How Important Is Coffee?
- Thread starter Riik O'Shae
- Start date
Well, bully for them, then!
Last edited:
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Are Uplifts what I think they are? If so, I am not sure that Uplifted Bovines are a good idea at all, given the typical bull temperament.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
Coffee is Terra's most widely distributed mood altering drug.
OF COURSE they're going to try and take it with them out into space!
I mean ... it's already happened, for real ...
News article link
Image link
OF COURSE they're going to try and take it with them out into space!
I mean ... it's already happened, for real ...
News article link
Image link
BackworldTraveller
SOC-13
I guess I'd better apologise now for starting the "Cow" diversion...:coffeegulp:
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Commander Truestar
SOC-13
You made a very god point in there.
The best modern day coffee comes from volcanic countries where the minerals and nutrients create what coffee drinkers consider a "rich and full" flavor.
So, while you "could" use hydroponics or soil-less "misting" techniques to grow your plants, you would grow a crop of beans devoid of flavor. Not just the minerals and such that come from volcanic soil, but from "Any" soil. It would be sterile, and we have not yet determined how that would taste? Would it be acceptable? Or, would it be so bad it must be used as an additive to other goods?
"Yep, Sir. You c'n order yeself sommat coffee bean smashed an' cooked up by itself... But I'd not suggest it. Nosir! Last person done that is still down in medical these past five months."
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Highlights
•
Coffee bean yield and trees N content showed a positive interaction for N rate and level of radiation.
•
Amax increased with level of radiation and rate of N supply.
•
In full sun nitrogen recovery was only 17%, while it was still lower in shade.
•
Physiological efficiency, PE declined with increasing N supply.
Abstract
Natural supply of nitrogen is often limiting coffee production. From the viewpoints of growth and biomass production, adequate nitrogen supply is important. Growing coffee under full sunlight not only enhances potential yields but also increases demands for nitrogen fertilizer, the extent of which is ill quantified. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of N uptake and distribution, biomass production, photosynthetic characteristics of 2.5 years old trees and first bean yields of 3.5 years old coffee trees in response to four radiation treatments (30%–100% of full sun), factorially combined with four rates of nitrogen supply (0–88 g tree−1 y−1). The experiment was arranged in a randomized split-split plot design and was conducted at Jimma University horticultural farm, Ethiopia, using three coffee varieties. With larger N application and higher level of radiation, more N was utilized and more biomass and yield were produced. The fertilizer-N recovery ranged from 7 to 17% and declined with larger N supply and increased with radiation level. Coffee trees provided with larger amount of N had higher amounts of N per unit leaf area, light-saturated rate of leaf photosynthesis and first bean yield compared to trees grown in low N supply and limited radiation. The relation between biomass and plant N content was conservative across coffee varieties and can be used to estimate N content from biomass or calculate required uptake to produce a given amount of biomass. Though testing of the relation for other climatic conditions is advisable, this relation can also be used in the development of process-based quantitative coffee tree growth models,. Achieving synchronies between N supply and coffee trees demand without excess or deficiency requires further investigation of options to improve the low nitrogen recovery.
•
Coffee bean yield and trees N content showed a positive interaction for N rate and level of radiation.
•
Amax increased with level of radiation and rate of N supply.
•
In full sun nitrogen recovery was only 17%, while it was still lower in shade.
•
Physiological efficiency, PE declined with increasing N supply.
Abstract
Natural supply of nitrogen is often limiting coffee production. From the viewpoints of growth and biomass production, adequate nitrogen supply is important. Growing coffee under full sunlight not only enhances potential yields but also increases demands for nitrogen fertilizer, the extent of which is ill quantified. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of N uptake and distribution, biomass production, photosynthetic characteristics of 2.5 years old trees and first bean yields of 3.5 years old coffee trees in response to four radiation treatments (30%–100% of full sun), factorially combined with four rates of nitrogen supply (0–88 g tree−1 y−1). The experiment was arranged in a randomized split-split plot design and was conducted at Jimma University horticultural farm, Ethiopia, using three coffee varieties. With larger N application and higher level of radiation, more N was utilized and more biomass and yield were produced. The fertilizer-N recovery ranged from 7 to 17% and declined with larger N supply and increased with radiation level. Coffee trees provided with larger amount of N had higher amounts of N per unit leaf area, light-saturated rate of leaf photosynthesis and first bean yield compared to trees grown in low N supply and limited radiation. The relation between biomass and plant N content was conservative across coffee varieties and can be used to estimate N content from biomass or calculate required uptake to produce a given amount of biomass. Though testing of the relation for other climatic conditions is advisable, this relation can also be used in the development of process-based quantitative coffee tree growth models,. Achieving synchronies between N supply and coffee trees demand without excess or deficiency requires further investigation of options to improve the low nitrogen recovery.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Your Coffee Is Radioactive, And That's Okay
By Ross Pomeroy
February 21, 2016
Bananas are radioactive. That tidbit of information has likely crossed your path before. The yellow, phallic fruit is filled with potassium, a naturally radioactive element. So iconic are bananas as a source of radiation that they inspired their own unit of measurement, the banana equivalent dose, which is roughly 0.1 microsieverts of ionizing radiation.
But did you know your coffee is radioactive, too? It's true. In fact, on a weighted basis, the average coffee powder is roughly three times as radioactive as bananas! If you feel like you're glowing and abuzz after your morning brew, it may not be due to the caffeine...
Other foods are radioactive as well. Carrots, white potatoes, red meat, and lima beans all contain roughly the same amount of potassium per kilogram -- and thus radiation -- as bananas.
However, all of these foods pale in comparison to the mighty Brazil nut. Not only does this tasty nut deliver significantly more potassium than bananas, it also contains a surprising amount of radium -- more than 1000 times as much as most common foods. The radium builds up in the nut thanks to the brazil nut tree's incredibly extensive root system.
So does this mean that lovers of Brazil nuts are at risk of their jaws falling off just like the Radium Girls of a century past?
Actually, you've little to worry about from the radioactivity in your food. Even at the often obscene levels that Americans drink coffee, there's no danger whatsoever. And for reference, you'd have to consume between one and two million kilograms of Brazil nuts to reach a potentially lethal dose of radiation. It goes without saying that you'd succumb to a bursting stomach before radiation poisoning.
As an unseen threat, radiation understandably evokes fear. But consider this: humans -- and indeed all animals -- have lived on Earth for many, many millions of years, and on our beautiful blue-green planet, we bathe in radiation every day thanks to the great ball of fire in sky that endows the Earth with life. The Sun shoots down radiation each and every day in the form of powerful, warming light, and yet we go on living. That's because all surface-dwelling animals have evolved exquisite bodily mechanisms to mitigate and repair radiation's damage.
On average, background radiation causes DNA molecules inside 100,000,000 million of your cells to suffer double-strand breaks every hour, meaning both links in the DNA double helix are severed. When this happens, the genetic information encoded inside can get garbled. But despite this daily breakdown of DNA, we don't fall apart or automatically develop cancer.
The simple fact is that life itself is radioactive. That isn't scary. It's just life.
https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2016/02/your_coffee_is_radioactive_and_thats_okay.html
By Ross Pomeroy
February 21, 2016
Bananas are radioactive. That tidbit of information has likely crossed your path before. The yellow, phallic fruit is filled with potassium, a naturally radioactive element. So iconic are bananas as a source of radiation that they inspired their own unit of measurement, the banana equivalent dose, which is roughly 0.1 microsieverts of ionizing radiation.
But did you know your coffee is radioactive, too? It's true. In fact, on a weighted basis, the average coffee powder is roughly three times as radioactive as bananas! If you feel like you're glowing and abuzz after your morning brew, it may not be due to the caffeine...
Other foods are radioactive as well. Carrots, white potatoes, red meat, and lima beans all contain roughly the same amount of potassium per kilogram -- and thus radiation -- as bananas.
However, all of these foods pale in comparison to the mighty Brazil nut. Not only does this tasty nut deliver significantly more potassium than bananas, it also contains a surprising amount of radium -- more than 1000 times as much as most common foods. The radium builds up in the nut thanks to the brazil nut tree's incredibly extensive root system.
So does this mean that lovers of Brazil nuts are at risk of their jaws falling off just like the Radium Girls of a century past?
Actually, you've little to worry about from the radioactivity in your food. Even at the often obscene levels that Americans drink coffee, there's no danger whatsoever. And for reference, you'd have to consume between one and two million kilograms of Brazil nuts to reach a potentially lethal dose of radiation. It goes without saying that you'd succumb to a bursting stomach before radiation poisoning.
As an unseen threat, radiation understandably evokes fear. But consider this: humans -- and indeed all animals -- have lived on Earth for many, many millions of years, and on our beautiful blue-green planet, we bathe in radiation every day thanks to the great ball of fire in sky that endows the Earth with life. The Sun shoots down radiation each and every day in the form of powerful, warming light, and yet we go on living. That's because all surface-dwelling animals have evolved exquisite bodily mechanisms to mitigate and repair radiation's damage.
On average, background radiation causes DNA molecules inside 100,000,000 million of your cells to suffer double-strand breaks every hour, meaning both links in the DNA double helix are severed. When this happens, the genetic information encoded inside can get garbled. But despite this daily breakdown of DNA, we don't fall apart or automatically develop cancer.
The simple fact is that life itself is radioactive. That isn't scary. It's just life.
https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2016/02/your_coffee_is_radioactive_and_thats_okay.html
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Could be if the source of the radiation is organic.
Note most corn grown humans can’t eat without post harvest chemical processing, Sweet corn and it’s close relatives is what we eat. Thus one cultivar that grows well in a region might not in another. So yes tasting different is a possibility.
Several variants don't need chemical processing, just thermal. We generally call those Popcorn. You can take fresh popping corn on the cob and pop it in an oven or fire.
We popped some popcorn in a skillet with some foil over a campfire once.
I wouldn't say it was a disaster, but...I think the local fauna enjoyed that large amount of popcorn left on the ground.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Switzerland's plan to stop stockpiling coffee proves hard to swallow
By Imogen Foulkes
BBC News, Bern
Published14 November 2019
The Swiss are nothing if not well-prepared. Theirs is a country with a nuclear bunker for every household, a country that tests its air raid sirens every year, and a country that, although one of the wealthiest in the world, stockpiles thousands of tonnes of goods in case of an emergency - including coffee.
But when the Swiss government proposed ending the stockpiling of coffee earlier this year, the plan was met with fierce resistance.
The drink, low in calories and with little nutritional value, did not belong, the government said, on the "essential to life" list.
But this led to a public outcry. The Swiss are among the world's biggest drinkers of coffee, and many, it seems, do regard it as "essential". Faced with such a public response, the government said it would reconsider.
The 15,000-tonne supply of coffee, which is enough to last the Swiss population of 8.5 million for three months, is part of an essential list of goods that includes sugar, flour, cooking oil and rice, as well as fuel, fresh water, and medicines.
Why have a stockpile anyway?
Landlocked Switzerland produces only half the food it needs, and severe shortages during both world wars encouraged successive governments to build up stockpiles in order to support the population in case of an emergency.
Producers of goods on the essential list are required by law to store a certain amount, and the government pays them for the cost of storage.
Private citizens are also expected to stock emergency supplies: among them drinking water, food for a week, a torch, and toilet paper. As recently as 2016 the government issued a video (in German) detailing how best to prepare for a "catastrophe or emergency".
The video features two men - "Tom the ready" and "Tim the unready" - at opposite ends of the scale: Tom's cellar is well stocked, Tim has nothing to feed his family when disaster strikes.
In fact, the latest statistics show that only a third of Swiss citizens bother with a personal stockpile these days.
A quick and unscientific survey around the cafes of Bern elicits laughter and comments such as "no, but my grandmother stockpiled pasta", "I don't have the space, my flat is too small" or "no, the only things in my cellar are my skis".
So why is coffee sacrosanct?
It appears, however, that the Swiss do expect their government to store items for them - and that includes coffee.
Switzerland consumes a staggering 8kg (17.6lb) of coffee per person per year. It's rare to find a Swiss person who does not drink it: a milky coffee in the morning and a nice little espresso or ristretto after lunch and dinner are rituals of daily life in the country.
Not having that fix, even for a week or so, seems unimaginable.
And so the government, taken aback by the storm of protest - and probably also encouraged by Swiss coffee producers who may not want to lose that generous storage fee - is rowing back on its decision.
Not such a silly idea then?
Switzerland's Federal Office for National Economic Supply is using the unexpected attention to remind people that stockpiles are not a completely crazy idea, even if other, less diligent, countries may have abandoned them.
Large-scale wars on Switzerland's borders may not be likely any time soon but, the office says, governments and citizens should still prepare for natural disasters, cyber attacks that could knock out supply chains and shortages caused by global economic crises.
image captionCoffee giant Nestlé, in common with all Swiss importers and retailers, are required by law to store coffee beans
Switzerland's stockpiles have actually come in for good use quite recently. Last year, the level of the River Rhine fell so low that ships carrying mineral oils and fertiliser could not get to Switzerland, and the stockpiles came in handy.
Also, during a global shortage of antibiotics in 2017, Swiss hospitals dodged a crisis because the required drugs had been stored.
So it is likely that the Swiss government will be hanging on to its stockpiles, with the full support of its citizens… as long as coffee remains on the list.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50402048
By Imogen Foulkes
BBC News, Bern
Published14 November 2019
The Swiss are nothing if not well-prepared. Theirs is a country with a nuclear bunker for every household, a country that tests its air raid sirens every year, and a country that, although one of the wealthiest in the world, stockpiles thousands of tonnes of goods in case of an emergency - including coffee.
But when the Swiss government proposed ending the stockpiling of coffee earlier this year, the plan was met with fierce resistance.
The drink, low in calories and with little nutritional value, did not belong, the government said, on the "essential to life" list.
But this led to a public outcry. The Swiss are among the world's biggest drinkers of coffee, and many, it seems, do regard it as "essential". Faced with such a public response, the government said it would reconsider.
The 15,000-tonne supply of coffee, which is enough to last the Swiss population of 8.5 million for three months, is part of an essential list of goods that includes sugar, flour, cooking oil and rice, as well as fuel, fresh water, and medicines.
Why have a stockpile anyway?
Landlocked Switzerland produces only half the food it needs, and severe shortages during both world wars encouraged successive governments to build up stockpiles in order to support the population in case of an emergency.
Producers of goods on the essential list are required by law to store a certain amount, and the government pays them for the cost of storage.
Private citizens are also expected to stock emergency supplies: among them drinking water, food for a week, a torch, and toilet paper. As recently as 2016 the government issued a video (in German) detailing how best to prepare for a "catastrophe or emergency".
The video features two men - "Tom the ready" and "Tim the unready" - at opposite ends of the scale: Tom's cellar is well stocked, Tim has nothing to feed his family when disaster strikes.
In fact, the latest statistics show that only a third of Swiss citizens bother with a personal stockpile these days.
A quick and unscientific survey around the cafes of Bern elicits laughter and comments such as "no, but my grandmother stockpiled pasta", "I don't have the space, my flat is too small" or "no, the only things in my cellar are my skis".
So why is coffee sacrosanct?
It appears, however, that the Swiss do expect their government to store items for them - and that includes coffee.
Switzerland consumes a staggering 8kg (17.6lb) of coffee per person per year. It's rare to find a Swiss person who does not drink it: a milky coffee in the morning and a nice little espresso or ristretto after lunch and dinner are rituals of daily life in the country.
Not having that fix, even for a week or so, seems unimaginable.
And so the government, taken aback by the storm of protest - and probably also encouraged by Swiss coffee producers who may not want to lose that generous storage fee - is rowing back on its decision.
Not such a silly idea then?
Switzerland's Federal Office for National Economic Supply is using the unexpected attention to remind people that stockpiles are not a completely crazy idea, even if other, less diligent, countries may have abandoned them.
Large-scale wars on Switzerland's borders may not be likely any time soon but, the office says, governments and citizens should still prepare for natural disasters, cyber attacks that could knock out supply chains and shortages caused by global economic crises.
image captionCoffee giant Nestlé, in common with all Swiss importers and retailers, are required by law to store coffee beans
Switzerland's stockpiles have actually come in for good use quite recently. Last year, the level of the River Rhine fell so low that ships carrying mineral oils and fertiliser could not get to Switzerland, and the stockpiles came in handy.
Also, during a global shortage of antibiotics in 2017, Swiss hospitals dodged a crisis because the required drugs had been stored.
So it is likely that the Swiss government will be hanging on to its stockpiles, with the full support of its citizens… as long as coffee remains on the list.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50402048
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
What do you expect? It is California.
It the late 1940s, the US regarded coffee as a strategic material and was stockpiling it as well. If you are in the US military, you know that coffee is absolutely essential.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Having worked with hogs, there are only two things that a hog worries about. The first is Food, the second is FOOD. A wallow is nice as well.
