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If when stepping inside your neighborhood coffee shop this morning you were forced to throw elbows and engage in otherwise barbaric behavior just to order a beverage, welcome to America pal.
The population is so severely addicted to sucking down lattes, americanos, espressos, and cappuccinos all day, every day, that our beards are actually starting to get longer just thinking about it.
The same ravenous enthusiasm is shared when it comes to beer.
All one has to do is check in at any restaurant or bar morning, noon or night and sure as shit there will be someone (probably one of us) sitting there pouring a cold one down the old gullet. “Ahh, now that tastes good,” they might say, before ordering another, and another and then one more for the road.
But most folks might be surprised to learn that our affinity for the popular beverages that have become so much a part of our daily lives has less to do with how much we enjoy their flavor and more about our desperate need for the overall effect.
As bad as it might sound, a new study finds that we’re all just a bunch of socially accepted junkies that have convinced ourselves that we actually get something from the tang of the concoctions we consume regularly. When, in reality, all we really want out of our high-priced refreshments is all of the feel-goods.
A team of researchers at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago say our taste buds have a way of playing a trick on us. While the thought of grabbing a coffee or a beer might sound like the best idea since sliced bread, that signal is really just the mind’s way of telling us that it is time to step into another frame of emotion – that we need to feed that head change.
Come to find out, humans are not at all driven by the flavor of these favorite libations, not as long as their chemical components tweak those receptors in our brains that inspire motivation and good times. We will mostly drink anything if it comes with the promise of a buzz, the study finds.
“People like the way coffee and alcohol make them feel. That’s why they drink it. It’s not the taste,” says lead study author and assistant professor of preventative medicine Marilyn Cornelis.
The study, which was published in the journal Human Molecular Genetics, suggests that our DNA plays a role in the kinds of beverages that we, as individuals, prefer. Some people possess genetic variants that make them vibe on beverages with higher sugar content, while others like drinks that are bitter, like coffee and beer.
But “the genetics underlying our preferences are related to the psychoactive components,” they have nothing to do with our taste buds,” Cornelis explained.
This means all of those die-hard coffee drinkers out there, presumably, the ones you were forced to protect yourself against earlier this morning, might like to believe all of those Café Lattes are just harmless treats. But that’s just the monkey doing all of the talking.
People who consume coffee all day long simply metabolize caffeine quicker than those who use it less frequently, so they must knock back copious amounts of the stuff to experience those amped up feelings.
Health experts say it is no wonder that people pack the coffeehouses.
“It makes sense that people like coffee for the edge and increased alertness it gives them,” said Liz Weinandy, a dietitian at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, according to Healthline. “In sports, it can increase physical performance, and for most people, it can increase cognitive performance.”
We’re not just picking on coffee drinkers here. Beer lovers go through this madness as well. It doesn’t seem to matter whether one prefers domestic lagers or specialty variations brewed from the piss streams of the wildebeests of Kenya, the ultimate goal is all the same – getting that buzz on.
So the next time some hipster at the bar starts busting your balls for drinking a Coors Light instead of some fancy craft brew made out of the tears of unicorns or some shit, politely tell them to go fuck themselves.
Let them know that science has spoken, goddamnit! No longer will we be discriminated against and subjected to public tongue lashings from the mouths of beer snobs because of our personal preference for the drink.
Live and let live, motherdrunkards. We’re all just out here trying to feel it!
[via Healthline]
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Mike Adams is a freelance writer for High Times, Cannabis Now, and Forbes. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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