Fill it up to the rim with the goodness of caffeineI learned about the supposed dangers of caffeine as an elementary school student, when my music teacher taught us a song for a counting and rhythm exercise.It went: "C-O-F-F-E-E, coffee is not for me. It’s a drink that people wake up with. That it makes them nervous is no myth. There’s always coffee in their cup. They can’t give coffee up."I should’ve been scared straight, but the truth is, I’ve always liked coffee.I used to open grandma’s Folgers can to smell it. I sneaked sips from my parents’ mugs, despite warnings that my nose would turn black. And now, I openly enjoy both the aroma and the taste. Coffee’s warmth, its rich taste and the way it thins my blood in the morning are all reasons to love coffee. I don’t drink that much, but it’s a trusted thing to turn to if I need it. While I like a few cups a day, my husband would prefer to have it administered intravenously. Not quite, but he does consider good coffee a high priority in life and doesn’t see the need to limit his intake. He even found a book that backs up his theories on coffee’s benefits, called "The Caffeine Advantage," by Bennett Alan Weinberg and Bonnie K. Bealer.The book is based on scientific studies, not only on coffee, but all forms of caffeine. Among other things, the book says caffeine can:oPrevent cancer with its antioxidant qualitiesoHelp overcome fatigue, which I think we all knew oImprove mental performance and memoryoImprove moodoImprove athletic performancesoEnhance creativityoCreate beautiful skinI don’t know if I’m ready to subscribe to everything in the book, but I hope for my husband’s sake the information is true.If the claims are truly valuable, maybe my elementary teacher shouldn’t have directed us in that anti-coffee song. Of course, if he’d given us a cup before class, we’d probably have learned and performed a lot better.
