Know Your Joe! The Conscious Consumer’s Guide to Buying Coffee

Forget pumpkin spice! Who doesn’t just love a hot cup of coffee with coconut cream in the chilly mornings? I know I sure do. I love coffee so much I’ve gone back to it three times now after quitting it in the past. Over the years, I’ve had my ups and downs with the popular elixir. Not only have I experienced the much dreaded “jitters,” but I’ve learned some really ugly things about modern coffee processing and its effects on the environment.

So now I walk past the common coffee aisle filled with generic pre-ground varieties and I search for the little green frog label or key terms:

Ethical. Natural. Organic. Fair-Trade. Shade-Grown.

Green Monster coffee lovers and addicts everywhere have seen, if not tried, those wondrously well-marketed beans. Those labels are slapped onto whole bean and pre-ground varieties, but what do they really mean? Is there really a clean, “green” coffee option? I’m going to break down your choices and weigh in on the best one. I’ll be rating each type based on its environmental impact and potential health concerns. So grab a cup, sit down and enjoy! Cheers!

It Begins with a Bean

Your cup of coffee is only as good and green as the beans it comes from. Choose wisely with the tips I’ve provided below:

1. Shade Versus Non-Shade Varieties

Start off right by choosing shade-grown varieties. Why? It’s simple:

Shade-grown varieties thrive underneath the tropical rainforest’s canopy. They work with nature; they support biodiversity in tropical forests. Non-shade-grown varieties don’t take advantage of the forest’s natural ability to foster healthy growth. Rather, they are grown in plots that have been deforested. They work against nature, forever changing it— especially in Latin America. Note that deforestation leads to extreme soil erosion, habitat loss, ecosystem collapse and less clean air for all of us.

There are other factors to consider in a bean than where it grows, though.

2. Organic or Not?

Consider the origin of the bean itself: is it organic, conventional or genetically modified? Organic foods by definition mean they avoid pesticide use. The same cannot be argued for any good without organic certification—and even then, we still sometimes wonder.

But organic coffee costs so much! Yes, unfortunately, it’s a pretty penny to pay for coffee beans that don’t contain carcinogens and hormone disruptors, but surely it’s worth it. Even roasted beans grown by modern methods still contain the original levels of DDT. Plus, have you heard what all these pesticides are doing to the planet? Take a look:

–Beyond the Quality of the Water in your Cup of Coffee

–Would You Skip Your Morning Coffee to Save 5.9 Million Acres of the Amazon?

3. Whole Bean or Pre-Ground?

I used to think the only difference between whole bean and pre-ground was that whole beans stay fresh for a longer time span. I now know there’s a more significant reason to choose whole bean if you want to keep your coffee clean and green. Consider this: coffee crops are in decline due to changing environmental conditions brought on by Climate change. Suzana Lucy Nixdorf, Ph.D., further explains:

“With a lower supply of coffee in the market, prices rise, and that favors fraud because of the economic gain.”

The fraud she’s referring to includes adding “fillers” like soybeans, sugar, wheat and more to coffee before roasting and passing it off as 100% ground coffee beans. You may never know if your beloved brand partakes in this scandalous process, but you can know it’s not happening when you buy whole beans.

4. To Decaffeinate or Not?

By all means, if the caffeine in coffee bothers you, i.e.) you’ve been experiencing jitters, sleeplessness, restlessness, etc., do your health a favor and switch or, gulp, quit altogether.

Just know, every decaffeination process has an environmental cost attached. Let’s take a look at your options below.

Conventional decaffeination processes include the following actions that are certainly not eco-friendly:

-“Natural” decaffeination uses the chemical Ethyl Acetate
-“Conventional” decaffeination uses the chemical Methylene Chloride
–Water decaffeination obviously uses copious amounts of the natural resource
–Carbon Dioxide decaffeination uses carbon dioxide

The bottom line? Extracting caffeine requires extra inputs of resources and chemicals.

So What’s it All Boil Down To?

Can’t let go of your daily cup of joe? Choose the best option from each category possible. In other words, choose the shade-grown, organic whole bean caffeinated variety.

Remember: There’s more to ethics than the environment and health. Coffee farmers deserve a fair trade. Learn more about this issue here and here.

How do you take your cup?

Image Source: star5112/Flickr