Coffee Please! Mindful Coffee Consumption to Improve Your Health with Andrea Obregón
The Primal Pioneer Podcast teaches you how to improve the environment you live, work, and exercise in so you can achieve optimal health. Heathar’s leading-edge teachings and expert interviews with integrative health professions teach you the most effective, simple yet deeply transformative solutions to overcoming and preventing every chronic disease today. You’ll walk away from this podcast feeling invigorated, inspired, and confident about your body’s incredible and natural ability to heal!
Coffee Please! Mindful Coffee Consumption to Improve Your Health with Andrea Obregón
If you are a coffee lover by heart or by necessity (who doesn’t need that extra caffeine kick in the morning?!), then you’re gonna love this episode. Because in episode 19 of the Primal Pioneer, I’m having an all-about coffee discussion with the coffee expert, Andrea Obregón.
But before we dive right in, let me introduce myself in case this is your first visit. I am your host, Heathar Shepard and I am incredibly passionate about helping people JUST LIKE YOU find the health and happiness they truly deserve.
Besides being an alternative healer and integrative health coach, I’m also a Traumatic Brain Injury survivor who struggled for 10 years until I discovered the MOST important factor for overall health: the environment we live and work in. And in The Primal Pioneer, I share what 98+% of doctors don’t tell you (or don’t even know!) about true health and wellness. You’ll learn about the importance of sunlight, as well as the foods and eating cycles that heal the root causes of chronic disease. And in an age dominated by technology, you’ll discover how EMF mitigation can drastically improve your life.
Everyone has their own healing journey with their own unique struggles...but I’m here to give you all the tools you need to make that healing happen!
So if you’re ready to learn more about the intricate process of coffee making, keep reading! And for even more details, listen to ALL of episode 19 of The Primal Pioneer on your favorite streaming platform.
Coffee Please, Point #1: Andrea’s personal journey to becoming a coffee connoisseur.
To start off the show, I asked Andrea to share her journey on how she got into the world of coffee. According to Andrea, her interest with coffee was always there. It was a go-to drink but she wasn’t that invested until her friends gave her pointers on what coffee to buy and what not to.
Aside from the influence of her friends, Andrea was always interested in coffee because of the nostalgic memories it brought her. She was born and raised in Mexico, one of the biggest coffee producers, and coffee has greatly influenced the culture of their community.
We tackled the cultural differences of coffee in terms of its functionality. For some countries, coffee is highly associated with relationship and connection, like the ritual of having a coffee in the morning where you share breakfast with your family. However, in the States, coffee has become just a source of caffeine fix that is mainly used for increasing productivity.
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Coffee Please, Point #2: Coffee has a mind of its own.
You can’t grow coffee anywhere because it needs a special type of environment. Coffee originated in Ethiopia but once coffee started to become a worldwide necessity, people started to try and grow coffee in their own countries. Unfortunately, due to the special environment needed for coffee to grow, not everyone was successful at growing their own coffee.
Different farmers have their own unique process of coffee making. It all depends on what the farmers want to achieve. Interestingly, as much as farmers try to keep the full flavor, coffee will just basically do what it wants. What that means is that you can’t really tell what the coffee would taste like until you brew it. Even the coffee tree is extremely complicated. Farmers really take their time to figure out how their trees act and react with the environment.
You may have see lots of coffee brands and names when you go to a store, but Andrea explained that there are only two main species of coffee: Arabica and Robusta. These two varieties are then divided into multiple sub-categories based on the multiple factors concerning the growth condition of the coffee. Basically, most of them came from the same tree but the flavor shifts depending on the environment they are grown in.
Unfortunately, though, this unique characteristic of coffee is also the very same reason why the market is taking so long to get into organic and sustainable coffee farming. Because coffee making is an intricate and extensive process, it can get very expensive for coffee farmers to achieve organic and sustainable coffee farming.
Coffee Please, Point #3: The process of coffee production and the problems that come with it.
Andrea explained the whole process of coffee making, from seed to cup, for us to further appreciate our cup of coffee:
- A coffee bean is actually a seed that grows as a coffee tree. Once coffee beans are grown from the coffee tree, the harvesting process will follow.
- After the harvesting process comes the fermentation where the beans are put in a large tank of water.
- Once dried, farmers process the coffee to remove the parchment layer of the coffee. This is also the part where they polish, grade, and sort the coffee beans.
- Then, farmers export the beans as green beans or green coffee. Note that this is not actual coffee we consume because the roasting process is usually done within the actual coffee shops.
One of my personal health concerns with regards to drinking coffee is the trend of bulletproof coffee. Personally, I am not a fan of bulletproof coffee because it has been used to decrease appetite, which could be really harmful for our hormones. So it’s something that I would not recommend.
Another concern I have with coffee is the presence of mold. So I asked Andrea about the factors that affect the presence of molding in a coffee bean. According to her, the problem lies with bulk productions from capitalist coffee companies who buy hundred tons of coffee bean containers in a short period of time. Due to the shipments and storage processing, it gets more difficult to control the humidity around the coffee beans, which can lead to molding. In addition, since they have a huge amount of coffee beans that they need to process in a short period of time, the old coffee beans tend to mix up with new coffee beans during the processing. And since they want to save cost as much as possible, coffee beans with molds are not thrown away. Companies simply get rid of the mold by over-roasting it and adding chemicals.
Andrea also explained that this is one of the reasons why specialty coffee is more expensive compared to big brands. Specialty coffee process beans are from one single batch so you will get 100% pure and fresh coffee beans. Aside from this, most of those who sell specialty coffee buy directly from the farmers, cutting out the middle-men and increasing the gross profit of farmers. Basically, specialty coffee is socially-conscious coffee. And this is ideal considering that coffee farmers are some of the poorest farmers in the world. Considering the intricacy of coffee farming and how large of an industry it is, there are still inequality issues surrounding the coffee industry. Coffee farmers only get only a fraction of the profits despite having the most difficult tasks within the whole coffee making process.
Hi, I am Heathar
With over 12 years experience as an alternative healer, integrative health coach and one who has been through severe physical injury trying every remedy under the sun to heal myself with no avail…I’m here to tell you, all of those things are not only attainable but are foundational to achieving optimal health and are core elements to overcoming all chronic and stubborn diseases.
At the age of 23 I suffered a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) preventing me from the ability to engage in physical activity for over 12 years post my car accident. Today, I know I could have recovered from this injury much quicker if I had known then what I know now! But….the accident lead me down the healing path. A path that I was destined to take to help myself heal and to learn how to help others heal complicated and chronic disorders as well.
During this time, I learned two things: How to harness the healing power of sunlight and how to utilize frequency based medicine to facilitate biological transformations in the body - all the way down to the mitochondrial level.
Today, I lead an active life and you can bet I’m uber passionate about teaching others how they can overcome even the most daunting health experiences that most medical professionals have band-aid solutions for, at best.
And today, my health continues to improve each day and I now lead an active, healthy lifestyle - all of which I thought would never be possible to achieve again. All it took was discovering the most effective path to health and healing to get me there and now, to help my clients get there as well!
Coffee Please, Point #4: What constitutes a good coffee?
This was probably one of the hardest questions that Andrea encounters when asked about coffee. Andrea’s coffee preference was influenced by the experience brought about by the coffee, not just the taste, because she considers coffee as a sacred ritual. The coffee must make her feel good, not make her anxious or jittery. A good coffee for Andrea would also mean bringing an explosion of flavors, from the taste of cherry to the taste of the caramel.
In terms of coffee as a health beverage, a good coffee would probably be the coffee that is intricately processed and roasted. Andrea reminded us that although the caffein of dark and light roasted coffee are similarly the same, over roasting coffee would also mean destroying the antioxidants within the beans.
Having the perfect coffee also depends on the coffee maker we have at our homes! Half of the good coffee comes from its origin while half of it comes from the roasting process. And if you already have one, remember that it takes a great deal of patience to achieve your own version of the perfect cup. You have to consider the pressure, the grind, the temperature, and amount of coffee, and more! Even Andrea acknowledged that she had gone through an incredible amount of coffee beans to finally nail the coffee-making process with her french press. And although french press works for day-to-day use, Andrea admittedly said that there’s nothing like a coffee from an espresso machine - like literally, nothing compares!
The Bottom Line of Coffee Please!
There are many valuable tips and golden nuggets that Andrea shared with us today, but the number one thing she would like us to remember (and hopefully, apply to our lives!) is: Don’t be scared to try new coffee methods and don’t be scared to ask.
I know it’s so tempting and sooo easy to just grab a drink from the nearest Starbucks at the block, but if you want to get into the best experience from coffee drinking, you might want to get in touch with specialty coffee shops around your area. Specialty coffee shops might be intimidating and have stigmas surrounding it (like, it’s just for hipsters or they’re too pretentious) but the truth is they want to connect with people as much as they can. They want to spread the good word about coffee and they want to help you find your very own perfect cup.
To hear even MORE about all four points outlined above, be sure to tune in to episode 19 of The Primal Pioneer on your favorite podcast streaming platform! And if you love this episode, don't forget to take a screenshot, share it on your Instagram stories and tag me @sunlight_rx so that we can spread this important message to even more people.
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