Coffee Quality
Coffee offers many health benefits, including the potential to increase life length.
The quality of coffee does vary considerably from one brand to the next. However, it is likely that many brands of instant coffee are of lower quality than other types of coffee. After all, the low price of instant coffee is one of the appealing factors.
Nevertheless, in theory, low-quality coffee would have a greater chance of containing contaminants, which could compromise health.
Most instant coffee will be lower in caffeine than brewed coffee, but some instant coffee products might have the same amount of caffeine or more.
People vary a lot in how they view caffeine. For many of us, caffeine is one of the key reasons to drink coffee to start off with, as this stimulant often makes us feel better and more alert.
The site Caffeine Informer is a useful resource for comparing the caffeine content of various types of coffee - including instant coffee. This is worth looking at if you want to make sure you get instant coffee with decent caffeine levels.
This pattern could also mean that instant coffee contains less healthy compounds from plants in general.
Instant coffee may be of lower quality and have fewer benefits than other coffee types. But, the evidence isn't in and there are strong differences between products.
There is one potential issue that comes with instant coffee, which is the compound acrylamide. Acrylamide is a compound that is found in coffee (and in some other foods) and is considered to be a carcinogen.
The World Health Organization suggests that the compound can cause cancer in animals and high doses can cause nerve damage in humans.
Actually consuming high enough doses of the compound to cause that damage would be pretty difficult.
Nevertheless, the compound could (potentially) cause DNA damage, which could (theoretically) lead to cancer.
There hasn’t been much research that compares instant coffee to other types of coffee. However, some of the studies that have looked at the health benefits of coffee in general have used instant coffee as their coffee of choice.
> For example, one study found that the consumption of caffeinated and decaffeinated instant coffee was associated with decreased blood glucose levels.
> Another study indicated that instant coffee had some impact on cellular concentrations of compounds that could potentially contribute to beneficial metabolic outcomes.
> Researchers have also found that instant coffee does have antioxidant properties, like other types of coffee. With how frequently people consume instant coffee, it’s likely that many of us get a significant amount of antioxidants through instant coffee.
> Another study also indicated that instant coffee processing had no impact on the levels of chlorogenic acids, which are one group of healthy compounds that are found in coffee.
The acrylamide levels in instant coffee are unlikely to cause damage to humans. Anyone concerned about acrylamide would see more benefits from decreasing foods that are higher in acrylamide (like French fries).
There are several differences between ground and instant coffee, but the most important is that instant coffee has already been brewed and dehydrated.
Ground coffee hasn’t been brewed, and is just ground up coffee beans.
Instant coffee is almost always poor quality, while ground coffee can range from poor to excellent.
1. Ground coffee is actual coffee beans, instant coffee is not
Their main difference lies in what they are made of. In essence both instant coffee and ground coffee are coffee, yes. Ground coffee is a bunch of coffee beans that have been ground to a specific size.
This means that after the coffee cherries have been picked and dried and then the beans have been separated from them, they’ve been roasted to a certain degree.
Instant coffee is again ground coffee, which has already been brewed into actual, drinkable coffee. Only the liquid is then cooled and dried (through various processes) so that only the solids in the coffee are left.
The most common process is to spray the brewed coffee inside a large tower, in which warm air is circulated. This dries the coffee particles, and they gather at the bottom of the tower.
Afterwards they’re moistened a bit and tumbled in a drum, so they can clump together to form the granules we all know and recognize as instant coffee.
So in short, instant coffee is made of ground coffee which was already brewed. This has a lot to say in their taste difference. Ground coffee has much more flavor and will give you a broader aroma, with more depth.
Instant coffee is flat, and often very bitter. Once you’ve had actual coffee brewed from ground coffee instant coffee will seem very weak and flat in comparison.
2. Instant coffee dissolves in liquids
Instant coffee, being actual brewed coffee, will dissolve into the water or liquid you want to dissolve it. This also means that you have to be very careful with how much water you add to your instant coffee.
Often you’ll find instant coffee as a mix of coffee with powdered milk, sugar, and added flavors.
Instant coffee tends to be very flat in taste and too much water can make it worse.
As for ground coffee, it will not dissolve into your water no matter what you do to it. Even if you were to blend it into oblivion and make a sort of odd smoothie, it would not be dissolved but cut into a very fine powder.
This is because the coffee grounds are made of a large amount of fibers, which do not dissolve in water. Much like trying to dissolve cinnamon in you coffee, or cocoa powder. They will not disappear into your drink but simply sink to the bottom.
3. Ground coffee has a higher caffeine content
Ground coffee often has a higher caffeine content than instant coffee, and this has to do with two very important things that happen when brewing coffee.
The way caffeine works is that is needs to be extracted from your actual coffee bean or ground. This happens when the bean is exposed to heat, and a liquid to draw it out.
So this means that hot water in contact with your coffee will literally absorb the caffeine in the bean. The longer the coffee stays in the water, the more caffeine gets extracted.
Ground coffee will give you an easily adjustable coffee brew and you can always tweak it as you wish.
With instant coffee you have no control over this. The amount of caffeine extracted relies solely upon the coffee company manufacturing your instant coffee. Often they’ll strive to make as strong a coffee powder as they can
So you’re limited to the amount of caffeine the coffee company managed to extract in their coffee before drying it. This can be worked around if you simply add more instant coffee to your water, but that often results in an even more bitter drink.
Which would then need more milk or sugar to be palatable. Which will not help you health at all.
This is always a problem for coffee drinkers, but the advantages sometimes outweigh the lack of quality. The main reason ground coffee is so bad is that it’s almost always made with Robusta beans.
Robusta is a cheaper coffee bean, but it has a much higher caffeine content than Arabica. Arabica is what most ground coffee is made out of, sometimes blended with a bit of Robusta to a stronger kick or more caffeine.
If you want a comparison, Robusta actually has double the caffeine of Arabica, but it also has half the amount of sugars and fats that Arabica comes with.
This translates into an earthy, bitter coffee with a much stronger kick than Arabica. This is the kind of coffee many people have a problem drinking black, and is often mixed with sugar and cream to be easier to drink.
So there’s that, instant coffee is often of poor quality because it uses Robusta beans. They’re cheap, and they’re the best way to bring a high caffeine content to the table.
But this is the very thing that makes instant coffee taste so bad, since instant Robusta is worse than brewed Robusta.
5. Instant coffee is almost always Robusta
This is another thing to consider when deciding between instant or ground coffee. As discussed above, Robusta is often the kind of coffee bean used for instant coffee.
One of the reasons is that Robusta has such a strong flavor and can stand up to large quantities of milk and sugar and other added flavors.
When it comes to coffee production, Robusta seems to be queen. This is because when the coffee cherries grow, Robusta yields double the amount as Arabica.
Another reason is that Robusta also is highly resistant to diseases and pests (thus easy and cheap to grow),There is also the fact that lots of coffee is lost while making instant coffee, and using cheap beans will significantly cut down the cost of making instant coffee.
Robusta seems to be the duct tape of the coffee industry.
6. The brewing time is much longer for ground coffee
When making ground coffee you have to wait around for it for a few minutes, clean the machine and throw away the coffee grounds, and then you can enjoy your drink.
For some this process is too cumbersome and takes too long,so instant coffee stepped in add hot water and you’re done. You don’t even need hot water.
Source : https://nutritionyoucanuse.com/is-instant-coffee-a-healthy-or-a-risky-habit#tab-con-12
https://coffeeandteacorner.com/ground-coffee-vs-instant-coffee/
https://www.klikdokter.com/info-sehat/read/3077073/6-bahaya-kopi-instan-bagi-kesehatan-anda
https://hellosehat.com/nutrisi/fakta-gizi/efek-minum-kopi-instan-setiap-hari/
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