So I tried a new product yesterday at Entropy (the university convenience store) called Enviga. It’s by Nestea and is supposedly a caffeinated green tea product that’s being marketed as a “calorie burner.” They have evidence that if a healthy 18 to 35 year old drinks 3 cans daily they will burn a lot of extra calories. Why would a drinker burn calories? Because high amounts of caffeine increase the metabolism artificially by increasing the amount of bloodflow to the brain. In doing so, it ends up tiring the heart and, over time, weakening it. Like nicotine, it is a stimulant and like nicotine can over time constrict capillaries and cause strokes or varicose veins from bursting veins. We know this — or, at least, I know this. (Thank goodness for my love of biology!)

And yet despite this, I drink coffee every day. I need to. It’s a terrible habit but I have such difficulty staying awake… but that also might be due to the lack of fresh fruits in my diet or something. I need to eat more oranges and apples and have more Vitamin C…

The wonderful Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN also says that more than 2 cups of coffee daily can reduce your life expectancy by 1.5 to 2 years. Scary, eh?

Back to the purpose of this entry. Enviga claims as much caffeine as the average cup of coffee. And only 5 calories. It’s admittedly tasty. They have peach flavored green tea! Mm! I would never consider obediently drinking multiple cans a day, but to have one can, on occasion, instead of a cup of coffee — that’s no worse than what I already do. But ultimately, I do need to get out of the habit of coffee — or at least get out of the habit of more than one cup in a day.