Coffee is Just as Healthy as Fruits or Vegetables

Just make sure you brew it correctly and avoid this one popular type.

Another family dinner. Uncle Uno (hey, we're Finnish; we've got funny names) is sitting across the table from me as the various dishes are passed around. Uno partakes liberally of the meat and carb dishes, but passes on the salad. He actually swears at the green beans as they glide by. He practically threatens to take up arms against the rutabaga casserole.

Yep, even rutabaga, a Finnish staple!

Uno clearly doesn't like fruits or vegetables (except for boiled potatoes), yet, surprisingly, he appears healthy. He's lean, energetic, and he doesn't have any chronic diseases or ailments and I can't remember him ever being sick.

But what Uno does partake of, liberally, is coffee. You rarely see him without a cup in his hand. Most of us think it's a form of ballast and if you took the coffee cup away from him, he'd float back to Finland, shaking his fist at all of us as he drifted away.

You probably have an Uno or two or three in your life.

That predilection may well be what's kept Uno and others like him healthy. Consider too, the recent confession from sportscaster Al Michaels, age 79, who claims he’s never knowingly eaten a vegetable in his life.

I bet he’s drank plenty of coffee, though, and it may well be the one dietary habit that’s kept him above ground for lo, these many years.

Uno and Al probably don’t know it, but coffee is as nutritionally valuable as practically any vegetable, something that should be given the same respect as kale, chard, lima beans, broccoli, or any of the other traditional powerhouse vegetables nutritionists (including me) are always attempting to shove down your throat.

Coffee is probably the main supplier of polyphenols in the American diet, and probably the rest of the world's diets, too. Accordingly, it's one of the healthiest things you can pour down your gullet.

Its benefits are diverse, but as is the case with most healthful things, there are conditions attached. Let's look at some if those benefits first before we start looking at any possible negative attributes (and how to remedy them).

What Are the Health Benefits of Coffee?

You've probably all heard that drinking coffee can reduce "all-cause mortality," but what the hell does that even mean? Surely coffee can't protect you from getting hit by a runaway ten-wheeler, your last conscious moments spent watching a pair of speeding chrome mudflap girls flutter away from your flattened body. Neither can coffee keep you from falling into an open manhole cover, can it?

Well, epidemiologically speaking, it can.