As more people drink decaffeinated coffee due to health concerns or personal preference, there has been increased scrutiny of the methods used to remove caffeine from coffee beans and their health effects.
A group of environmental activists recently petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to consider banning a chemical commonly used in making decaffeinated coffee.
The chemical, called methylene chloride, was recently banned from industrial use by the Environmental Protection Agency because of its potential to cause certain cancers, neurotoxicity, liver damage and sometimes death. “Alternatives are available,” says Jacqueline Bowen, executive director of the Clean Label Project, a nonprofit that advocates for other options instead of using methylene chloride to decaffeinate coffee.
(Health benefits of decaffeinated coffee compared to regular coffee.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean your decaffeinated coffee habit is in danger. Here’s what you need to know about methylene chloride and the alternatives that already exist.
The four main processes of coffee decaffeination
To decaffeine coffee, some sort of solvent is needed: soaking the coffee beans in a hot mixture of solvents extracts the caffeine molecules, and once the solvent is removed, decaffeinated coffee is left behind.
“There are basically four solvents that are used,” says Meredith Worthington, editor-in-chief of ConsumerLabs.com.
These include methylene chloride, also known as the European method and the most widely used, ethyl acetate, sometimes called the “natural solvent” because it is found in many fruits such as bananas and sugar cane, the Swiss water method, which uses boiling water to extract the caffeine, and the carbon dioxide method, which uses liquid carbon dioxide. Depending on the method, it can affect not only the taste of the coffee but also its chemical composition.
Methylene chloride has been the most widely used method for many years, and the Food and Drug Administration requires that residual levels in decaffeinated coffee not exceed 10 parts per million, and independent testing of coffee brands has consistently found levels of methylene chloride below the FDA’s limits.
(“There are “forever chemicals” hiding in your kitchen..
Not everyone agrees that methylene chloride should be banned in coffee decaffeinated drinks. As the National Coffee Association said in a recent press release, “Overwhelming scientific evidence shows that drinking European Method decaffeinated coffee, like any other coffee, is associated with significant health benefits, including increased life expectancy and reduced risk of several cancers and chronic diseases.”
Still, Worthington says, “Some people don’t like it, especially when there are other methods that don’t involve worrying solvents. There are plenty of companies that only use water for extraction.”
Another concern for advocates is the fact that many people who switch to decaffeinated coffee are already susceptible to trace chemicals, including pregnant women and people with health conditions who may switch to decaffeinated coffee for health reasons.
As a result, alternative methods such as the Swiss Water Process are increasingly being used by major coffee companies such as Peet’s Coffee due to consumer concerns.
Decaffeination process may have different health benefits
In addition to concerns about using methylene chloride to decaffeinate coffee, there may be subtle differences in health benefits depending on which process is used.
ConsumerLabs.com ran tests on the effects of different types of decaffeination processes on green tea, which uses the same process as coffee beans. “We found that brands that decaffeinated using ethyl acetate tended to have lower levels of EGCG, which is thought to be the active ingredient in green tea that confers health benefits,” Worthington says. “Maybe coffee has the same problem.”
(How coffee boosts forest growth.
Another study published in 2010 looked at the levels of antioxidants called phenols in coffee. They found that antioxidant levels in decaffeinated coffee varied widely depending on the extraction method, but not significantly. Decaffeinated coffee extracted using the Swiss Water method or methylene chloride had slightly lower levels of phenols than those extracted using ethyl acetate or liquid carbon dioxide. However, across all of these methods, decaffeinated coffee retained more than 80 percent of its original antioxidant levels compared to regular coffee.
In the meantime, anyone wanting to know how their favorite brands of coffee are decaffeinated can check out the website CheckYourDecaf.org or ask the coffee company. As Bowen points out, the Clean Label Project is calling for coffee companies to include the type of decaffeination process they use on their labels so consumers can make an informed decision.
