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I like to eat coffee beans without grinding or brewing them. I just chew it raw, as it is. Is this activity unhealthy?

Edit:

I'm talking about the brown, roasted coffee beans.

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No. Not any substantial ones.

There are several listed questions around the topic of eating coffee beans. Ingesting roasted coffee beans without grinding/brewing them in some manner is quite common. Many companies sell them specifically to be consumed this way. Probably the main associated health risk would be caffeine overdose. However, it's roughly the same as simply drinking far too much coffee. The main difference being that since coffee (brewed) takes up so much more volume, you are likely to become physically uncomfortable from it before you could get to dangerous levels. With coffee beans you could likely get to dangerous levels much easier since it would be possible to eat many more beans before experiencing the same "fullness" effect.

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Studies come and studies go, and what remains is that it's pretty hard to show any serious health effects from Caffeine or coffee.

It's somewhat "addictive" and some people perhaps drink more coffee than is "good for them", but I have never seen any credible peer-reviewed evidence published in a legitimate medical journal that stated that Coffee consumption is even possibly related to any long term health problems, that is not offset by at least 3 or 4 studies stating the opposite. That caffeine is harmful is a minority view, anywhere outside of Utah.

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    That's not how I read it. I think you'd suffer ill effects from drinking too much water before the caffeine in liquid coffee would reach dangerous levels. And I think that you'd throw up if you ate a pound of coffee-beans before absorbing a dangerous amount. I think it he explains well that it would actually be hard to damage yourself with coffee. If you put a coffee bean in a gun and fired it at your head, maybe you could hurt yourself. That would be a negative health effect associated with coffee too. :-)
    – Warren P
    Commented Feb 4, 2016 at 23:41
  • No, you didn't read it properly, "Even according to researchers who assert the existence of caffeine dependence, the statistical likelihood of dependence is between 9% and 30%". That means that there is a significant division among researchers. Most do NOT support the existence of caffeine dependence, because the data shows that addiction (as in narcotic addiction, or acoholism) is the wrong word to use, for caffeine, which is more of a personal habit. Secondly, it is possible to overdose on alcohol and narcotics, and these have serious health effects in large quantities.
    – Warren P
    Commented Feb 5, 2016 at 12:03
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    You are quoting from my answer! :-) I am referring to the answer with 9 votes, above it.
    – daniel
    Commented Feb 5, 2016 at 12:39
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Unfiltered coffee - such as French press - can significantly elevate cholesterol levels due to a substance called cafestol and kahweol found in the coffee's oils. I would imagine these are especially present in coffee beans because there is no filtration at all to remove the oils.

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I've heard that it takes about 75 coffee beans to produce 1 cup of coffee. Lately I've been on this kick of eating coffee beans as opposed to grinding the beans and making coffee out of them. By time you chew close to 75 beans you sort of feel like you've had enough. This also keeps me from snacking on more caloric types of food. An unmentioned benefit is that it tends to keep your teeth and mouth relatively clean, in terms of your teeth feeling smoother (like after brushing) however you will get grinds stuck between your teeth..thus requiring you to want to brush your teeth anyways. I'm not certain (speculative) but much like how wood fibers can kill germs perhaps coffee beans might have a similar impact on the many bacteria in your mouth. Anyways as in life moderation is the key...so eat some coffee beans but don't eat too many of them either...to your health !!

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Before people learned to brew coffee as a beverage, they ate coffee beans to get a boost of energy for hunts or while farming. Eating coffee beans has the same effects as drinking coffee. However, the effects are magnified because eating the beans provides all of the caffeine and other chemicals in coffee, not just what manages to drip through the filter. In addition, the active ingredients in coffee beans are quickly absorbed through the mucus membranes in the mouth.

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  • I doubt that they would eat roasted coffee beans. It's quite a lot of work the properly roast them while out hunting or farming.
    – JJJ ♦
    Commented Oct 14, 2019 at 16:41

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