wine and health

Europeans have their daily wine, Asians their tea, but it has been estimated that the primary source of dietary antioxidants for the average American is coffee . An impressive lineup of scientific articles attests to coffee’s health benefits, but in March 2018 a California judge ruled that coffee roasters and retailers will have to post a cancer warning label. According to a group called The Council for Education and Research on Toxics, a chemical called acrylamide that forms in trace amounts during roasting is potentially carcinogenic. Citing a law passed in 1986 known as Proposition 65, they sued Starbucks and dozens of other companies. Despite a lack of evidence that acrylamide levels in coffee are enough to cause harm in humans, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle ruled for the plaintiffs. In so doing, he ran counter to guidance from the World Health Organization, which officially dropped coffee from its list of possible carcinogens in 2016.   The WHO’s determinat...