The Benefits of Coffee

The Mediterranean Diet celebrates and displays a guideline with a high intake of antioxidants. Just to let you know coffee is up there with antioxidants, in fact coffee has a high amount of antioxidant properties which are linked to heart disease and cancer in the sense that coffee helps to prevent these problems. It’s a very controversial subject though, one day you might hear on the news that coffee is bad for you or not a good idea, then the next day you’ll hear that coffee is linked to increase performance, mentally and physically regarding to tasks and that coffee drinking has been strongly linked to lowering the risk of cancers and other diseases such as type 2 diabetes. We know too much of anything is not good but if consumed moderately, even a few times a day, coffee can really have great benefits for your body.

The website I’ve listed,http://www.positivelycoffee.com/, celebrates the benefits of coffee and I will discuss how this can incorporate into your Mediterranean lifestyle. Let’s discuss some of the ways coffee can effect you in your every day life by going through a coupe of the points listed on the website.

• Coffee and Mental Performance: It has been said that coffee helps with short term memory and alertness. With everyone’s busy schedules everyday it’s hard to focus on what’s important but Coffee is said to help focus those that may not be able to focus due to boredom or tiredness that the task may bring.
• Coffee and Antioxidants: It’s actually said that 2-4 cups of coffee per day is not bad for you but boosts more antioxidants into your system which helps therapeutically as well as physically. These antioxidants reduce the risks for heart disease. There are many studies out there that discuss this further.

Listed below is a recipe that I hope you enjoy. It’s a Coffee milkshake per say and quite good might I add. Go ahead and get some coffee into your system, I hope that the benefits encourage you to get some into your system. It doesn’t hurt to be alert and healthy at the same time.

Frullatto al caffe (Coffee ‘frullato’ or milkshake)

Copyright The Basic Art of Italian Cooking,2005-2006, Maria Liberati

For 2

*2 cups of strong espresso coffee

*4 tsps of sugar or sugar substitute

*2 cups of chopped ice

*1 tsp of anisette or amaretto flavoring

*1 cup milk (part skim or skim milk) or for a creamier drink substitute 1 cup of frozen fat free vanilla yogurt

Put all ingredients in a blender and blend for 30 seconds. Serve immediately in two tall chilled glasses.