drinks.seriouseats.comAs people become more knowledgable about exactly what is in their food, you’d think the general public would be pretty clued-up on their daily caffeine intake.
However, research from the British Coffee Association (BCA) shows that over half of us don’t have a clue how much caffeine we’re consuming every day reports the Mirror.
Guidelines tell us that healthy adults can safely drink 400mg of caffeine a day – roughly equal to four or five cups of coffee – while pregnant women should drink no more than 200mg of caffeine to avoid miscarriage and low birth weight.
In February 2014 the journal Public Health Nutrition published a meta-study of over one million people and found that drinking one coffee a day is actually beneficial to health.
But with the countless different types of coffee, it can be difficult to know exactly how much caffeine you’re taking in.
The BCA has made this helpful video explaining how to track your caffeine intake:
Dietitian Dr Sarah Schenker says:
It’s important that we track our daily caffeine intake to ensure we are not consuming too much and people may react to caffeine in different ways.
However, if you consume four-five cups of coffee a day, you may experience increased alertness and concentration, improved sports performance and long-term benefits such as a reduced risk of Type 2 diabetes.
InstagramOn the other hand, a large intake of caffeine is known to cause insomnia, anxiety, stomach irritation and a racing heartbeat.
Therefore, it’s very important to know what volume your cup holds when following the guidelines of how much to drink.
If we say the average cup is 125ml, the limit for instant coffee comes to six cups (65mg caffeine each) while if you prefer a filtered coffee you should only really be drinking around four a day (85mg each)
A standard cup of tea contains 32mg of caffeine but there are other sources to take into account. A bottle of cola contains up to 40mg, an energy drink up to 80mg and even chocolate has up to 50mg a bar.
Hope that helps!
