micalobe. What?
00:07:14
Speaker
But I mean, I know you're gonna get into all this stuff, but a cup of coffee's not like taking Adderall. Well, but that's the thing we're gonna get into because we're gonna get into like cocaine, for example, right? Cocaine is an illegal substance. But if you actually, if you have like a coca leaf and you just drink tea from the coca leaf, the effects are about the same as having a cup of coffee. I had, yeah, I had coca tea when I was in Peru. It was delicious. Yeah. Yeah. You know, did it help with the altitude sickness?
00:07:41
Speaker
I live in Colorado, so altitude sickness isn't really an issue for me. Oh, man. I felt like my head had a hatch in it the whole time I was in preschool. Yeah. I mean, yeah, well, it's different for you. I live in Colorado, so altitude's not an issue. I live a fucking mile high. It's a location where you have altitude. Me.
00:07:59
Speaker
You sound really stodgy right now. John, we're going to find a new co-host. Even without Smirnoff, he's a dick. I went to Peru, and I just noticed people taking pictures. He's working through a lot of stuff right now. He's got a lot of pain, a lot of people. He spent a lot of time with his family over the holidays. He did. That was terrible. He probably spent a lot of money. He was great, yeah. He doesn't like spending money. Where did that come from? I said you probably spent a lot of money over the holidays, and he doesn't like spending money.
00:08:29
Speaker
I do like spending money. I overextend myself all the time. Don't fucking jump on the anti-Semitism already. I didn't say anything about that. Why is everything about money being anti-Semitic? Why? Have you been in our culture before? I mean, yes. I'm going to marry one of you. So yes. So caffeine. Wait, are you guys getting married? Yeah.
00:08:57
Speaker
Can I be your rabbi at the wedding? Uh, no, we're
Caffeine and the Coffee Plant
00:09:00
Speaker
not having a Jewish wedding. Well, can I? Yeah. I mean, we are going to do, we're going to break the glass and do a little mazel tov and then the chair thing. We're gonna do the chair thing. So mazel tov cocktail. Yep. Um, so the illegal stimulants that are in our society are cocaine, methamphetamine, and MDMA, also known as ecstasy. Wasn't that like UFC fighting?
00:09:26
Speaker
Uh, no, that's, that's, uh, that's WWE. So, so, so do you guys know what MD, MD, MA stands for? I do know. This is 60 miles an hour. Methylene dioxide meth amphetamine.
00:09:45
Speaker
So there you go. If you ever own a trivia show and you get asked that question. Did you learn that on Breaking Bad? No, I learned that on Google. Because I wanted to see what it stood for. So I Googled it. You just said it and I still don't know what it is.
00:10:05
Speaker
Methylene dioxi meth amphetamine. Okay. So it's like, it's like, it's like meth amphetamine with a, with a methylene dioxi in front of it. What's that? I mean, there you go. I heard that was in the, in like, remember when they came up with new Coke?
00:10:24
Speaker
That was in the recipe. Was it, yeah, MDMA? Methylydiaxylene. That was so close. So close. I tried. What's the difference between that and just regular old street meth?
00:10:38
Speaker
Well, that's just methamphetamine or meth. So it's yeah, that's the you know, you don't have to say you don't know so you don't know I know words and I'm just reading the words. I'm telling you You don't know the difference doesn't have the methylene dioxide. Okay, somebody has the research
00:11:00
Speaker
What that does, I don't know. He's got a point. He does know what it is. The methylene dioxide, I think that's the part that makes you feel like you can dance when you don't know how to dance, so you go to a rave? Or the part that makes you want to have sex with everything around you? I think that's testosterone. That's called molly. It's the same thing. Yeah, it's the same thing. Molly, ecstasy. And so a lethal dose of caffeine is 10 grams of caffeine.
00:11:31
Speaker
Yeah. How many cups of coffee is there? Oh, it would be like hundreds. There's no way, your body, if you were trying to overdose on caffeine, or through coffee, you would throw up before you ever were able to do it. Yeah, makes sense. But now here's what's crazy. So there are 90, in 2018, we don't know with 2019, because they haven't figured out those numbers yet, but in the United States, in 2018, there were 92 people that died from caffeine. What? What? Yeah. A third of those were suicide. Oh my God.
00:12:00
Speaker
Right, crazy, so what it is is the caffeine pills, like the no-dos, and like other brands. So if you take those, you can overload your system with more than a lethal dose and die. But who the fuck thinks I'm gonna kill myself with caffeine? Yeah, that's definitely weird. Right? That's a strange one. Well, wait, are you, okay, so basically you've killed yourself accidentally. Those are accidental overdoses.
00:12:28
Speaker
Well, maybe purposefully, but it's not... Right. Well, like, there was this kid, uh... Oh, shoot. There was a kid, like, back east somewhere, who he, uh... Oh, 19-year-old resident James Stone, and he basically had caffeine toxicity, and he did a dose of two dozen no-dos.
00:12:48
Speaker
So did he like willfully try to commit suicide by doing that? Or did he have to cram for an exam? It didn't really say. There was another kid who died. He drank an energy drink. He took a couple of caffeine pills and drank a cup of coffee, but he slammed it all real fast. And he went into cardiac arrest and died. And he was like another like 19, 20 year old kid.
00:13:09
Speaker
I think that's happened quite a bit with people taking too much of those energy drinks. It can give you an irregular heart rhythm and then put you in cardiac arrest.
00:13:20
Speaker
I've had Red Bull, I've only had Red Bull a couple times and Greg, I had, I did it, I did it once right before a hockey game because I was like, I just, I was, long day was really tired. I'm like, all right, you know, I'll drink a Red Bull. It's fine. Man, I was sitting on the bench in between shifts, just like shaking. I was like jittery. I just, I could not settle down. It was the, it was an awful, awful feeling. I mean, I don't, and I like, again, like we said, I drink coffee, so it's not like,
00:13:46
Speaker
Caffeine and and things like that are foreign to my body. It just it was really it was bad. That sounds terrible that terrible I mean, I could imagine I can imagine reading your diary the next day. I mean this Like it's like his diary and she's all shaking shaking handwriting Oh my god, I had to use caffeine son of a bitch. I better snow smoke a blunt
00:14:12
Speaker
He's like, sorry, Kevin. I changed my mind. Go get a Smirnoff, all right? You're actually better with the Smirnoff. You're less offensive with Smirnoff. Can I post me it's a Smirnoff? Probably not. All right, so a lethal dose of cocaine is around one gram.
00:14:34
Speaker
And then a lethal dose of methamphetamine, or meth, as you guys like to call it. Your street name. Delicious. Is about 150 milligrams. Oh, caffeine? No, no. Oh, that's just a little lethal. Pay attention. Jesus Christ. He was drinking his Fresca. How many trucks are carrying meth across the country? Seven.
00:15:05
Speaker
If a truck leaves Chicago at 7 a.m. In the morning These are drivers and the drivers on four notos Did you guys did you guys used to drink coffee? Yes. Yeah, I drink it up. Yeah, go ahead. How long have you been off? Greg for you. How long Kevin? I mean Greg got years, right? I've been off caffeine for about 13 years. Oh
00:15:27
Speaker
Oh wow, okay. John? When I gave up everything else, my last cup of coffee would have been July 31st of 2019. And I don't know that I will give it up forever. My problem is sugar. Man, I cannot stay away from that sweet, sweet sugar. Are we talking about actual sugar here? Yeah, we're actually talking about sugar.
00:15:52
Speaker
That I haven't done in a long, long time, but you throw something in a cookie. I don't really like coffee, but I like the effect of coffee, so I do like half a cup of coffee and some creamer and then just like 17 cubes. I was going to say, I like my sugar with coffee and cream. Yeah, pretty much. I quit caffeine for like four years, but then I came crawling back.
00:16:22
Speaker
What was it, because you gave up cocaine? So you needed some sort of- I don't, no, no, no, no, I've got cocaine right now. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding, Mom. No, I don't know, I don't really, honestly, I cannot remember why I started drinking coffee again. But honestly, it was like, I will say that when I stopped drinking it, it was, you didn't get the crashes, you know, you didn't get the, and I don't, I wouldn't say I crashed hard, but I definitely feel like a little more tired after the coffee starts to wear down.
00:16:52
Speaker
But you didn't get that when when you were off caffeine caffeine I sleep a lot better like my because I I don't I lay down I pass out You know and then I wake up in the morning. I'm good to go So it's like it takes me like 10 minutes to go to sleep where if I'm drinking coffee It you know I have to lay down it takes me a while my brain keeps going even if you even if you're just in the morning because like I noticed if I I
00:17:15
Speaker
Like, I've kind of got like a one, two o'clock, like, wind, like, cutoff point. I cannot drink coffee after that or else I'm gonna have a hard time sleeping. But if I just drink it in the morning, it doesn't seem to affect me.
00:17:26
Speaker
Well, I would have it in the morning, I'd have some after lunch, and then I'd have some on the way home, and then I'd have some at home. Well, maybe that was the problem. You were drinking coffee like two hours before you went to bed. Then Courtney and I would give each other coffee enemas, and then all of our condoms have coffee in them, so it's just a lot of caffeine. That's aggressive, yeah? No, I would do two to three cups, and I would probably stop by two, 230, but it just affects me. I don't know. I'm sensitive, man. You are sensitive.
00:17:56
Speaker
So, caffeine occurs naturally in about 60 different plant species, of which the famous ones are like coca beans, kola nuts, tea leaves, and coffee. Some that aren't well known are guana berries, guausa, yaupon holly, yoko, huito,
00:18:19
Speaker
They're only lesser known because we can't pronounce them. Yo vermate, cuca. Can I go to Home Depot and buy those? Yes. The next thing, and actually some flowers of some citrus trees of like certain lemon trees, orange trees, lime trees, some of the flowers of those trees actually have caffeine in them.
The Global Coffee Market and Environmental Concerns
00:18:42
Speaker
I actually like mate a lot, the yerba mate.
00:19:03
Speaker
Yeah, most teas, but what the difference is, with tea, you use a lot less tea leaf in your tea than you do per whatever, per volume. You're using way less tea leaves than you're using ground up coffee beans to make a cup of coffee. Oh, okay, so it's more concentrated in the coffee.
00:19:06
Speaker
Courtney drinks that.
00:19:21
Speaker
It was more concentrated than tea leaves, but you're using less of it. Okay, got it. Right, right. So if you were to use the same amount of, if you were to grind up, like crush up tea leaves and crush up, you know, grind up coffee and you had the same amount, like say like, you know, I don't know, an ounce of each, the tea would give you more caffeine. Okay. So. Got it. And thanks, you ruined it. That was gonna be my, that was gonna be my ender. That was gonna be my big finish.
00:19:48
Speaker
Well, wow, what a showstopper. Wasn't a very impressive finish, so I think we all dodged a bullet there. I feel like the end has come. All right, guys. Good night. Thanks for joining us. Fuck you both. I'm done. This is dumb. So here's some of the ways that it breaks down. And this is like a mean, so there's ranges, but this is the mean. So a cup of coffee has about 85 milligrams of caffeine. A cup of tea has about 32 milligrams. Hot chocolate has four milligrams.
00:20:19
Speaker
Most soft drinks or sodas or pop or what do you call them Greg soft drinks or softies? Canadian Canadian Rockies We call it Canadian Canadian sugar juice Was it was it soft drinks, is that what you called them? It's soft drinks. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I don't I don't call them that anymore No way cuz I haven't lived in Canada for a while. They have 39 milligrams. I
00:20:48
Speaker
and then energy drinks have 80 milligrams. So coffee, like a nine ounce cup of coffee has the most caffeine on average versus anything else. So it's quite a bit more than energy drinks then? Not quite a bit, it's only like five milligrams. So if you're gonna die at 10 milligrams, there's a thousand milligrams in a gram. 10 grams, 10 grams, not milligrams. Yeah, right. Gotcha. So. Yeah, do the math right on that one.
00:21:17
Speaker
We don't want our listeners to know that they are. We don't want a lawsuit. It's 10 grams, people, 10 grams. You need like a hundred and something cups of coffee to die from a coffee overdose, or a coffee overdose. Is that with sugar and cream, or just about? Straight up black. Like a man. You're drinking that like a man. Do you remember our last episode about gender roles? Yeah. Okay, I guess you didn't learn anything.
00:21:44
Speaker
That's a good point. That's a good point. Okay. I apologize. I apologize. I'm learning. I'm learning. I'm learning. I'm growing right now. So he means man, like just people, you know how people say like man and that means everybody. That's all right. Right. Yeah. And, and, and therefore you're proving my point to Kevin either.
00:22:04
Speaker
Unless the, unless the HU, unless the HU is silent and human. I think Kevin's okay. Go ahead. I just get, unless you're going to drink a hundred cups of coffee, like a crazy person. There you go. Right. Um, and the reason that all these things, all these 60 something species of plants produce caffeine is it is a natural pesticide and so is nicotine and so is cocaine.
00:22:35
Speaker
So that's why those plants actually make it because it it helps them thrive and live so and it helps them stay really hyper Real fast bees that pollinate them get like extra buzzed right? They're like
00:22:51
Speaker
Are they like, all of a sudden at work, they're just like, oh my god, I had this great idea for a new sitcom. Oh fuck, I'm dead. 80% of the world's population ingest caffeine in some form. Jesus Christ, and there's babies out there too, they're probably not ingesting. That's true, that is true. What do you think's in formula? Oh, hey. Right, there is caffeine, and there's caffeine in chocolate.
00:23:20
Speaker
Right? There's like, so... Is there a chocolate formula? Yeah. Well, a lot of babies like chocolate. That's for sure. They do. If you're giving your baby a formula and you're not giving them chocolate, then they're not liking that formula. I'll tell you that. A lot of babies like chocolate. 64% of American adults drink coffee every day.
00:23:41
Speaker
So of that, that means that you're having like nine cups a day, Kevin, to balance out the mean in this group. I have to drink more coffee just to balance out our ratio here, okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because you'd have to actually drink 9.3 cups, because the average American drinks 3.1 cups of coffee per day.
00:23:57
Speaker
At least I'm taking care of the alcohol portion. I am not. I have basically pretty much one cup a day is all I have. I have a cup of morning and that's it. How big is that cup? I don't know. Is it like a tumbler? Like 74 ounces? It's not quite that big. Like probably a normal C handle coffee cup size cup of coffee is pretty much what I have. So probably like 9 to 10 ounces.
00:24:20
Speaker
something like that. I do have a tumbler that I bring to work and sometimes it probably fits a little bit more, so if I fill it all the way up it'll have more. If I have too much it gives me a stomach ache and I just don't feel real well if I have too much coffee. Do you drink it black? No. I'm fancy, so I grind my own beans and I use non-dairy creamer.
00:24:46
Speaker
Can I give you a little tip? Uh-oh. Were we talking about coffee still? No, no, no, yeah. So Courtney buys this stuff called Nut Pods, and it's like coconut and vanilla, and that's all it is. It's so good, man. It's so good. It's for the creamer? Oh, yeah, it's so good. Do you have a frother, I'm assuming? Because if you grind in your own beans, you don't have a frother. No, I don't have a frother. Well, you're not doing it right then. It's not a cappuccino maker. It's a frickin' coffee maker, the grinder. Well, why would you want a froth?
00:25:14
Speaker
Doesn't like what kind of monster doesn't eat I got I gotta go I gotta go and flip my steak in the backyard Like a human is that makes is that because you're a real man that you wanna like any kind of gender association with this at all, but
00:25:32
Speaker
hearing about frothing so you're gonna go give yourself a heart attack while we froth that's what yeah you don't care about your health and not a cardiac arrest like you guys Americans drink about 400 million cups of coffee per day Jesus does that include babies yes every goddamn statistic I read includes babies just know that no matter what I say it includes babies
00:26:01
Speaker
No, it doesn't include babies. That's a stupid fucking question. It's going to come up again. I feel like my retention towards babies is not very good.
00:26:19
Speaker
I'm like a baby when it comes to baby questions. So Americans drink 146 billion cups of coffee per year excluding babies. That's fucking pageism here. How many do the babies drink then? Is that a separate step? I feel like John didn't even research baby conception of coffee.
00:26:49
Speaker
It's very, you're not being very thorough, John. Okay, let me try to read this statistic a little differently so there's no confusion. American adults. Hey, I used to drink coffee when I was like 14.
00:27:18
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, so did I I mean you know what I mean honestly, maybe this doesn't your stats mean nothing now Neither included or excluded babies, okay Americans consume 70% of their caffeine through coffee and then more than a half of all coffee drinkers would rather skip a shower and
00:27:41
Speaker
then skip their coffee. Fuck. I cannot get on board with that one. There's a lot of dirty, nasty coffee drinkers out there. Wired people. And they probably stink because they're sweating more. That's true. So they're sweating from the caffeine. No, they're sweating for their lack of caffeine.
00:28:00
Speaker
Oh, that's true. That is true. Especially the baby. So you said 60% caffeine through coffee? Right. 75%. 75%. Yeah. Okay. So the other part would be largely energy drinks, probably? It didn't say, but energy drinks, soft drinks. Yeah. Yeah, I guess soft drinks. Yeah, probably. Because a lot of people do drink. Sorry, Canadian sugar juice.
00:28:28
Speaker
I was just curious because obviously those energy drinks have a lot more going on than just caffeine.
00:28:35
Speaker
Right, but that's when you guys are saying people die from them. But that's the thing, right? In 2018, 92 people died from deaths related to caffeine. So that means, and a third of those, remember, meant to. Were babies. Yeah, or a third of those people were babies. Well, because if 10 grams kills an adult, I'm sure it's like one gram to kill a baby. That's true. That baby's only got a drink like 10 cups of coffee. Yeah. Which is way easier to do than 100. It is, it is.
00:29:04
Speaker
You know, babies are fragile. They're fragile little things. They're actually heartier than you think. Babies? Yeah, they're pretty hearty. Greg's like, no, my kids drank way more than 10 cups of coffee. They were fine. That's what I'm saying.
00:29:20
Speaker
Yeah, nothing calms down a baby like caffeine. Yeah, right. 66% of women drink daily versus 62% of men. So I don't know how they figure that out. I really don't know how they come up with these statistics.
00:29:36
Speaker
They interview everybody, John. You didn't get the survey? No, no. Oh, then it's skewed. John, is that a 4% swing? Yes, that is a 4% swing. I wanted to make sure I was like, wait, is it 65% or 66%? So yeah, it's a 4% swing. 79% of Americans prepare coffee at home.
00:30:03
Speaker
which I was actually surprised by that. That's a big number. Yeah, I was surprised. I would have thought it'd been way less than that. 65? No, 70. Sorry, I was pouring a beer, but I was interested in that stat.
00:30:17
Speaker
It doesn't matter, I'm just going to make up numbers. No, I don't want to know. One hundred and eleven percent of people make their coffee at home. Wait a minute, wait a minute. No, I was just curious, you said how much, Jen? Seventy. Seventy-nine. Seventy-nine. Yeah, almost. Make coffee at home? Almost eighty percent. Make coffee at home. But I wonder if that's daily, like maybe some people treat themselves like
Historical and Technological Evolution of Coffee
00:30:34
Speaker
once or twice a week. I would imagine they do. Well, they'd have to because I'm going to get into stuff about Starbucks and they would have to. There's no way Starbucks does the amount of business they do.
00:30:41
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, 79% seems really high. We started back when we were living in Chicago, and when we first started living together, we used to ride into work together, and we'd stop every day for coffee. And eventually, it was like, okay, this is getting a little fucking ridiculous. You're spending like eight bucks a day just to get coffee. Yeah, it was stupid. And we just got regular coffee, nothing fancy, and it was still really expensive.
00:31:06
Speaker
We started brewing our own, and it was far, far better. But I don't know. That seems really high, but maybe Greg's right. Maybe they brew their morning coffee at home, but then at lunch they go grab a Starbucks. Or on the weekends. Maybe they brew it at home during the week, and on the weekends they go grab it. Or maybe they're just saying that 79% of the American population has coffee makers and some way to make coffee at their house. Yeah, and doesn't do it every day.
00:31:34
Speaker
Yeah. 35% of drinkers take their coffee.
00:31:40
Speaker
Black. Drinkers like alcohol drinkers? No, no, no. Just coffee drinkers. So here's the thing. All these stats are about coffee drinkers. Okay. So that seems like a low number. Did you say 84%? Was that what you said? The coffee is implied in fuck you, listen to the stats. He's pouring another beer. Is that your third?
00:32:09
Speaker
What, are you counting? What are you drinking tonight? Well, John, I'm glad you asked. Well, before I was drinking a left-hand IPA, now I'm drinking a Lagunitas summer lager. Oh, those are delicious. Were you drinking that IPA with your right hand or your left hand? Oh, my left, John. Oh, okay. Are you left-handed? I am not, John.
00:32:34
Speaker
Okay. Why do you keep saying my name, Kevin? I'm not sure, Josh. Because he's sick of this series of questions. I feel like this is an intervention. This episode's getting weird. This is the weirdest intervention either, because I've been drinking the whole time, too. Well, Greg wanted to be relaxed for the intervention. Greg got hammered before Kevin's intervention to calm himself down. Well, it was an open bar.
00:33:03
Speaker
That's what I want on my intervention. An open bar and like a cheese fountain. Cheese fountain. That'd be nice. That'd be nice. Alright, so, yeah, well, get ready. This weekend, Kevin's flying in for your intervention. So, and while we're doing yours, we're gonna do his. We're gonna knock him out both. Hey, as well. This guy's been sober, he's been sober since like fuckin', what, like, July and he's so self-righteous. No, it's not self-righteous. It's just jealousy, really. Like, if I can't drink, why don't you guys get to drink?
00:33:32
Speaker
OK, that's better. I can check that. 48% of millennials? You what? I said I can respect that. All right. All right. All right. Cool. All right. 48% of millennials drink gourmet drinks, such as cappuccinos, frappuccinos, espressos, stuff like that. And that was way higher than Gen Xers. And then I guess the 35% of Americans who drink it black are the old people.
00:34:01
Speaker
Like they're Sanka. So Greg, you don't do caffeine at all, but like John, you're off caffeine too. I was just curious if you guys ever did specialty drinks on occasion, but it sounds like Greg, you're totally cut off from caffeine.
00:34:20
Speaker
No, I'm, I'm totally cut off for camp caffeine. We, uh, I was at a hockey tournament in Arizona, I think like a year, about a year ago, I think. And we were drinking all kinds of crazy drinks in the bar. Right. Cause that's what you're supposed to do when you have some time off between games and someone bottle round of, apparently it had, um,
00:34:44
Speaker
It was cranberry and, and Red Bull. Cocoa. Red Bull, cranberries. Yeah. So I didn't, I thought it was just, I thought it was just vodka and cranberry and I had one of those and I went into AFib not long after that. For someone who's not used to it to have something not that, yeah, to have that much. And you probably choked it down pretty fast too. Well, I did. Yeah. Cause it had the vodka in it.
00:35:10
Speaker
Well, I don't know if that's why. Drink it fast. So it was a vodka and Red Bull martini?
00:35:19
Speaker
It wasn't a martini. It was just vodka and Red Bull. It was vodka and Red Bull and cranberry juice. Yeah, vodka and Red Bull is a... I think people still drink that. Weirdos, psychos. Either one of you guys drink... No, you don't. Greg, do you drink energy drinks, Kevin? No, I don't. I've had five-hour energies before and I didn't think they did anything at all. I didn't feel anything from a five-hour energy, but like I said, the Red Bull made me all jittery, so I stay away from energy drinks. I also don't like the taste or the smell of them.
00:35:50
Speaker
Yeah, they taste like shit. Yeah, someone can open a Red Bull across the room, and if I get a whiff of it, I'm just like, ugh, nasty. It is a weird chemical smell, right? It's weird. It's totally chemically. That's a really good way to put it. It's gross. I don't like it at all. I mean, I do realize there's chemicals in everything. Yeah, but I know what you mean by that. It smells like battery acid chemically kind of. There are, in a cup of coffee, there are 1,500 chemicals in a cup of coffee.
00:36:15
Speaker
What is this, the smoking episode? What's going on here? Yeah, that's shit. Nothing compared to smoking. Yeah, all right. It was what, 500?
00:36:26
Speaker
It was 500 and then it was, or 605,000, it was lit or something like that. Do you remember Greg? It was way higher than that, yeah. No, I don't think it was way higher than that. I think John's right. No, it was way, way, way higher, Kevin. Yeah. No. No, it wasn't. Hang on, I'm gonna pull it up. Give me a second. Hold on, viewers. Listeners. Hold on, everyone. Just go get a drink. It's gonna take about an hour. Go get a cup of coffee. I just think it's a really good idea that a lot of people smoke and drink coffee at the same time.
00:36:55
Speaker
Wow, that's a lot of chemicals in coffee. That is a lot of chemicals, yeah. Well, so if you're getting with a lit cigarette and a cup of coffee, you're getting like 7,500 chemicals in you. Yeah, I mean, not too many people are sucking on cigarettes that aren't lit. But every, I mean, coffee's all natural, right, John? So it's cocaine. Yeah, so it's true. We're not talking about cocaine, we're talking about cigarettes.
00:37:19
Speaker
I'm just saying there's natural substances that are really bad for you. Yeah, substances. Well, I mean, but you know, but that's the thing is like, I mean, so if you're talking about chemicals, right? So part of those chemicals is going to be the, like the caffeine is a chemical, right? So that's one chemical and then, and then water H2O is a chemical. So it's like, if you start, it's just all, everything's chemicals.
00:37:39
Speaker
I can tell by Kevin's face he's doing some research right now. Cocaine's not all natural. You said cocaine was all natural. Cocaine's not all natural. It is. Is it really? All they do is, I don't know how they get the cocaine out of the coca leaf, but they use alcohol. There's some sort of chemical process that pulls it out, but it's just cocaine powder. Caffeine's the same way. I've never done cocaine, so I don't know. Caffeine's a white powder as well. I mean that, Mom. I've never done cocaine.
00:38:08
Speaker
I have not done cocaine in a decade and a half. I have no comment.
00:38:18
Speaker
Greg didn't mention that now he's having the Red Bull and vodka. He was also doing cocaine. He's awfully itchy and he's scratching a lot. I noticed that. That's the meth. Oh, it's a meth. Okay, sorry. And his nose is bleeding. 13% of drinkers in the US use an espresso machine, so that means 13% of the population are pretentious assholes. It's just 13% of the coffee drinkers, not 13% of the population.
00:38:44
Speaker
Right. That's that is true. That's true. So but you have I mean, we have 146 billion cups per day. I think most people in America drink coffee. Yeah, I would agree with that. So except for you, except for babies, babies, babies. We don't know that the baby section is the second half of the podcast. So let's just assume he's not talking about babies for now. So there's mainly two types of beans that are
00:39:15
Speaker
harvested to make coffee and espresso. So the Robusta bean, which have a higher caffeine content, is what they use to make coffee. And then the Abrarica bean is what they use in most espressos. So even though you have, so the espresso is concentrated, but you're not, that's when you only get about 60 milligrams of caffeine and espresso versus the 85 and a cup of coffee.
00:39:37
Speaker
So I can see by your faces, you don't remember. What's the second one called again? What's, what's the second one called? It's a espresso. Yeah. Thank you. No, I think it was E S go fuck yourself. No, it's, it's a, a ribica, a rabbit. A R A B I C A. Oh yeah. Okay. Like a rabbit can like Arabs.
00:40:06
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I guess so. Abracadabra. Abracadabra. Abracadabra. Arab yield. Arab yield. Annual yield of a coffee plant is about five pounds, but after you roast the plant,
00:40:24
Speaker
you get one pound. So it's like the the coffee bean is actually it's more like a seed and it's like this little red thing and they like roast it down and then that's when it turns it black and are brown and that so you for every basically every coffee bush on the planet produces about one pound of coffee.
00:40:44
Speaker
per year? Per year. Are the beans in pods or are they loose? I'm not sure. It's just like a little red berry on a bush. It's probably inside it. It's probably inside and then you roast it and you dry it out. I don't know. I've never seen one before. Greg's laughing in the camera. I've never seen one before. I'm just curious. I'm not laughing at you. I've got a coffee expert here and I want to ask him some questions, all right?
00:41:09
Speaker
Let's use that coffee expert very loosely. Look, I've had a lot of caffeine, all right? I'm really just amped up. Here's the thing. One out of three of us has spent about seven hours researching coffee, and the other two have not. That's basically what I got. It's like six pages of notes, and once I'm done with that, I know nothing else about coffee.
00:41:31
Speaker
A coffee plant can live up to 100 years, but most of them average about 45 years. And this is crazy. So Americans spend about $5.2 billion a year on coffee. Isn't that crazy? That's just crazy. That's a big number. But it's not surprising to me. I guess just drive by a Starbucks and you're just like, it makes sense.
00:41:53
Speaker
It is the second largest or second biggest traded commodity in the world, only second to oil, as far as being desired. I don't think necessarily monetarily, but as far as volume, it is the second highest traded commodity in the world. That's a more impressive factor.
00:42:16
Speaker
What do you think the average price of a cup of coffee is? In the country or the world? In America, in the US. I'll say $2.07. Okay, nice. Greg? I'm going to go a little higher.
00:42:33
Speaker
I'm going to say, I was going to say $3. That was my initial. Greg Mitchell, come on down because the price is right. $3.28. Really? Fuck you, Kevin. I thought, I muted you, so I don't know what you're saying at all. Fuck you, Kevin. I can't hear him. Anyway, John, I guess I felt like there was enough diners out there that
00:43:03
Speaker
don't charge Starbucks prices that maybe it would bring the average down, you know? That's probably what it did, because a Starbucks cup of coffee is like what? It's like $4.50. But you know, yeah, McDonald's. Regular, normal sized cup of regular coffee, nothing special is not $4.50 at Starbucks. Is it not? I don't believe that's that high. I don't believe it's that high. But obviously it's got to be in the threes, because otherwise that stat wouldn't make sense, right?
00:43:29
Speaker
Well maybe if you go to like coffee like you know you get coffee from and maybe maybe they are maybe they're including coffee in the in the cappuccinos and the frappuccinos. Oh well if they're counting if they're counting that I thought you meant just a cup of coffee I didn't know you meant like the specialty drinks.
00:43:43
Speaker
I mean, it didn't, you know, it didn't say anything about babies. It didn't say anything about specialty drinks. I didn't mention babies. I'm just, Greg, Greg, I look on his face. On all these quizzes that the loser always whines a lot. I can't hear him. I just, I viewed him. He doesn't understand. Did that include cream? Cause I don't know how that works. You're the only coffee drinker and you got it wrong. Just eat it.
00:44:14
Speaker
So How many how many you know how many mass you guys hate when I ask you questions I'll just tell you no I want I want them now because I'm because I need to get some right yeah How many how many Starbucks stores do you think are in the United States? Who goes first I would first let it wait hold on hold on let me give you a hint all right because it's like it so it's it's over 10,000 it's between it's between 10,000 and 20,000
00:44:40
Speaker
That's a pretty big hit. You know what's funny? My guess was going to be like 13,000. My guess I think was going to be higher than 20,000. So I'm glad you said that, John. Thank you. I'll go 16.5. And Greg, are you going 13? I'm going to stay with the 13. Greg won again. What? Oh, fuck yeah. 15,041 stores in the United States. No, I think Kevin won that one.
00:45:03
Speaker
Well, if it's Price is Right rules, then I overshot it. Oh, we have Price is Right rules. Yeah, you should have gone. You can't overbid. You overbid, you don't get to go to the ship. I'm never going to win that dining set. You don't get to have Bob Barker. Spay and neuter animals.
00:45:22
Speaker
eight thousand seven hundred ninety one of those are actually company-owned Starbucks and six thousand two hundred and fifty of those are our franchises are licensed stores are not franchise no they don't franchise Starbucks so I think their stores like the stores are in like Target or Walmart or like anytime there's a grocery store yeah I think those I think those are licensed
00:45:42
Speaker
Yeah, to be used by that corporation. Yeah, because it's crazy. We have one Safeway grocery store out here, and there's a Starbucks inside it, and then out in the parking lot is a standalone Starbucks. It's just fucking ridiculous. You're just like, wait a minute, you have two Starbucks. Oh, yeah, that is crazy. Yeah, within seriously like a 20 second walk of each other.
00:46:05
Speaker
Same thing, but I know that I knew that someone told me at one point that the ones in the stores are slightly different They're not corporate owned or they're they're they're licensed like you said yeah
00:46:15
Speaker
The place I buy my sex swings, right? It's like I go in, I buy my sex swings, and right beside it is a place that sells dildos, and the place that sells sex swings, they also sell dildos. It's very redundant. Well, that's because you're hanging out in the red light district, John. How many sex swings do you have? Seven. Well, I can see one back there.
00:46:36
Speaker
Well, you need one for each day. They get dirty. You gotta watch- John's literally swinging in a sex swing right now. That's why his volume keeps going up and down. Yeah.
00:46:47
Speaker
All right, so Brazil exports 5.7 billion pounds of coffee per year, and I don't know if that's dried, roasted, or not. I would assume it's probably not, because there's a lot of roasters in the US. Yeah. I would think they would want to roast them here, too, just for freshness, right?
00:47:06
Speaker
Right. But shipping costs would be a lot cheaper to bring in because you're taking five pounds starting to a pound. That's true. Brazil has been the largest coffee producer for the last 150 years and they produce about one third of the world's coffee. I think that's just crazy. That is crazy. That's a lot. Because I've been to Brazil and they don't seem like a country that would produce one third of the world's coffee. It's very large though.
00:47:34
Speaker
That's true. Is it? It's the biggest country in South America, right? Yeah, I think so. I know Colombia, obviously, is another one, right? Don't they do a lot of coffee, too? That's cocaine. I keep getting those two mixed up. Yeah, most like the Montague Island and the Caribbean, they do a lot of coffee. Colombia does.
00:48:04
Speaker
Peru, I think, I think most South American countries do export coffee. Americans consume about four to six kilograms of coffee per year, per person. Which, that's a lot. On average, coffee shops sell 230, or on average, yeah, on average, there's 24,000 coffee shops in America, and each one averages about 230 cups of coffee per day.
00:48:30
Speaker
And again, I don't know if that's, you know, Kevin, I don't know, especially drinks or, you know, I don't, I don't know. I don't care. I was just, I was saying that it skewed my, my, my, the cost of average cost of a cup of coffee.
00:48:43
Speaker
I think I got screwed on that. I'm writing an angry letter about this. I don't appreciate this. To who? That's fair. Well, I guess myself. Dear Juan Valdez. Let's get into some history of this shit, since we are history defeats itself. I don't know. I just thought it was just fascinating. You need a cup of coffee bad.
00:49:09
Speaker
I really do. I really do. Next episode John's gonna do sugar, the episode after that he's gonna do alcohol, all the stuff that he's cut out of his life. And then I'm gonna do sadness. The history of sadness. Coffee can be traced back to the forests on the Ethiopian plateau and it's a little quiz here. What country broke away from Ethiopia? You dumb fucks.
00:49:38
Speaker
Iratria. Oh my God. Oh my God. You say we don't listen. I mean, it took nine times. I know about Iratria now. I know that 95% of the population drinks coffee. I listen to you, John. Close enough. Close enough. I know that women and men are completely equal in our society, thanks to Greg's podcast. See, I listen. That's right. That's right. We know that we need to exercise.
00:50:04
Speaker
We know that fast food is bad. Before this podcast, we thought it was good for us. See? I mean, we are true heroes. We're heroes of the human condition. We know that earth is flat. We know that, wait, what? We know that the earth is flat. Is that what we said? Yeah. No. Sure. I don't know. I fell asleep during that one.
00:50:28
Speaker
By the 15th century, Qavi was being grown in the Yemeni district of Arabia. By the 16th century, it was known in Persia, Egypt, Syria and Turkey. And then in that in that century, many public coffee houses started to pop up and they were called Kaveh Konye.
00:50:51
Speaker
in the near east and these places became like basically like places to hang out so they became they would have like musicians and storytellers and people would come there and play games and and then it actually it's kind of funny because there's been a couple of times in history where
00:51:07
Speaker
people would ban coffee so in fifteen twelve all these amounts got together and said we can't have coffee because they felt like it was they felt like people were talking politics too much in the coffee shops and they felt like it was going to cause like an uprising so from fifteen twelve to fifteen twenty four you cannot have coffee in the far east or in the near east sorry is that where people went to write their screenplays too that is exactly where people went to write their screenplays
00:51:33
Speaker
And was the music always like one dude with an acoustic guitar playing alt-rock? Yep, yeah. A lot of nirvana covers. Classic 90's alternative R.M. songs. Mostly nirvana. Yeah, mostly nirvana. All acoustic versions of Creep.
00:51:54
Speaker
And then this one actually, when I read this, I laughed out loud because this made me think of the death penalty episode with the bag and the chicken and a rooster, a snake, a bear, a monkey, whatever it was. So in 1623, Maraud IV of the Ottoman Empire forbade coffee. The first offense, you would get a beating. And the second offense, you would get sewn into a leather bag and thrown into the waters of the Bosphorus.
00:52:19
Speaker
Good lord. That was the second offense. What was the third offense? The third offense they just let you drink coffee. Just like wow I can't believe you lived through that bag thing. What time supply? It's like what the fuck? They really enjoyed throwing people in bags back then. That was definitely a thing.
00:52:37
Speaker
I was just gonna say, there's a lot of bags. All this royalty, all these kings and stuff, they invested in bag making. So they're just like, we gotta start moving these units. Apparently there wasn't exactly a surplus of apes and dogs and vipers to send with them. Yeah, that was when there was an ape shortage. Yeah, because they were using all the apes for the death penalty. They were using it all for the death penalty, yeah.
00:53:06
Speaker
So European travelers to the Near East brought back stories of an unusual black beverage and by the 17th century coffee had made its way to Europe. The first English coffee house opened in England in 1652.
00:53:20
Speaker
And then coffee houses were known as penny universities, because for a penny, you could stay all day, drink coffee and engage in stimulating conversation. So just like today, John Banks was there. And this, okay. This is my favorite thing. I'm just kidding. John. I love you.
00:53:40
Speaker
I'm just ignoring you, so this is my favorite thing about coffee in Europe in the 17th century. Coffee began to replace the common breakfast drinks of beer and wine.
00:53:54
Speaker
wait wait and this is coffee drinkers our our employees are noticing and people are noticing coffee drinkers were more alert energized and the quality of their work improved so I guess basically before coffee people were just going to work shit-faced or at least a little buzz well I think we get it
00:54:13
Speaker
Coffee is the reason we have the modern society and civilization that we do. Yeah, so I guess coffee helped out a lot. It really did. Progress. Progress.
Coffee's Future: Sustainability and Alternatives
00:54:25
Speaker
Let's see, by the mid 17th century, there were 300 coffee houses in London, and then many of those coffee houses grew into other businesses. One of those was Edward Lloyd's coffee house became Lloyd's of London. Do you guys know what Lloyd's of London is?
00:54:42
Speaker
I've heard of Lloyd's of London. They basically will like ensure, I think they do like investing and they will ensure anything. Like you can ensure body parts through Lloyd's of London. And then the mid 1600s coffee was brought to New York and coffee didn't really take off in America until the Boston Tea Party.
00:55:04
Speaker
so after the doctor the boston tea party after king george raised uh... the money the taxes on pose on t and they had the boston tea party that people actually more people start switching over coffee in the u.s. uh... so everybody was trying to get a hold of coffee and and a lot of people like it was really hard to get it out of the near east out of uh... these arabic countries and then the dutch finally got some ceilings for coffee and they planted it and what is known today as uh...
00:55:31
Speaker
Indonesia but it was it was called Java it was the island of Java so that's what that comes from that's where that comes from right and the plants thrived and the Dutch had a growing a protective coffee trade and then in 1723 Gabriel de chlor
00:55:46
Speaker
Nice job. That was a very, very good pronunciation. I just wanted to say that. Thank you. It sounded good. It sounded good. Declure. So he got a seedling from King Louis XIV, because King Louis, he had a plant given to him by some dude in New York, and he brought it back, and then so this guy was able to get a seedling, and he took it to Martinique in the Caribbean Sea, and from that one seed, or seedling,
00:56:11
Speaker
There came over 18 million coffee bushes on the island that were produced over 50 years and it is the parent of all coffee trees throughout the Caribbean, South and Central America with the exception of Brazil.
00:56:27
Speaker
It's quite the legacy. I know man. That's a pretty cool fact that that seed got around Dirty dirty seed that seed probably had seed aids Or at least chlamydia Seed media, where do you put the penicillin?
00:56:47
Speaker
It's kind of like a hard shell. It's probably like tough to get through that. Well, they only got hard shells if you roast them. So, you know, you just stick it. Oh, that's true. Yeah. So obviously, obviously Greg, you got to give them the penicillin shop before you roast them. Everybody knows that. And the Brazilian coffee trade owes its existence to Francisco de Moira Porjita.
00:57:12
Speaker
I don't know if that's right, but it was another good pronunciation. It sounded right. It sounded good to me. I can argue with you. I think that's right. He was sent to French Guiana to get seedlings, which they refused to give the French governor, refused to give him any seedlings, but the French governor's wife
00:57:29
Speaker
thought that this guy was so hot that she gave him a bouquet of flowers and in the bouquet of flowers was like a bag of coffee seeds. And she's dirty because she thought he was hot because she thought he was hot. Wow. Hey handsome. Damn. Here's your bouquet. Damn sexy. Some other times in history where
00:57:51
Speaker
religion or it was it was caffeine and coffee were almost banned is so When coffee was coming to Europe a lot of clergymen thought that it was evil. In fact, it was called the bitter invention of Satan What they call Twinkies when they came out so the Pope Pope Clement the 8th Decided to taste the beverage for himself and found the drink so satisfying. He gave it a papal approval
00:58:21
Speaker
Popel and pebble purple. I think it's pebble. I think it's pebble. It's like snapple. Is it papal? It's papal. I was on your side John.
00:58:34
Speaker
Greg's never on my side. He's probably right though. Yeah, 1746 they banned coffee in Sweden and the police confiscated or went around confiscating all cups and dishes. What? They confiscated the cups?
00:58:54
Speaker
Yeah, we're not going to let you drink coffee, we're not going to let you drink fucking anything. All you can have is Canadian sugar juice. And you have to drink it out of your hand. You have to do body shots.
00:59:15
Speaker
That's how the body shot was invented. They stole all their cops. They're like sucking out of people's navels. Oh man, that's a hairy proposition. So now we're going to get into the sad depressing part of it. We're having such a good time. You ready?
00:59:33
Speaker
No. People are going to start tooting out for the last half of our episodes. They're really funny at first, but then, man, they get fucking depressing. Coffee's a mass murder. It kills babies that drink it. It really does. Well, only if they drink 10 cups.
00:59:51
Speaker
Kills 92 people a year. All of this information about how coffee is terrible for the world, or that I'm about to go through, this comes from an article from Amanda L. Barcho, and the name of it is 2.2 A Better Brew.
01:00:07
Speaker
So shout out to Amanda and the rhyming title. Good job, Amanda. Now we're going to take your stuff and use it in a podcast and probably use it for evil instead of good. All right, so coffee, as we said, is the second most imported thing or exported thing, but it's also the most popular drink, only second to water in the world. Wow.
01:00:33
Speaker
So, and I would imagine if more people had access to coffee, it would be the most popular drink in the world. That makes sense. But isn't there also water in coffee? That's true. That is true. So I guess water, that's why. Water is the most popular drink, even with coffee in it. You're still drinking mostly water. It's a $10 billion industry and for every... I would have thought it would have been like RC Cola.
01:00:58
Speaker
I used to have a lot of a lot of mr. Pepper mr. Pepper is the most popular Canadian sugar water drink and dr. Pibb Well in Canada they like to do things differently It's all off-brand products Check you have you guys ever had check dr. Check
01:01:21
Speaker
No, no, I mean that's what I remember when I was a kid in Canada going when I used to go to 712 and Get well, what the hell is that? One more than 7-eleven There is for every cup of coffee consumed it destroys about one square inch of rainforest and
01:01:44
Speaker
What? For every cup of coffee. I know, you guys had no idea, did you? No clue. No. First time I've ever heard it. You would think that rain force would be gone by now. Yeah, well, it's pretty darn close. Don't worry, we'll be done with it. Yeah, about 25 years, we're gonna be done with that fucker.
01:02:02
Speaker
Well, it's a good thing that Starbucks isn't expanding or anything. Yeah, it's a good thing that's a dying industry. Chemical buildup on soils and loss of forest shade are consequences of mass coffee production. Chemical runoff pollutes rivers, lands, and kills off much aquatic life. It's believed about a thousand mermaid die per year. Chemical runoff.
01:02:28
Speaker
200,000 acres of rainforest are burned every year. I'm sorry, not every year. 200,000 acres of rainforest burned every day to clear the land for either agriculture or industrial purposes. I tried to find how much coffee was actually responsible, how much coffee production was responsible for devastation of rainforest, but I'm sure it's out there. I just couldn't find it.
01:02:50
Speaker
So, so in 1950, 15% of the world's surface as far as on landmass was rainforest. Today, it's down to 6%. Oh man. Yeah. That's cause all the babies. Yeah. All the babies drinking coffee. So in the next 40 years, if we continue at the rate and we will probably do it faster than we have been doing it. Um, so we'll from the next 20 to 40 years, the rainforest will be gone. If we don't change something.
01:03:20
Speaker
Is that bad? No, no, no. Because we need, apparently we need coffee more than we need. You know, it's funny, do you guys like, uh, what was it? Oh, when everybody was like freaking out over Brazil, like all the stuff on Facebook about all the fires and then, you know, the president, like thought he was responsible and you know, and everybody's like up in a tizzy about it, which, which they should be. But the thing is, is like, again, Americans are, we're so responsible for so much horrible shit in the world, just based on what we consume.
01:03:47
Speaker
Right, so it's like if we as America stop consuming caffeine Then that they would start growing back trees because like if they if we stop buying caffeine to start buying Brazilian nuts, right? They would grow back trees in the rainforest to grow Brazilian nuts But anyway, but Brazil nuts aren't aren't gonna get me through the mornings John They're not they're not but you know, maybe maybe we go back to have them beer and wine for breakfast Maybe that's a whole different world. No, we're talking now. We're talking. I'm gonna bore with this this new way
01:04:17
Speaker
Probably a lot of Americans would get on board with that. I'm kind of doing my part. I give up caffeine. Oh my god, here we are. Greg is an American hero. They should make a movie about you. They should make a movie that he should get a statue. You're like that guy from American Sniper. You and him, man. American heroes. Thanks. You're welcome. I'm Canadian though. Damn it.
01:04:48
Speaker
You're a real Canadian hero. Thanks, A. So Americans produce about 110 million disposable coffee cups per day. That's a big number. Can I just tell you something about the rainforest, though, real quick? What's that? I'm kind of afraid of forests. Like, you go to the rainforest, there's gonna be, like, snakes and shit. That's true. And monkeys and all kinds of crazy stuff, so... Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know. Those are two of the four things that go in the bag with...
01:05:19
Speaker
So that's alarming, because how are we going to implement the death penalty without those? There will be more roosters. There's plenty of roosters. We're good on those. Only 1.6% of coffee sold at Starbucks is sold to people with reusable cups.
01:05:35
Speaker
Yeah, I know that's definitely you Starbucks guys just come on McDonald's sells about eight hundred and twenty two million cups of coffee With with non-dispo, you know with disposable cups over the course of how long a year. That's a year. Yeah, yeah They should just serve them they should serve like coffee and like ice cream cones. Oh
01:05:59
Speaker
There you go. They should just, actually, people, that's what people, instead of having coffee, everyone should just have soft serve, right? The machines break down enough as it is, man. You want some of the, that's not gonna work. Can you imagine, like, you're going into, I mean, how happy would you be to, like, you go into work with a fucking ice cream cone? That is true. That is true. That's like... You'd be quite excited. How could it be a bad day if you have an ice cream? Yeah, that is true. All right, I'm on board with this. We're gonna change the world in this podcast. Be globally. Fuck yeah.
01:06:29
Speaker
So globally, there are 2.25 billion cups of coffee consumed each day. Holy fuck. Now, here's the thing that I couldn't figure out, and I couldn't figure out how much of that is disposable cups, how many people are drinking at home, but that's just the total number of coffee that's being consumed a day. And I'm sure a lot of that is with not very environmentally friendly stuff. I would imagine a lot, yeah, most of that is, yeah.
01:06:57
Speaker
Even where both of us live, we all live in states where people are pretty eco-conscious. If I go to a Starbucks, sure, sometimes you see someone bring their own Tumblr or whatever, but most of the time people aren't. You're getting your Frappuccino in plastic, or you're getting your coffee in something that's not recyclable, not compostable, and it goes in a landfill.
01:07:26
Speaker
They're going to have to make those things biodegradable. How have they not done that yet? I don't know. If you have to spend an extra 10 cents on your coffee, who gives a fuck? Well, I think what it boils down to is the liner on the inside, the wax liner on the inside. That's the problem. That is the problem.
01:07:42
Speaker
because the coffee so what happens is so coffee's hot and so it breaks so if you get like a paper cup even with a lot even with a liner it it breaks it down it breaks down a lot faster right right like so so McDonald's and Starbucks like the only the only good thing I found out of all this was McDonald's and Starbucks are working on creating a cup like they're both investing in creating
01:08:04
Speaker
disposable cups that are biodegradable. Right. Or, yeah, or recyclable. You know, so recyclable, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, yeah, as long as people, you know, if the demand is there, they'll do it. But remember when I was in the fast food episode, I talked about how Chick-fil-A keeps all their cold drinks and styrofoam because people just like their stuff cold, you know, like it's, you know, I think that if you, if you don't bring your own reusable cup, they should charge you an extra buck.
01:08:34
Speaker
I think they do give you a discount. Some coffee shops will give you a discount, but it's like five or ten cents. It's not a lot. It's got to be a big swing, though. Yeah, it does. I mean, double. You get charged double the cost if you use a cup. That's right. And you know what? People will remember when it affects their pocketbook. Agreed.
01:08:54
Speaker
Okay, yeah. Here are some positives about caffeine, other than it being your morning pick you up. That's right. It speeds up fat metabolism during exercise. So if you drink it and then exercise, you're actually burning more fat. Oh, Greg. Nice, Greg. That explains a lot. Here's one for both of you guys, because you drink a lot of alcohol.
01:09:18
Speaker
prevent cirrhosis of the liver. Fuck yeah. Oh, I don't drink coffee. So maybe that's why it's good to have a Red Bull and vodka. There you go. There you go. Yeah. Zero that shit out, man. Decreases the risk of Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's disease. Easy for you to say. Park... Parkinson's disease. Does John have Parkinson's? Reduces the incidents of kidney stones.
01:09:47
Speaker
and increases intellectual activity when fatigued or bored. So before I just have some coffee. So I could really go for a cup of coffee right now. Yeah. I'm just kidding. Greg's never really all that into the episodes unless he's the one leading them, so. I know. That's not true. I love this episode. I was just kidding, John. I was being playful. I was being playful. In an unfunny way.
01:10:17
Speaker
I didn't like the way his face looked when he said playful. It was a little disturbing. I don't know how many acres of rainforest it takes for each of us to drink coffee, but if we're losing an inch for every cup and you only get a pound of coffee out of one bush, and I imagine a bush probably takes up a foot square or something. The more coffee we drink, the coffee consumption goes up every year by about 7%.
01:10:46
Speaker
So if you do the math, that means in seven years we're all gonna be dead. From no oxygen or something. I'm not real sure how we die. So when I did my consumerism episode, we talked about big box stores and stuff and I brought up Starbucks. And John, you actually brought up the fact that a lot of smaller coffee shops
01:11:09
Speaker
popped up after Starbucks became a big deal. So it's kind of interesting to think about like, you know, people might shit on Starbucks or whatever, but there was a lot of coffee shops in just the town that I live in. And kind of to your point, John, a lot of them came after, I think a lot of small coffee shops came after Starbucks became a thing. So it kind of makes you wonder if there's any end in sight on that because I feel like that's gonna just keep expanding.
01:11:39
Speaker
I agree. I think human beings have this view that if we're buying from a mom and pop place, it's better in every way. It's better for the environment, it's better for your local economy. Some of that is true, but it's not better for the environment.
01:11:59
Speaker
I know people who drink like Yerba Mate because they know that coffee's bad for the world, so they're choosing to drink something different to get their caffeine. But the problem is, is that, so let's say everybody switches over to Yerba Mate, that shit's still gotta be grown somewhere. It's gonna be the same problem, just a different plant. Yeah, just a different plant.
The Environmental Impact of High Consumption
01:12:16
Speaker
So it's like our problem is that we consume so much. So it's like for us to make a difference in the rainforest as far as what coffees are in the rainforest, we have to stop drinking coffee.
01:12:30
Speaker
you know it's like we we we have to affect because we're going to we if we make changes as a very rich country which we are because as as a rich country we do a lot of consuming so if we change the products in the way that we consume that's I think that's the only way that we start curbing this stuff right either that or like I said in the last episode is that we are we have to have policy changes right where you know as a country like if we're gonna put tariffs on stuff we start put tariffs on coffee
01:12:57
Speaker
you know, to make it so expensive. I don't think that's gonna matter though. I think people just pay, they'll pay for it. You know, or are we, are we, are we make, you know, or like Greg was saying, like we tax, you know, so it's like you, or not even that you tax, you just make it completely illegal to have anything that isn't recyclable or you know, or you can't go into a store and you can't, you can't buy a cup of coffee if you don't have something to put it in.
01:13:21
Speaker
But that doesn't necessarily help the rainforest problem, though. No, that's true. Obviously, it helps the landfills and the environmental aspect of it for this country, but it doesn't help where the coffee is grown. Right. Somehow, you're going to have to come up with some kind of a substitute that is going to give people a little caffeine jolt, either food and beverages. It's all about running out of resources.
Coffee in Daily Life: Habits and Routines
01:13:46
Speaker
So there has to be a more efficient way to get that stuff in your body.
01:13:50
Speaker
Just mainline it. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. But I think also people are habitual and when we get in our routines it's really hard to break that. And morning coffee is certainly, I mean, I get up in the morning and the first thing I do is I go downstairs and I make the coffee for my wife and I. So, I mean, it's part of my routine and it's part of something that I do every day. And a lot of people obviously from John's statistics, there's a lot of people who are in the same boat as me.
01:14:18
Speaker
you know, to get everybody to change their ways, being realistic. I mean, sure, it's easy to be like, we just got to change. But, like, realistically, trying to think about how to get people to change something that's so ingrained would be really hard. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think caffeine is, like, it's insanely addictive, right? Yeah.
01:14:37
Speaker
People are just not themselves until they've had caffeine. And I don't think I'm that kind of person because there's been times where I haven't had coffee for whatever reason and I'm not irritable, I'm not really tired. It's just a kick start in my day. And I think if all of a sudden it was like, oh, there's no more coffee in the world, we can't have coffee anymore. I think I'd be like, that sucks, but I'd be okay.
01:15:00
Speaker
And I know there's a lot of people out there who would not be okay, that they would be like, they would be like, I gotta have my fucking coffee, you know, like I think that that's a real problem for a lot of people. Not you guys, because you guys are American heroes, but for the rest of us. Right, we jump on those grenades for the rest of you. Thank you, appreciate it. You're welcome. But yeah, I feel like we, I feel like a lot of people would be okay.
01:15:27
Speaker
You know, it's like, everybody, like, cause that's the thing, like coffee, like, cause I read some stuff on like coffee withdrawal, cause you actually do have withdrawal from coffee, and basically you experience a headache, you're irritable for a few days, and then you're fine. It takes you, it takes like three or four days for it to get completely to every system, and then you're done, you know? Now that, the habit, right, it's, we are habitual, like, you know, we develop these habits, so it's like the habit of making the coffee, like brewing your own coffee, or stopping at Starbucks, or, you know, and talking to people there, and like people have their rituals. It tastes good, I enjoy the taste of it in the morning, it's nice in the morning.
01:15:58
Speaker
but you know like you'd miss that but the the actual addictive part you'd be over in a few days like nicotine takes i think seven days to get over i think it's two weeks i want to say it's two weeks uh... you know but i don't like when i when i when i when i quit smoking and i don't know how you felt john but when i quit smoking it really like
01:16:14
Speaker
You know, the physical aspect of it sucked at first, but that went away. And what really was the tough part is when I would have a drink, I would want to smoke. After a big meal, I would want to smoke. You know what happened to my car? The hard part was your alcoholism. Yes, yes. But I'm talking for me. Thank you for calling me an alcoholic again. But I think
01:16:39
Speaker
aside from that, it's association.
Human Vices and Their Impact
01:16:44
Speaker
And I think that that's the hard part with caffeine, too, is there's a total association, whether that's, like we said, in the morning or people who like their afternoon coffee after lunch, if you have a big lunch and you feel lethargic and that coffee kind of jumpstarts you, or some people like a decaf coffee or a caffeinated coffee after dinner, something like that. So those things
01:17:04
Speaker
are the things that I think people would have the hardest time with rather than, like you said, the physical addiction goes away in a few days.
01:17:13
Speaker
Right. It is kind of shitty that, like, just as human beings, we all have our vices. And what we're learning through this podcast is our vices are just not just detrimental to our health, but to the health of the planet. Yeah. And it sucks because it's human nature to, like, have a... I mean, and if you're gonna say, oh, shit, I can't even have coffee now, I could understand how that'd be, like, really discouraging.
01:17:35
Speaker
You know, smoking, alcohol, weed, caffeine, fatty foods. It's like, what is the point of fucking living anymore? Well, we could all start having a, wait, hold on. What is it called? It is a methylene dioxymethamphetamine. We could all start doing that. It might be better for the planet. You can make that shit in a lab. There you go. Yeah.
01:18:01
Speaker
We don't need natural resources for that. I feel like we all do have these things, and I definitely don't want to be like, let's just get rid of everything, but I do think we have to figure out a way to do it where it's more
01:18:18
Speaker
There are 60-something plants that produce caffeine, so maybe the way you get your caffeine is you find something that can be grown locally that has caffeine in it. In California, we have a million sister trees. People's backyards.
01:18:35
Speaker
Everybody has an orange tree in California, or at least Southern California.
Corporate Responsibility and Environmental Regulations
01:18:38
Speaker
Yeah, so you should be able to grow your own coffee somehow. Or if you don't have the climate for the coffee, then you can grow, because those citrus trees, some of those citrus trees have caffeine in the flowers. So you fucking get it from that. Or you do a greenhouse. It's like there's gotta be a way to do it, even if it's more expensive. Yeah. Right? Because like if Starbucks, I read a thing like Starbucks,
01:19:02
Speaker
did a net sells last year of like 3.6 billion and they did that you know they sell like you know the breakfast sandwiches and they have a whole bunch of stuff they sell and they even have you know products so I don't know how much I don't have breaks down of what they were selling coffee but if if a company like Starbucks was to take the stance and McDonald's too because they both sell a lot of coffee is to take the stance of like all right we're going to
01:19:23
Speaker
We're going to figure out a way to grow this here. We're going to do greenhouses, we're going to do whatever, right? And not do it all in one year, but if they were to start making that shift, and even if it costs you 10 more cents to get it, or 10% more to get it, it's got to be worth it because we need...
01:19:39
Speaker
the planet. We need the rainforest. The rainforests are really, really important to the overall ecosystem of the planet. I didn't go to college, but I think we need a planet. That story checks out. Unless God will come out and save us, which could happen.
01:19:57
Speaker
When that thing that holds us to the earth, which we don't know what it's called, some people call it gravity, but we know that's not what it's called. But when that thing stops working, and we start floating into space from the flat earth we live on. It's true. Once we get over the ice wall. Exactly. It's funny because we all want a free market, but if a free market leads to corporate greed and not even trying to
01:20:23
Speaker
put the break, pull the break on things that are hurting everybody. And we'll hurt everyone in the long run. It's kind of like you kind of need some kind of regulation on shit that's doing that much damage. Well, we love to consume. And I talked about that in the consumerism episode. We've talked about that in a few different episodes. We love to consume. And once we get something that we like, we want a whole fuck ton of it. And that's just and we and we use shit up. And I mean, that's been that way since we expanded to the wet. You know, in our country, since we expanded to the West, we used up everything we came across and.
01:20:53
Speaker
Left nothing in our wake, you know we use that people a lot of time. Yeah. Yeah, exactly like seriously
01:21:00
Speaker
Like we're, yeah, we're just, we're real, and that's the thing, it's like, even corporations, it's like this idea that it's evil corporations, it's, you know, the corporations answer to their shareholders. They're the ones that, yeah, it's the consumers who dictate it, yeah. Right, it's like individual, like us as humans, as individuals are pretty good, humans all together, we're just like, we're like termites.
01:21:24
Speaker
We will just destroy something. We'll destroy ecosystems. We don't learn our lesson, and I don't know what the answer is, really. I can think of a lot of answers, but I don't know, like Kevin was saying, I don't know something that would be realistic that people, including myself, in this, are going to do where it's going to make any sort of long-term substantial difference.
01:21:52
Speaker
So yeah, well, I mean at least thank you for bringing up a dreadful topic I know caffeine. I was like kind of happy
01:22:06
Speaker
Like, you know, we talk about puppies and then you're going to get into how everything's, you know, how they, how their dog shit when they grow up probably is going to land. So talking about puppy mills and yeah, like nothing's an innocent topic anymore. One of these days we're going to find one. Well, thank you very much for, uh, for, for leading us and, uh, anything else to send us off with John? Um,
01:22:31
Speaker
Please stop buying stuff. What? Worst outro ever. Have a great night.