Recent analysis of ground coffee has found some brands contain cheap fillers like corn, sugar, ground soybeans, or acai seeds. As you can imagine, there is huge global demand for coffee, and some fraudulent suppliers are bulking up ground coffee with cheap and nasty fillers. So far there haven’t been reliable ways to detect foreign material in coffee but a new test has been developed by scientists in Brazil.

Unfortunately, you can’t tell if ground coffee has been tampered with just by looking at it, so now scientists have started using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to analyze the coffee. This is actually the same test performed on herbal medicines, to ensure their safety and purity.

This type of testing is not yet commonly performed on coffee, so in the meantime, you may want to stick with a brand you trust, or grind your own beans. This is particularly important if you suffer from a food allergy or celiac disease.

Who knows what you could be ingesting in a cup of coffee!

Additionally, WHAT you are drinking your coffee out of could be posing dangers as well.

As per research, exposure to hot liquid for just 15 minutes can make plastic-coated disposable paper cups release thousands of tiny plastic particles, apart from other harmful substances, into the liquid. If a person drinks three cups of tea or coffee in a paper cup, they would be ingesting a staggering 75,000 tiny microplastic particles.

While convenient, it may be beneficial to start cutting down on drive-thru coffee and brewing your own in at home mugs or a glass to-go coffee cup. We don't want to be ingesting microplastics on a daily basis.

Coffee actually has many health benefits for your liver. It can help to reduce the risk of liver inflammation and scarring. Read more.

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