Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Caffeine

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore why caffeine is secretly incredibly fascinating.Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources and for this week's bonus episode.Come hang out with us on the SIF Discord: https://discord.gg/wbR96nsGg5

Caffeine. Known for being energy. Famous for being buzzy. Nobody thinks much about it, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why caffeine is secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode, a podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt and I'm not alone because I'm joined by my co-host Katie Golden. Katie, what is your relationship to or opinion of caffeine? I like it and I do really enjoy espresso and it helps me feel awake and good. But if I drink even just a little too much of it, I feel like there's a million bees trying to burst out of my head. So it's a delicate process. Like I cannot, I cannot exceed my daily caffeine cap or terrible things happen. But then when I don't have caffeine, I also feel pretty garbo, pretty Greta Garbo. So like, yeah, it's a delicate balance here. Like walking a tightrope made out of espresso beans.

Okay. I'm in the same boat. And I've never thought to call it Greta Garbo, but maybe I will if I ever step down the caffeine or miss it. I'll be like, I'm feeling so the glamorous star of Grand Hotel. Oh, geez. Yeah. I just want to languish on a fainting couch. Yeah. Shimmering outfit. Yeah, yeah. I'm especially thinking of it with last week's episode being computer cursors. I think computer cursors and caffeine have been extraordinarily necessary to every episode of this podcast happening.

Main things, donors through Maximum Fun. And then after that, we need these tools like me being able to type and me being energized. Dragging that little coffee icon into the Alex icon. Oh, now I do want a Susan Care graphic of me as an icon, just being a little happy and bitmap. Oh, this would be good. And the suggester of this topic is DaCoopBear, also with support from JCRDude and many others. And one format note here, it's a normal format episode.

If anybody is super thinking, oh, they could have talked more about coffee or tea or soda or energy drinks or the gigantic list of things that have caffeine, please support the show and then join our Discord, suggest topics, be in the polls for topics because, yeah, this will mainly be about the caffeine itself. It won't be comprehensive about any particular beverage. Yeah. And I'm really interested in it because I have really only recently been more of a user of caffeine because it used to be very like even doses and perhaps one might even say necessary in small doses to function properly. And so I want I want to know, like, why I want to know if like I am poisoning my body secretly or I know I don't expect you to give medical advice, Alex, because you're not an official doctor, even though you're always wearing that lab coat, which is a little weird. But,

you know, I big frizzy hair and big frizzy hair and that thing, the like the headband that has the reflective disc on it. But, you know, I, I am very curious about, about caffeine because it's like, how can a substance both make me feel so good and then at times make me feel so bad? Um, is it a drug? Am I high all the time? What's going on? What's going on?

Diagnose me. Yeah. And we will talk all about that in that way where we're not doctors, but researched it and found out interesting things. I'm so excited. Our first fascinating thing about the topic, it's a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. And this week that is in a segment called, oh, what is a good podcast of secret cool

stuff? Cif Pod Podcast. Who lists stats and numbers we can't get enough? Cif Pod Podcast. If fun information be something you wish. great cool stuff. SIFPOD Podcast! Who lists stats and numbers we can't get enough? SIFPOD Podcast! If fun information be something you wish. SIFPOD Podcast! Then pop in your headphones and flop like a fish. SIFPOD Podcast!

Ready? SIFPOD Podcast! SIFPOD Podcast! SIFPOD Podcast! SIFPOD Podcast! SIFPOD Podcast! Do-do-do-do-do-do-do! Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do! Seafod Podcast. Seafod Podcast. Whoa, that was good. That was almost like a cookie monster.

Yeah, huh. Now I'm trying to remember Muppet Treasure Island and if they crossed over Cookie Monster from Sesame Street, because he would make sense on most pirate ships. He really would. He's ravenous and has this guttural voice. Right. It really works. Doesn't need enough vitamin C. That's true.

One vegetable, dude. Come on. Anyway, that name was submitted by the Silver Sylvan on Discord. What a treat. Thank you. We have a new name for this every week. Please make it as silly and wacky and bad as possible. Submit through Discord or to sifpod at gmail.com. And the first number this week is at least 1,000 years ago. Wow. At least 1,000 years ago. That's a lot of years, Alex. It is. And that is how long ago people in what's now the southwestern United States began drinking caffeinated beverages. At least a thousand years ago, possibly earlier.

And that's amazing because it probably involved pretty extensive trade networks with other parts of the Americas to get the plants and get the materials. What kinds of plants would be used in these old caffeinated beverages? Great question, because it turns out there's two different ones that they leaned on. We'll talk about the archaeology in a sec, but one of the drinks they had is the Mesoamerican hot chocolate that we touched on in the past SIF about chocolate, because it's also, I think, somewhat famous with the Aztecs, better known as the Triple Alliance. They made an extremely caffeinated hot chocolate beverage out of cacao beans. And on our Credit Unions episode, we also

talked about those beans being a practical form of currency where it was valued as currency. And also you can make this caffeinated chocolate beverage that people like. And I imagine it was valued as currency. And also you can make this caffeinated chocolate beverage that people like. And I imagine it was extremely bitter because this would not be like a sugar. This wouldn't be like the hot chocolate that you get, the Swiss Miss kind where it's actually quite sweet. It'd be a very bitter sort of almost like it almost sounds like a coffee like drink. Yeah, not Swiss Miss, but Tenochtitlan Miss or whatever. Yeah.

It was totally different and really bitter and really strong. Yeah. Yeah. In order to get that, people in what's now places like Arizona and New Mexico were trading for it. And then their other popular drink was from a whole different direction. It's from what's now the southeastern U.S. It was another drink called Black Drink is the shorthand name. And this was a caffeinated tea-like beverage made from the leaves of a North American holly plant called the Yapon Holly.

Do you know anything about what it would taste like? Apparently, it was a relatively smooth flavor, sort of like many black teas around the world. And then also when native people drank it ritually, they would sometimes add things to it that are an emetic and make you vomit. Well, interesting. And then like Europeans misunderstood this and thought the yaupon leaves themselves cause you to vomit. And so the scientific name for this plant is now Ilex vomitoria. Oh, come on, guys. Even though it doesn't necessarily make you vomit if you drink tea from the leaves.

Right. So what was the purpose of the emetics? Because it sounds counterintuitive, like you're drinking this drink to get the caffeine, but then if you're throwing it up, you're not maybe getting as much of the caffeine as you would be. Yeah. It turns out this was usually drank in a ritual way and an occasional way. So this was not, I know people talk about like a daily ritual of caffeine, but this

was for special ceremonies. This was not something you did all the time. It was probably for the metaphorically cleansing vibe. I see. I see. Of making yourself throw up in a socially regarded as positive way. Body cleanse thing, which, you know, don't necessarily, like as a doctor of podcasting, Don't necessarily, like as a doctor of podcasting, I wouldn't recommend it.

But I think only in this very specific cultural context. Yeah, if you're doing it every day, we'll turn on our big headlamp at you furiously. And it'll shine you in the eyes. We'll get you. Yeah. We'll get you. That's what they do. That's what those like big reflector discs are for, punishing patients or making you chase like the little bright dot on the floor like we're cats. Yeah.

And Yau Panhali, it grows today everywhere from Virginia to Florida to Central Texas. It's still a plant you can make a caffeinated drink out of. But according to Smithsonian Smart News, there was an amazing study in 2015. Archaeologists led by Patricia L. Crown of the University of New Mexico examined pottery shards everywhere from the Mexican state of Chihuahua to the U.S. state of Colorado, like that whole southwestern U.S., northern Mexico. Mexico. And with liquid chromatography mass spectrometry in an incredibly advanced way, they found that the pottery shards contain traces of both these drinks and both these plants that are from different regions of the Americas. So it's yet another indicator that there was really extensive, amazing trading, shipping economies between these groups. extensive, amazing trading shipping economies between these groups. That's incredible. I love, I love research like that, where it's like, we found a shard of a plate and we're able to like find the molecules of the food that was on it. Uh, it's just so,

it's so neat, especially given that like a lot of the history of the Americas has been more or less lost. Being able to kind of reconstruct some of that history is really, really cool. Yeah. You know, you just put it together. I really hope though, I really hope like hundreds of years from now, though, that this doesn't happen with my food because I'll feel so judged by future archaeologists. Like we found a shard of something called a Tupperware and what appears to be just plain pasta with some cheese on it. Yeah, they're going to be able to determine very clearly that I'm a big coffee drinker,

and then they're going to wonder about the mutated animated beagle on the outside of my mug and who that could be and what god, you know? It appears he worshipped an entity known as Joseph Cool. Well, and the next number here is approximately 60, approximately six zero, because according to National Geographic, about that many different plant species produce caffeine in the world, about 60 different species. So I know a little bit about why plants produce caffeine. And as far as I understand, it is a defensive weapon against insects that would like to eat those plants. It just so happens that when human beings consume it, it instead of killing us, gives

us a cool little buzz. And I think that's also the case for capsaicin, the spice, where that is also a plant defense weapon. And when we eat it, it just kind of burns the crap out of our tongue. And we're like, oh, you saucy plant. You don't understand that human beings are perverts and masochists, and we like that.

It's all dead on, yeah. On our long ago mustard episode, we talked about chemicals in mustard plants being the spice that we want on bratwurst. We're all weird as humans. And then plants are like, I did this for national defense purposes from a plant perspective. What are you doing? Why are you consuming my bioweapon in large quantities and going, that's good, Joe? Yeah. And this also explains a bunch about caffeine. It explains why plants all over the world can produce it and why cultures all over the world have probably made caffeinated drinks

pretty early on, like we found with these folks in the Southwestern modern US. And that also explains why not every plant does it, because you could also make stuff that's spicy. You can also make mustard. You can also do other chemicals for that same insect defense purpose. And then another amazing thing is a mini takeaway number one. Bees seem to enjoy caffeine at their job, sort of like humans do. Oh, so cute. The little bees.

Bees like caffeine and nectar. They're like stoked. And their little fuzzy bee sweaters with their little teeny tiniest of cup that says number one drone just going like, gotta go to work, gotta go to work. Should we just shut down the episode and go merchandise a number one drone mug? That would really, right? Yeah. Come on.

We already thought of it. And it's like bee themed? Bee themed. And patent pending. All rights reserved. It's going to happen. Or a shirt that has a little bee on it who's got a little mug. It goes, number one, drone. Don't buzz to me until I've had my caffy.

Right. Don't regurgitate up food we found for the queen until I've had my nectar. Don't communicate the origin of food sources with a wiggle dance before I've had my coffee. I'm glad wiggle dances will come up. We've found that bees benefit from plants, including caffeine in their nectar and really like to have caffeine. There was a 2013 study at Newcastle University that found that if there's low concentrations of caffeine and nectar, that attracts return visits from bees.

if there's low concentrations of caffeine and nectar that attracts return visits from bees. A 2021 study suggested caffeine improves bees' focus and memory when pollinating plants. They're just like me. It's very relatable, yeah. And a 2015 study at the University of Sussex found that bees accepted what they call lower quality food sources, like nectar with less nutrition for bees and less of what bees want if there's caffeine. That balances it out. They're like, great. Same. And I'm right. Very relatable. Big same. Yeah. Are these plants potentially producing the nectar because of the evolutionary benefit of having pollinators like bees come repeatedly for the nectar? Because if you're able to get away with, like if you can produce some caffeine and then the nectar maybe has fewer sugars or something,

Maybe it has fewer sugars or something. Maybe you can produce a cheaper nectar in terms of the energy cost that bees still really like and want to come back for, rather than it being, say, like the other use of caffeine in plants, which is actually a sort of an insect repellent. This one is more possibly used to attract bees. Exactly, yeah. Both those uses, they've just evolved it over time. more possibly used to attract bees. Exactly. Yeah. Both those uses, they've just evolved it over time. And because of bees interaction with that nectar one way or another, plants started producing it to make that happen. Yeah.

Nice. That's just so cute. Bees have a little coffee shop run by flowers. Yeah. Even the cutest part, that University of Sussex study, they say that they checked out how many waggle dances bees perform on plants with or without caffeine in the nectar. And they say bees did four times as many waggle dances if caffeine was available. Listen, gals, I found a great, I found a great, it's called, it's called Stock Buzz and it's a

great place to get your pollen. Oh, my God. It's very, very good. Let's go. Let's go. Come on, ladies. It's actually what I do, too. When I find a new source of caffeine is I do a little waggle dance to inform my friends and family of its location. I truly like I researched this when I took myself out to a coffee shop to do some

internet research and I was drinking coffee and I had just told somebody that I really like this shop, Big Mouth Coffee here in Beacon and they should come. Like I'm, I'm essentially this bee. It was extraordinarily me reading about it. So I do, I do have to come clean. I missed my afternoon dose of coffee today, which is really unfortunate. And so this episode is making me feel extremely jealous of these bees. It also felt very harmonious, I guess, as I was like reading about coffee, drinking coffee, reading about coffee, drinking coffee. Like it really, it really worked. Yeah. So this, this might spark something in listeners. You might want a little cup of something. Yeah, it is. I mean, I think we might talk about this, but I believe it is like a mildly addictive substance. It's like not obviously not that dangerous, but it is like, I mean, like it's the same as sugar, right? Sugar is also addictive. It doesn't mean it's like gonna kill you in the right quantities, but it is a substance

that when you talk about it or smell it or look at a bag of it or a cup of it, it makes you want to have more of it. That's a perfect segue into the very next thing. Yes, all planned. And there's a bunch of numbers in it. All according to my intricate plans. Because there's numbers within this, but takeaway number two. Almost every caffeine user has a dependency on it, and there's lots of argument about whether that qualifies as an addiction. It turns out it's somewhat distinct from addiction to stuff like alcohol, tobacco, intravenous drugs, and it has also been described as addiction by some people.

It's oddly kind of debated, but the dependency is clear. It's oddly kind of debated, but the dependency is clear. To me, this is probably just my own opinion, but it seems like something like addiction could be on a sliding scale, right? Yeah. You could really like video games or sugar or chocolate or caffeine, right? And then when you're deprived of that thing, you're like, oh, I really want that. Maybe you suffer some physical symptoms like headaches and whatnot, but you're not like going into dangerous withdrawal. I guess like video games is a good example, right? Because you could be like, I'm addicted to video games because I have to play every day. And if I don't,

I really miss it. And like, it's hard for me sometimes to, you know, not play video games versus like, say a gambling addiction where someone is gambling away their entire life savings and they cannot stop. It's like, I think those are both potentially addictions. It's just, it's like, okay, that's different, right? Like there seems to be some, there seems to be some difference in scale in terms of addiction. And certainly caffeine, it is just not the same as something like heroin in terms of if you tried to cut yourself off of heroin, cold turkey, you could be in actual medical danger. be in actual medical danger. That's all exactly right. Yeah. And so that's what we get into in this takeaway, because I think everyone is broadly familiar with the concept that caffeine is habit forming, possibly addictive. And let's talk about exactly how, because it turns out it's on that sliding scale somewhere. Great. The super basic thing, caffeine is a molecule, and it's a relatively large, complex molecule.

It is also accurately described as a drug, and it is a psychoactive drug because it alters how we think and feel, even if it's on a pretty low scale. That is technically psychoactive, and it's likely the most popular psychoactive substance on Earth. Yeah, that tracks. And then it also forms dependency. And the specific way that works is chemistry and also with the brain, because this caffeine molecule, its structure and its makeup, it closely resembles another molecule that's naturally present in our brains that is called adenosine. And adenosine and caffeine resemble each other so closely, caffeine can slot into our brain's receptors for adenosine in place of it and box it out, take up that space. And so like adenosine on its own, what function does it play in the

brain? Among other things, it makes us a little bit less alert in a way that is normal and is part of just the regular function of the brain. And so one reason caffeine makes us feel more alert is it's just not doing that thing. It's the absence of the less alertness, if that makes sense. So like right now, because I did I, I did miss my caffeine dose, um, for very petty reason, which is that it's raining. And I was like, I don't want to walk in the rain, um, which was a mistake. Um, cause, uh, Alex now has like morphed into a cup of coffee, you know, like in the cartoons where on the desert island and they turn into hamburgers or hot dogs because the character is starving. Alex to me looks like a

big talking cup of espresso. So, yeah, I mean, I definitely. I'm that character cuphead if people know the video game. I'm just that dude. Exactly. Yeah yeah just that dude going like hello katie would you like to drink some fluid out of my brain um bees around me like a halo yeah uh yeah so i i do definitely like when i it's interesting because i think like when i start like if i don't drink coffee for like a week or something i don't notice this as much. But when I when I miss like a day, right, like when I'm normally drinking it every day around the same time and then I miss a day, it's like it just I feel in addition to being tired. It is just this feeling of like it's just harder to focus. Yeah.

Yeah. about. I can't think of a co-star of hers, but let's, let's, because I didn't have caffeine, so I can't think of any movies Greta Garbo was in. Come on. Her movies were only 1,000 years ago. You don't remember those? Yeah. You don't remember? Greta Garbo in Sad Lady. Especially because this is happening on sort of the brain level we feel it pretty quickly if there's a change in our habit or in our consumption yeah the the other main effects are that our dopamine that we already have works a little more effectively and also the body gets

prompted to generate more adrenaline and so the the caffeine itself is not like a molecule of energy, but it causes processes that do energy stuff for us. And also mood, like more dopamine, we are just a little bit happier for a reason we can't put a finger on. Yeah. Because I really only recently started trying espresso and caffeine in general, because I had always assumed I could not handle it because when I drank too much of it, I felt terrible. My heart would be pounding. I would get kind of sweaty. But then I, through accident, found out that it was the amount of caffeine. So that if I just had the amount of caffeine that's in a standard espresso and nothing more that that is fine.

And so it's like, I had this like interesting realization of like, oh, this is why everyone drinks coffee as adults. Okay. I get it now. It's like, oh, right. Right. Cause like this, it's a drug. All right. I get it. Yeah. It's good. All right, I get it. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, and it's such an interesting drug to talk about because it is both absolutely a drug and low on the scale of the drugs that various humans are into in terms of addiction and the forcefulness of those effects. There have been a lot of pretty wild media claims about how addictive this can be. And one of the wildest was in 1994. In 1994, scientists did a new study of caffeine dependency and how addictive it is, partly because it's been so clear this forms a dependency. Science has been relatively slow to officially study it. Like, why bother? We all kind of know. Yeah. But there was a big study of it in 1994. And then here is how the New York Times wrote it up.

The lead of the article was, researchers have confirmed for the first time the widely held belief that some people are addicted to caffeine in the same way that others are addicted to cigarettes, alcohol, or intravenous drugs, end quote. Yeah. Like, it's not heroin, guys. No. Come on. No.

So, like, this bothers, and this isn't stuff that just happened in the 90s. Like, this, I think, is a pervasive problem with medical research reporting. I wish everyone could, like, take a free course on how to skim through a scientific paper and look for all of the key things in the paper. Because like, who is the study population, right? Is it mice? Did they do this on mice or rats? And if they did, don't worry. The mice thing is huge.

Don't worry too much about its effects on humans. It's not to say that research on mice and rats isn't relevant or important. It is, but you can't say just from a study on mice or rats that therefore it is this way in humans. If a rat presses a button to get caffeine just as much as it presses a button to get heroin. That does not mean it's equally addictive in humans. It is just not true. Anyways, yeah. And to give the New York Times a little credit, if people read the entire tiny print of the rest of the story, they did include a bunch of caveats that were in the scientific paper. they did include a bunch of caveats that were in the scientific paper. For one thing, one of the editors of this journal, Dr. Richard M. Glass, a Northwestern University psychiatrist, he told the Times that he was really concerned that this study would get

used and exploited by the tobacco industry to try to trivialize nicotine addiction and sell more cigarettes. So he was like, please don't report it the way you could. And he doesn't know they're reporting it that way, like at the front of the article. And then also the authors of the study made a point of saying that the hundreds of thousands of deaths each year from stuff like alcohol and tobacco are very different. And that caffeine is quote, extremely benign. They were like, it's night and day. Don't report it the way that we don't know you're about to report it. And yeah, and one of the biggest reasons that people have pushed back on the description of caffeine as addictive is the mildness of the withdrawal.

If you step it down, if you stop. Apparently, for most people, withdrawal symptoms end after between 7 to 12 days. And basically nobody experiences anything dangerous from stepping down or ending their caffeine intake unless they had some really severe level of consuming it going in. Yeah. I mean, the only symptom I'm experiencing right now is feeling a little tired and also Alex looking like a anthropomorphic cup of espresso. But other than that, I'm fine. Yeah. If I turn into the Starbucks mermaid, see a doctor, see a doctor, go. I'm Dr. Starbucks mermaid. I'm Dr. Starbucks mermaid.

Remember the old, because I think they changed it, but it used to be the full-on mermaid. And then she had the two tails and she was kind of doing the splits, like the old Starbucks logo. Yeah. I always thought that was weird. Yeah. Apparently the original, original one, when it was a local Seattle shop, like had actual breasts and was sort of. It had boobies. Like sexual, but. It had boobies.

They really sanitized it. I'm sad that they can't bring back boobie coffee. Just call it double shot coffee and the logo is just boobies. No mermaid even, just boobs. Our commercial ideas this week are so good. They're too good. We do have to make it. We're now a business.

We do have to make that mug. It's really good. With like some bees on it. Yeah. And then also another way caffeine dependency is interesting is not only is it less extreme than most drugs, it's also distinct from the human relationship to sugar.

Because according to the Cleveland Clinic, you know, many people will feel a dependency type need to eat sugar. I know I personally have that if I don't. Yes. But that's usually a dependency on like added sugar. And the big difference is that there is a dietary need for some sugar in the human body. Like we need some amount of it, but caffeine is completely elective. If you never consumed caffeine ever again, your body would get enough nutrients to function totally healthily.

Yeah, the sugar thing is interesting because the reason we're, I think, addicted to sugar is that the environment that we lived in when we were, you know, pre-humans and early humans is like the you wouldn't find like a bag of Skittles lying on the forest floor. So like when you would find something that's really rich. That's why I don't go to forests. Come on. Come on. Make with the Skittles, forest. It's why like when you would find something that's really, really dense in sugars, it's like, okay, I should eat this because this is like, this is a really good source of sugar. I might not find something like this. It's relatively rare. And so we were not prepared for 7-Eleven when we had first evolved.

Like that was not, that's a, that's a tough one to avoid. Cause you can't just like, you need sugar from normal stuff. Yeah, exactly. And it, it just really jumps out to me because caffeine and added sugar are definitely my two biggest dependencies as a person. And they come from totally different paths. Like one is that there's a dietary need for sugar and that's been sort of manipulated and culturally exploited. And the other is just we came up with a party drug and I'm into it.

Like it's such different paths for those both very ordinary things, because also, at least in the U.S., like nobody would stop me and check if I'm OK, if I'm having a candy bar or a cup of coffee. Like, it's just what we do. It's it's everybody's into it. It's available cheaply everywhere. It is a drug that does not like impair you greatly unless, you know, of course, like certain specific circumstances, certainly it could be a problem. I hate to disappoint McGruff the crime dog, but I'm not just like anti-drug just for the sake of being anti-drug. I think the drug has to have some proven very negative effect. And so like stuff like caffeine or even like cannabis, right? Like I personally do not partake in the old devil's

lettuce just for personal reasons. I have like OCD and so I do not smoke pot because I think it would potentially cause problems. But like in terms of the general population, it's like, you know, certain drugs are not like inherently bad. There are drugs that will a hundred percent mess you up. And with a lot of use will, will start to impair your brain's ability to naturally produce neurotransmitters that are important for you having a functional life. So it's just the fact that something's a drug does not really tell me much about whether it's good or bad for you. Yeah. And it's such a thing where everybody responds at least a little bit differently to

these things too. Like I can have alcohol and then other people have a genetic situation where they shouldn't because it'll just be unstoppable. And turns out that we're beginning to explore whether caffeine is a little bit like that for a small subset of the population. And this is new and not solid, I guess yet, but there's a team at Johns Hopkins led by Dr. Maggie Sweeney. And starting in the mid-2010s, they started examining whether there's something called a caffeine use disorder that could be diagnosable and a psychological, possibly genetic problem, not just that you drink a lot of caffeine. And based on that team's findings, the publishers of the DSM-5 psychiatric manual, they've noted caffeine use disorder as, quote, a condition for further study.

They haven't added it, but there's some people at least starting to explore, like, has there been a deeper issue for a few people within our really global culture of drinking caffeine all the time? Like, have there been a few people who truly can't stop and need help and are having it at an extreme level? I'd almost be surprised if there wasn't, right? Like, I mean, it seems like for almost any other substance or activity that causes a reward loop in your brain, right? Like from playing video games to sugar to gambling, it's like anything that is highly popular and for the majority of the population does not necessarily cause significant problems, except for maybe sugar. Maybe we're all suffering from sugar. But almost all of these substances or activities that could be described as quote unquote addicting really do impact some people in a serious way.

It seems like that would make sense, right? Like we're a very like heterogeneic population of human beings. And so a substance or activity that causes the reward system of your brain to just like start partying, like of course it's going to potentially cause problems for a certain subset of people. Yeah. And it could so easily just be going on in the background of our broader culture, where there's a coffee shop or gas station with coffee on every corner. And so, you know, how would you know? It just looks like a person getting coffee, whatever. Yeah.

And also the good news about it is, you know, we don't know because they need to find out more, but it does seem to be a truly small percentage of the population. If there's a group that has that potential caffeine use disorder, like it's not. We got to shut it down. We got to shut down every coffee shop until we figure out what the hell is going on. Then while they're shut down, we launch our chain of boob coffee and take over the market, right? We'll sneak up on them. Sneak attack.

Yeah. Yeah. I think we should just call it boob coffee and it should be like an underground speakeasy for coffee. The password is anything you say at all. Cause we want to sell you coffee. And the logo, the logo is a B just with a set of nice boobs. And folks, we have many more numbers for you.

And then one relatively decaffeinated takeaway. We'll get to that after a short break. I am legit kind of sleepy because I didn't have my coffee. Because it was rainy. I was too lazy to go outside. That was a nice story for how addictive or not this is. Like we really wanted it unless the weather like. Okay.

Yeah. It's waning. Like in Trainspotting if they're like, I don't know, it's raining. I won't have heroin today. It's cool. Yeah. if you want to. This is exclusive to members of Maximum Fun and to people who support this show directly. And it's something I like to do for them. It's also just hard to announce that this exists. So I'm just bringing it up here real quick. If you would like a greeting for a listening party,

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together. And then I'll just reply to that email with a video file. So that's the message. Thanks so much. sifpod at gmail.com, your name, name of anybody you're doing this with, and what episode you're going to hear. And MaximumFun.org slash join if you want to support the show. And then give yourself this listening party message gift as part of it. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places, yes. I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty.

This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience. One you have no choice but to embrace because, yes,

listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. Well, and folks, we are back with many more numbers because we did some takeaways already.

And the next number is 85%. 85%. That's a recent industry survey estimate of how many Americans consume caffeine daily. Wow. And if anything, that might be low. There's a more recent estimate from the Mayo Clinic of 90%. We think, you know, the majority of Americans, and then in many other countries too, are consuming some kind of caffeine every day. Bringing it back to be all about me, which is my favorite thing to do. Before I started drinking caffeine, I would

basically almost always need to take like a short nap in the middle of the day. When I have caffeine, I may or may not need to nap. But like, I always felt weird for that where it's like, what am I, like a kindergartner? Why do I always need like a nap in the middle of the day? But maybe it's just normal to need that unless you are on caffeine. This is like my conspiracy theory is that we have like, if you don't drink caffeine, you need a nap. I read a few different things discussing the idea that caffeination is now what we perceive to be regular human consciousness and functioning right just because so many people have it every day like we think that's how most people are

and we think somebody's an outlier if they don't elect to have this drug right exactly this is this is this is kind of what I'm saying, which is like, given that we are podcasters, freelancers, I do have the luxury to kind of pick my own schedule and take a nap in the middle of the day if I want, which is an enormous privilege. And a lot of people do not have that option, cannot just decide, like, I would like to take, you know, a quick, like, little 50-minute nap, please. And so it's like, well, what am I going to do when I'm tired at my job? Well, I'm going to have another cup of coffee or another cup of tea or something. And so it just seems like this has just become the normal, like, we expect human beings to have a consistent energy level

throughout the day, and you make it happen through caffeine. And so I'm so suspicious of this because like I wonder, I don't know if it's necessarily bad to have caffeine instead of a nap. But like, is it normal for us to be like, yes, like from the time you wake up in the morning to the time you go to sleep at night, you should just be pumped to work for X company and not need a nap. I'm a nap radical. Normal is something we construct. Whether it's normal or not, it is standard right now in pretty much every country in the world. And in the United States, this was an industry survey, but they sampled more than 37,000 people. So that's a pretty good N. That's a pretty good amount.

They found about 85% consume caffeine daily. In particular, the demographic of 50 to 64-year-olds was the highest on this. And they found older demos primarily drink coffee, younger demos more tea and soda. That is surprising. Well, not the soda, I guess, but it's surprising to me that tea is drunk more by younger people. I think of tea as an older, more sophisticated person drink. Yeah, in the United States, tea feels like a little more of a conscious choice and a style and a vibe. Like there's a famous article from The Onion where the headline is just fancy man enjoys tea. That's it. There's other countries where tea is the default caffeine. But here we're like, ooh, somebody's in a fall sweater or like reading a book or something, you know?

I do like tea. I, this tracks with me actually, because I only started drinking, uh, like coffee, like recently in my thirties, whereas I used to drink tea when I was younger. Cause coffee was like, it just was bitter and yucky. Uh, in my twenties, I was like, gross gross, coffee, yucky. Give me some tea. We're so aligned. My progression was Coke Classic, tea, coffee, and like over about a decade. Yeah. My progression was Skittles, tea, and then coffee. Coke Classic is sort of a brown Skittle of the cup, you know? It's a brown liquidy skittle.

Yeah. And the other thing here, next number is more than 12%. And this is another survey number. It's from a trade journal called Beverage Industry. They found that there was a more than 12% increase in sales of energy drinks from 2021 to 2022. Most of the last several years, there's been a large increase like that in energy drink sales. The Mayo Clinic, with their estimate of 90% of the population drinking caffeine daily, they suggest that that slight increase in just overall number of people who have it in the U.S. is energy drinks. That's reached a few more people, especially teenagers and also people grabbing energy shots at convenience type businesses.

Yeah. Another number here, the number is 1,100 pounds, which is almost 500 kilograms, 1,100 pounds. Sounds like a good amount of beans to put in my espresso. Sounds like a good amount of beans to put in my espresso. This is the amount of yerba mate that was shipped to the Qatar 2022 Men's Soccer World Cup just by the Argentina men's soccer team. Well. Just Leo Messi's team that won the competition. They brought 1,100 pounds of yerba mate.

They know what's up. To the Middle East. They know what's up. They know what to prioritize. That's cool. So that's like, it's a type of tea, right? That's like highly caffeinated. Yeah, this is a centuries old caffeinated drink in South America.

People started making it before the Columbian Exchange. And it's like a tea. Yeah, you make it from the ground up and dried up leaves of a small evergreen tree that is named Yerba Mate. Have you ever tried it? I've had like the U.S. version. I've never been to South America. I would love to have the main kind there because it's all over South America. It was first made by the Guarani people of modern Paraguay. But I've had like a kind in a bottle that usually has like South American flags on it. And it's not commonly available in the US, but it is here for sure.

I should try it if I find it. It can be hard to find certain things in Italy, but I finally, after like days, days, Alex, of searching, found a store that has kombucha, the fermented tea kombucha. Oh, okay. Yeah. because it's usually the tea it's fermented from has caffeine in it, but it's really not, it's a very low amount. So it probably, it's not, it doesn't really have much of an impact in terms of, I don't think you can really get much from the caffeine. That's such another good indicator of the whole earth is checking out each other's regional caffeine drinks. Like these keep spreading, people keep being like, I can also have this, you know, not that kombucha is such a caffeine primary thing, but. It's more of a probiotic. Yeah, like, and yerba mate, another number here is $2.18 billion with a B, U.S.

That's the global 2023 sales of yerba mate. Wow. And that's a relatively recent phenomenon. It was not well known outside of South America until the last few decades. Do you think caffeine could help us achieve world peace if we just like, instead of fighting with each other, just like had a big, basically a big swap meet where it's like, here's my caffeinated beverage and here's my caffeinated beverage and we'll swap it. We'll get those good caffeine, dopamine rushes and then just not kill each other.

We should give a Nobel Peace Prize to whoever runs that meeting and gives everybody the right amount. Because it's so that thing where like one cup of coffee, feeling good. Two cups of coffee, feeling great. Three cups, everyone's out to get me. You know, like it's such a flip from feeling good to paranoia. Bombs start flying. Yeah. Don't try to arrange a treaty with me until I've had my coffee. Yeah. And there is oddly a weird thing where the New York Times and JSTOR Daily are both sources for Yerba Mate stuff here because they talk about specifically in the world of soccer, players getting each other into Yerba Mate because they have South American friends on their teams. And then also Argentina was not the only team to haul hundreds of pounds of this to Qatar. The team from Uruguay brought over 500 pounds,

and they also brought a team mascot character. His name is Botija, and it's a guy in a big mascot suit that looks like they're Thermos of Yerba Mate, but with a cartoon face. Like a Yerba Mate mascot. I feel like this, I don't know, I feel so much kinship with the soccer team, despite the fact that I do not follow soccer. The fact that we both apparently want to see a giant anthropomorphic version of the caffeinated beverage that we drink. It just goes to show you we're all the same deep down human beings. We all just want to see our caffeinated beverage in personified form dancing around and inviting

us to drink out of their heads. One world. One world. While we're at it, rapid fire set of several numbers. National Geographic says yerba mate is only a bit less caffeinated than coffee. There's about 80 milligrams of caffeine per cup. Mayo Clinic and the USDA are the other sources for these numbers. An eight-ounce cup of coffee is about 96 milligrams of caffeine. Black tea is about half that, 47 milligrams. Green tea down to 28 milligrams, soda about 22 milligrams, and then an eight ounce cup of hot chocolate, less than eight milligrams. So a little, not a lot, even in that. And how much was your Bamate? It's about 80. So I like five sixths of a cup of coffee, approximately.

Okay. Yeah. By volume. Oh, and then one more, the brands vary, but Energy Shots can have more than two cups of coffee's worth of caffeine and just two ounces of liquid. They're really, really concentrated. Oof. And jumping to one last number for the main show, the number is September, 2012. for the main show. The number is September 2012. September 2012. That is when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made an announcement about church doctrine regarding caffeine. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yes. I'm super interested in this. And they're often called the LDS Church or referred to as Mormons. There's minor distinctions with all of that. That is a separate podcast, I think, so folks just bear with us. But the official LDS Church, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, the LDS posted an announcement on their website in September 2012 saying, quote, the church does not prohibit the use of caffeine. Great.

You're allowed. I'm not a religious person. I think that religion and spirituality can perform a very important service in terms of people's lives and communities. But I am confused when doctrine changes because like I didn't, I, again, I'm again, I'm an ignorant heathen. So I may not, I may not get it. But like, does God change his mind? Or is it like we misunderstood God?

Like we thought God said no caffeine, but really what he said was be nice to each other and don't fight too bad because I love all my children. But then we heard like coffee is bad. What's sort of the explanation for the change in doctrine? What's happening here is there's the Book of Mormon and then a section of that called Doctrine and Covenants. And that's all driven by the writings of Joseph Smith. So it's a prophecy, but a modern prophecy. And there's some health code stuff in that that prohibits tobacco, prohibits alcohol, prohibits the overconsumption of meat.

You can have meat, just don't overdo it. I mean, good advice. Right. It's a good idea. The meat sweats are a one-way ticket to H-E-double toothpicks. These barbecue ribs are feeling pretty psychoactive to me. Five-star review of Barbecue Place. And then another part of it involved a prohibition against something called hot drinks.

And the vagueness of that statement is what they're clarifying. So you can see how there would be clarification needed, right? So is cold brew okay then? Exactly. People over time interpreted that to mean a prohibition against caffeine, even though the words are hot drinks. Hot drink. And then from there, the LDS church clarified this. They said that the prohibition against hot drinks, quote, does not go beyond tea and coffee. And then they also further updated it

the next day on their website. They made another change that said, quote, the church revelation spelling out health practices does not mention the use of caffeine, end quote. And so broadly, they seem to be pretty clear on no coffee, no tea, but this was widely interpreted as approving soda and approving some other things. How about iced tea and iced coffee? And it's still confusing because of all the cold tea and coffee you mentioned that is not hot. It's such fascinating doctrine clarification because it seems pretty clearly on board with soda. And in 2017, Brigham Young University began offering caffeinated soda in their food service system, possibly because of this recent announcement.

They should titrate that in like slowly, like a college campus of young Mormons. And if you suddenly caffeinate them all really quickly, that to me seems like a dangerous situation. I don't know that they would leave room for Jesus during their school dances if you gave them too much caffeine. I'm now reminded of one of my favorite caffeine stories about myself, which is before I was a coffee drinker and only drank tea, I tried to order just an interesting tea drink that they could add shots of espresso to. And the barista was like, do you want a shot in this? And I said, no, but they heard two. And then a few minutes later, I noticed the ceiling was moving.

I was like, hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Did a baby crawl on the ceiling and go like, would you like one shot or two? Yeah, pretty much. I was like, if that's moving, I should check in with them. And I talked to them and they were like, oh, I thought you wanted two shots. I was like, I see. Okay. I'm going to run home on foot. So I don't, have you heard of like, are we going to talk about this or in the bonus or whatever, but like there's that drink from Panera, the lemonade that is actually extremely

caffeinated and you should be careful with. We touched on it on a past episode, so, and there's nothing new. Yeah. But the, the charged lemonade from Panera. Yeah. Just, there's a lemonade from Panera that is charged lemonade. It has caffeine in it, but it's unclear. I think sometimes to people that it is so highly caffeinated.

I don't know if it's like confirmed that the drink itself like caused the medical events in people, but like they will drink it. And then shortly after have a serious medical event because like, for instance, someone who like should not be having caffeine and didn't know like that there was caffeine in it because it's lemonade. And it's not just like... Sneaks up on you. Because it's like, it's not just that it's like a little bit of caffeine, it's like extremely caffeinated. Like, can I look up the number for, oh my God.

So a large 30 ounce mango yuzu citrus charged lemonade contains 390 milligrams of caffeine. That's okay. So that's like four cups of coffee. Jeez. And maybe a little bit more than that. Oh my God. Well. That's too much for someone who doesn't know it's there. and maybe a little bit more than that. Oh my God. That's too much for someone who doesn't know it's there.

Panera, what's going on with you guys? You said 390, right? 390 milligrams? Yeah, according to CBS. Yeah, four cups. Yeah, according to cbsnews.com, the FDA recommends no more than 400 milligrams of caffeine. This one drink falls just under that. So if you have two, you're having roughly double the amount of caffeine the FDA recommends an adult human being consume in a day.

That seems... Right. adult human being consume in a day. That seems... I'm not a lawyer or a caffeine law expert, but that seems a little irresponsible. Yeah. And so the good news for these BYU students is they've probably heard of Pepsi. So when it's in the machine, they're like, I know that has a dragon head. I'll titrate it a little bit. It's cool. like, I know that has a dragon head. I'll titrate it a little bit. It's cool. What I'm saying is BYU students, just ease into it, kids. Don't go to Panera and get the charged lemonade, even though that sounds like that. In terms of doctrine, it's probably safe. In terms of your pure little bodies, no. Like, don't drink that.

And this whole Mormon story, it has been kind of a takeaway. We'll give it the takeaway header here to finish the main show. Because takeaway number three, the Mormon church might have clarified its stance on caffeine due to the national prominence of Mitt Romney. That website statement, it was September 2012, and they didn't say so, but that's right in the thick of a very close election contest between President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney. Romney. And that election was perceived as very close until less than two months before election day, there was leaked footage of Romney saying 47% of Americans are freeloaders. And in hindsight, that pretty much ended his campaign. And it turns out he privately asked his staff if he should resign and let Chris Christie or Rob Portman be the nominee. So until then, the U.S. said, okay, what if Mitt Romney's president? Let's just think about it. And one of the notable things about that would have been he would have

been the first Mormon person to hold the office of president. And what were people worried he would like illegalize caffeine? There were people saying, you know, what does the president's personal life mean for policy? And they wondered about drug policy because people asked him, hey, not to be weird, but you're Mormon. What do you think of all of the drugs compared to Mormon policy? Not to be weird, but you are Mormon. And it's a little weird the way we are to all candidates, for sure. Like, it's weird, and that's what we do. And so people found out, hey, wow, Mitt Romney does not drink caffeine. There's also an interesting wrinkle where Romney enjoys the coffee flavor of ice cream. I don't even know why he brought that up to anybody, but

that's just a cool thing. And then he and his wife, Anne, enjoy the caffeine-free kind of diet Coke, which is the kind they make for lots of people, not just Mormons. But so this was news in a way it hadn't been for kind of the first time. We've had Mormon senators and governors and cabinet secretaries. Mitt Romney's father was governor of Michigan and in Nixon's cabinet. There are Mormons in public life. But it is pretty clear, pretty certain that the Mormon church did this clarification because Mitt Romney's prominence made people wonder what Mormon's deal is with caffeine. And then many other questions about some also like hurtful myths about Mormons, too. There was just a lot more attention to it. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to criticize Mitt Romney for.

to criticize Mitt Romney for, but I do think it is weird that every time there's a president, it's like, well, what's this person's religion? People were freaking out about JFK being the first Catholic president and like, oh,

is he going to be more loyal to the Pope than he is going to be to the U.S.? I feel like the rubric should just be like, hey, do you believe in separation of church and state? If it's just someone who privately practices a religion, they're like, yeah, absolutely. I believe in separation of church and state. And it's a credible thing that they're saying, then I don't know. I think people could be more normal about it. Yeah, exactly. And it really is interesting how it

pushed this tiny sea change. And what I'm sure everybody, including Mormons, would say is not a major part of the faith, but they were like, okay, everybody heard about MIT. This is what we actually say policy-wise. Thanks for reading the website of the Church of Latter-day Saints. say policy-wise, thanks for reading the website of the Church of Latter-day Saints. So yeah, so that's their deal. And it also clarified a myth for me. I thought they just simply couldn't have caffeine. And now I know from researching the show. So that's neat. Not a theologian, but I think maybe God was just trying to warn us not to burn our little tongues on the hot drinks. It is a loving thing to do.

Yeah. Great. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, God. Thanks. Hey, folks, that's the main episode for this week. Welcome to the outro with fun features for you, such as help remembering this episode with a run back through the big takeaways.

Takeaway number one, bees seem to enjoy caffeine at their job, sort of like humans do. seem to enjoy caffeine at their job, sort of like humans do. Takeaway number two, almost every caffeine user has a dependency on it, and there's lots of argument about whether that qualifies as an addiction. Takeaway number three, the Mormon church might have clarified its stance on caffeine due to the national prominence of Mitt Romney. Plus a loaded and episode-wide stats and numbers section. So many stats and numbers about the caffeine levels of beverages, the global range of caffeines,

the South American soccer mascots celebrating caffeines, and more. Those are the takeaways. Also, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now if you support this show at MaximumFun.org. Members are the reason that this podcast exists. You truly are. So members get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode.

This week's bonus topic is the decaffeination of coffee. How's that work? What's it from? How's it do? Visit sifpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than 15 dozen other secretly incredibly fascinating bonus shows, and a catalog of all sorts of MaxFun bonus shows. It is special audio. It is just for members. Thank you to everybody who backs this podcast operation. Additional fun things. Check out our research sources on this episode's page at MaximumFun.org. Key sources this week include botanical information from Discovery Magazine and from the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at UT Austin. Amazing science news coverage from Smithsonian Magazine, The New York Times, and National Geographic, to name a few. Also, shout out to the Salt Lake Tribune for doing

really fantastic and detailed coverage of LDS guidance on caffeine. That page also features resources such as native-land.ca. I'm using those to acknowledge that I recorded this in Lenape Hokang, the traditional land of the Munsee Lenape people and the Wappinger people, as well as the Mohican people, Skadagoke people, and others. Also, Katie taped this in the country of Italy, and I want to acknowledge that in my location, in many other locations in the Americas and elsewhere, Native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode, and join the free SIF Discord, where we're sharing stories and resources about Native people and life. There is a link in this episode's description to join that Discord. fascinating by running all the past episode numbers through a random number generator. And this week's pick is a recent one. It is episode 173. That is about the topic of ska music.

It's our first ever episode about music genre. We're joined by wonderful guests Dave Holmes and Riley Silverman. There's special clips of ska so you understand what we're talking about in a sonic way. I really recommend that episode. I also recommend my co-host Katie Golden's weekly podcast, Creature Feature, about animals and science and more. Our theme music is unbroken, unshaven by the Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Special thanks to the Beacon Music Factory for taping support. Extra, extra special thanks go to our members, and thank you to all our listeners. I am thrilled to say we will be back next week with more Secretly Incredibly Fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then. Maximum Fun.

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