Where Are the Cancer Warnings for Starbucks Coffee?
Our beloved cup of coffee is under legal attack in America's most progressive state, California. Despite numerous studies that promote coffee as being healthy when used in moderation, there have been few negative repercussions from drinking it.
The Chemical
Acrylamide can also form in some starchy foods during high-temperature cooking, such as frying, roasting, and baking. It is also in cigarette smoke. It was first discovered in 2002. Frying, baking, broiling, or roasting are more likely to create acrylamide, while boiling, steaming, and microwaving appear less likely to do so. The worst foods are french fries and potato chips, these seem to have the highest levels. Currently, there are no regulations on the presence of acrylamide in food itself from the FDA. Most food agencies do list this substance as a probable or likely carcinogen to humans, and lab studies on rats show it does in very large doses. Acrylamide is formed from natural chemicals in food during cooking, whether organic or processed. Frying is worst, followed by roasting, and lastly, baking. But microwaving food does not create the chemical. The chemical is created more when using high temps for a lengthy time.
As to this courtroom drama, the issue is that acrylamide forms in coffee when coffee beans are roasted, NOT when coffee is brewed at home or in a restaurant.
The Lawsuit
Filed by a little known non-profit group, the suit charges over 90 coffee sellers (including Starbucks, Peets) that the levels of this chemical are high enough to have cancer warning signs be posted or labels on cups. Starbucks and other defendants, all failed to show that this was not the case, that, the levels were low enough not to have these cancer warning labels. The defendants also failed to show proof that consuming coffee is healthy.
Should the plaintiff win, the penalties are for fines as large as $2,500 per person for every exposure to the chemical since 2002 at the defendants’ shops in California! Since California has 40 million, that would be a costly fine.
So far, Starbucks and others will appeal in April but many smaller retailers of coffee brewing\roasting businesses have chosen to warn customers using signage.
Things like this only happen in California, LOL.