Monthly Archives: January 2020

Why Coffee Should Be Part of Your Lifestyle of Wellness

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Regular readers of our blog are familiar with the many scientific studies demonstrating the health benefits of coffee. We have chronicled many of those benefits over the years. Stepping back and thinking about all of the research reminds us of how much coffee can contribute to overall wellness.

If you are committed to a lifestyle of wellness, is regular coffee consumption part of your routine? If not, we want to encourage you to reconsider. The many benefits of regular coffee consumption can help you live your best life by contributing to wellness.

Bear in mind that wellness is essentially the state of being healthy. The more healthy you are over long stretches of time, the more your lifestyle reflects wellness. Let us talk about that in relation to coffee’s contribution.

Coffee and Weight Maintenance

Many of our modern health problems are the direct result of excess weight. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), obesity around the world has tripled over the last 45 years. Some 39% of adults are overweight; 13% are obese. Worse yet, the WHO says that obesity is largely preventable.

How does coffee play into this? A study out of the University of Nottingham released in 2019 concludes that regular coffee consumption may aid weight loss and proper weight maintenance. The study suggests that coffee might encourage the production of brown adipose tissue, also known as ‘brown fat’. Brown fat produces heat by burning calories where white fat has a tendency to store calories. If the research is correct, coffee is an effective tool for managing one’s weight.

Other Benefits of Coffee Consumption

In addition to being a potential weight management tool, coffee has proven to have other health benefits that can add to your wellness as well. According to John Hopkins Medicine, the right amount of daily coffee consumption could:

  • help you live longer
  • help your body better process glucose
  • help prevent heart failure
  • help avoid Parkinson’s disease
  • improve liver health
  • strengthen your DNA
  • reduce your chances of colon cancer
  • decrease your risk of Alzheimer’s disease
  • decrease your risk of stroke.

Obviously, all of these benefits add to the overall goal of wellness. If that goal is to be as healthy as possible as long as possible, it makes sense to adopt strategies that contribute to your long-term health. Coffee seems to do that when consumed in moderation. The key is to not overdo it – especially where sweeteners, creamers, and syrups are concerned.

We Want You to Be Well

Here at Galaxie Coffee, we are committed to promoting the health benefits of coffee for the very simple reason that we want you to be well. We get that coffee tastes great and offers that jolt of caffeine in the morning. But those benefits are secondary to the health benefits regular coffee consumption offers. If you want to know more about bringing our coffee service into your workplace, give us a call today and let us chat.

Check Out This Great New Use for Coffee Grounds

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Over the years, coffee drinkers have come up with some pretty creative ways to use their coffee grounds. Our grandmothers and mothers fertilized their gardens and kept pests away with coffee grounds. Pet owners have deployed them to repel fleas. And who among us hasn’t used coffee grounds to neutralize odors?

There is a new and exciting way to use coffee grounds that is just now getting attention. What is it? Coffee grounds – or more specifically the oil extracted from them – can be added to plastics to create a stronger, more durable product. Researchers say this is exciting news because the oil is a waste product of a waste product. There is no market for it, so it normally goes to waste.

Making PLA Better

Polylactic acid (PLA) is a thermoplastic product derived from renewable sources. Corn starch is one of the more common materials used to produce PLA. According to a 2016 market research report produced by Ceresana, PLA is one of the most commonly used bio plastics in the healthcare industry. It is used to create a variety of medical supplies and equipment.

Despite its widespread use and durability, PLA can be difficult to work with in a 3D printing environment. Adding the oil from coffee grounds solves that problem. The oil makes PLA much easier to work with, thus facilitating 3D printing of all sorts of plastic medical supplies. It is all rather fascinating.

How They Do It

To make it all work, oil is extracted from used coffee grounds through a fairly simple process. That oil is then transformed into a bio diesel, which is subsequently introduced to liquid PLA. The combined materials form a string-like plastic that is inserted into a 3D printer along with a resin. The 3D printer creates the desired object by placing layer upon layer of the plastic thread in place.

Most exciting is that researchers have been able to increase the strength of PLA by some 400% just by adding coffee oil at a ratio of 20% by volume. That is significant, to say the least. Who knew that a little bit of coffee oil could do so much for a bio plastic?

Researchers think their discovery could reach well beyond the medical equipment industry. They see an entirely new market for enhanced PLA, especially in sporting goods. Time will tell if that new market comes to fruition.

More Than Just a Beverage

The more we learn about coffee, the more we come to understand that it is more than just a beverage. Coffee is truly a wonder substance with many applications outside the kitchen. Hopefully the new, coffee-enhanced PLA will prove just how versatile coffee is.

In the meantime, we invite you to contact us here at Galaxie Coffee to learn how we can service your office with a full range of coffees, teas, juices, and breakroom supplies. We are the greater New York area’s number one source for all things coffee.