Have You Heard of Synthetic Caffeine?

Happy Tuesday!  How did you do last week with your Act of Random Kindness?  I found there are so many little things we can do if we just pay attention.  It was as simple as letting the person behind me in the grocery line with two items go in front since I had a cart full, or taking a friend for his appointment as he can’t drive right now.  It doesn’t take much but the personal rewards for me were a sense of happiness, satisfaction and well-being.  I even received one of those ARK’s myself.  We were driving back from our daughter’s, stopped in Limon for Jon’s “fudge purchases”, used the restroom and left my phone.  I was washing my hands, and a young woman asked me if I had left my phone.  Yikes!  Yes, it was me and because of her kindness I had my phone back.  That sure made my day.  I hope you were able to meet the challenge and you will continue to look for ARK’s. 

An article in the Coloradoan caught my attention this week.  “Are WE Over-Caffeinated?” written by Christie Sounart.  Murray Carpenter (Psych ’85) has written a book entitled, Caffeinated – How Our Daily Habit Helps, Hurts, and Hooks Us.  Carpenter, a freelance journalist, has traveled the world to “understand everything there is to know about caffeine.  He uncovers some shocking surprises.”  After being denied entrance to the factories in China he was determined to “discover where caffeine comes from and the effects it has man-made or not, on consumers.”  Carpenter has discovered that “Americans are consuming several million pounds of synthetic caffeine a year, often from bottles or cans that fail to have information on whether or not the caffeine is natural – coming from coffee, tea or cacao plants – or synthetic.”  Really?!  I don’t know about you, but I had no idea there was synthetic caffeine.  I've been vigilant about reading labels: comparing sodium levels, sugar levels, reading ingredients, but I didn't realize caffeine can be a problem. 

In his travels, Carpenter found a “stark contrast between trying to get into the synthetic plants in China to the personal walking and tasting tours given to him by friendly owners of lush coffee bean plantations or tropical cacao groves.” He described his attempts to get permission to visit the plants in China as he wanted to see the synthetic process, however he was not given access.  “Until the FDA creates a system for inspecting overseas plants, Carpenter says it is nearly impossible to know for sure under what conditions caffeine is created.”

“Sodas, energy drinks and many of the newer caffeine products on the market use synthetic caffeine because it’s less expensive to use than natural caffeine.  Synthetic production increased during WWII when soft drinks gained popularity and coffee consumption reached its peak.  Americans were consuming 46 gallons of coffee per person a year on average.  However, coffee consumption has declined and soft drink consumption has skyrocketed.”  That seems hard to believe as there are so many coffee shops around these days.  But, according to Carpenter’s research, “Around 1950, Americans were drinking about 11 gallons of soft drinks annually, and now we’re drinking 51 gallons (per person.)  The first American synthetic caffeine factory was created in 1945 by Monsanto and pharmaceutical giant Pfizer soon followed.”

In the article, a chart shows the amount of caffeine in some of the more popular drinks that we are drinking.  Here are a few of his statistics although I have seen some different numbers, usually higher, in my Google search – but, you get the idea:

Starbucks Bold Pick of the Day, 16 oz, 330 mg

5-Hour Energy, 1.9 oz, 215 mg

Monster Drink, 16 oz, 184 mg

Mocha, 16 oz, 175 mg

Mountain Dew Kickstart, 16 oz., 92 mg

Red Bull, regular or sugar free, 8.4 oz, 75-80 mg

Pepsi Max, 12 oz, 69 mg

Twining English Breakfast Tea, 6 oz, 25 mg

Check out the full story in The Coloradoan summer 2014 issue.

One of my questions is until we can determine whether or not the caffeine is natural or synthetic, don’t we need to be careful when we consume caffeine?  Remember that many of the sodas and energy drinks we consume have caffeine levels as stated above.  BUT…our diet sodas are even heavier with caffeine amounts:

According to the Australian News: 

DIET Coke and Diet Pepsi contain far more caffeine than the regular equivalents of the drinks, an investigation by The Sunday Times has found.

Laboratory tests found that Diet Coke contained 139mg of caffeine per litre, compared to just 109mg in regular Coca-Cola.

This equates to 46mg of caffeine in a normal-sized 330ml can of Diet Coke compared to 36mg in a can of regular Coca Cola.

Diet Pepsi also had more caffeine, with 135mg per litre compared to 122mg in its regular product. 

So we have the issue of sugar in our sodas but did any of us realize that caffeine is also a huge problem? 

I bring up this issue for your “health mindset.”  Be aware for not only yourself but also your children.  I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on this topic.