Those of us who are coffee lovers, but want to cut down on our intake of caffeine have a few options. The worst, and most painful for us that are used to drinking coffee on a daily basis, is to cut coffee completely out of our routine.
However, due to the presence of one beloved drink on that market, that doesn’t have to happen.
Decaffeinated coffee is now widely available throughout the world. This “low-fi” version of the popular brew is often advertised as being free of the negative effects that make coffee unattractive to people who suffer negative effects from its caffeine content. But is “decaf” coffee really free of caffeine?
Decaf coffee, in short, is mostly free of caffeine, but it does still contain enough to affect very sensitive people.
The process of decaffeinating coffee utilizes water, high temperature, and food-safe chemical solvents to remove the chemical compound that causes wakefulness from the bean. This process is typically done over a period of several weeks, and successfully removes about 95-97% of the caffeine from the beans.
However, there is still a residual amount of caffeine that the process doesn’t take out, leaving it with enough to cause effects in highly sensitive people. A typical cup of decaf coffee contains about 5-10 mg of caffeine, which doesn’t affect most people.
If you are caffeine-sensitive, however, be sure to keep coffee’s modest caffeine amount in mind.
