Do you drink coffee first thing in the morning? If so, you’re like most of us caffeine-swilling coffee lovers who can’t function without our java or joe, or whatever else we choose to call it. Aren’t Mondays just the worst? But once you’ve sipped that sustaining beverage from your mug, thoughts of week ahead don’t seem so bad after all. And, if it’s Friday, life is grand!
But in summer, something happens to coffee. It changes its form. Many of us don’t want it steaming hot. Instead, we want to quench our thirst and get our caffeine fix with something cold. So, we have iced coffee and other tasty frozen beverages. However, there’s good iced coffee and there’s bad iced coffee. Bad iced coffee leaves a bitter taste in your mouth like broken promises and spoiled relationships. Good iced coffee has natural sweetness, and it’s refreshing. It delivers the same pleasure as good hot coffee.
Best of all, coffee – iced or hot – is good for you. It gives you ‘brain gain’. It’s true, drinking between 1 and 3 cups a day can help reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and dementia. Moreover, the experts say that coffee’s natural antioxidants can boost cognitive function and may prevent damage to brain cells.
Studies have noted that the intake of iced coffee/iced tea and hot coffee/hot tea reduces the incidence of a form of brain cancer called glioma. Some researchers go beyond this and say that coffee can stimulate a DNA-repairing protein in brain cells, thereby preventing DNA damage, which could cause cells to become cancerous.