Coffee is ‘harmful’ for humans, EU bureaucrats have warned, sparking fears the beloved drink will soon be targeted by excessive, meddling regulations.
According to scientific evidence, officials said in a report, ‘caffeine is harmful to humans if swallowed’.
They said the stimulant, a key component of coffee, can be harmful to the heart, cause anxiety and create problems with sleep, hydration and body temperature.
It came in a report published to support an EU decision made to ban the use of caffeine in pesticides to kill slugs and snails on potato and cabbage patches.
There is not enough research to say if caffeine is a risk for people who live near where it is processed or work with it, the report noted.
But the controversial clampdown has sparked fears coffee – loved across the continent – could soon become the direct target of needless EU regulations, as reported by the Telegraph.
Danish MEP Anders Vistisen was furious at the EU’s diktat: ‘What is this all leading to? Are they seriously going to eventually force us to drink decaffeinated coffee? It’s becoming ridiculous.
‘Nobody thinks smoking and whisky are good for you but they add pleasure to many people’s lives.’
Uproar has exploded on X too with users fearing that Europe will crackdown on the drink beloved across the continent. Chairman of the Tottenham Conservative Association Elliot Hammer warned: ‘The EU is coming for your coffee!’
Reform UK member James Bush was glad to have been shot of the EU before the bureaucrats’ bizarre statement was made: ‘The geniuses in the European Commission think that “caffeine is harmful if swallowed”.
‘I am glad we’re free of these idiots.’
The EU’s words come despite research from multiple noted academic institutions saying that far from harming coffee enjoyers, drinking the beverage can bring active health benefits.
People who drink six or seven cups of coffee each day were found to be 16 per cent less likely to die from disease within ten years than those who did not, in research by the National Cancer Institute from 2018.
Drinking three or four cups per day was found to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 27 per cent in a study from the The Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee from the same year.
Following this kind of research, one X user was utterly baffled about what to believe: ‘Not long ago we were being told a few cups a day (not too many) was good.
‘Caffeine is also in tea and chocolate and possibly other things – are they banning those as well?
‘Will we eventually be allowed nothing at all?
‘Maybe an EU-approved synthetic food pill each day.’
For one X user, the latest European announcement was the final nail in the coffin: ‘The EU has lost the plot.’
Likewise, another made it very clear this was the last bit of EU meddling they would accept: ‘No. This is where the line must be drawn.’
And for another, drinking coffee was not the ‘harmful’ thing at stake here: ‘The only thing harmful for humans, as I see it, as EU regulations.’
One user had absolutely no time for what they saw as a totally bizarre crackdown: ‘Haven’t they got anything better to do? Please f*** off.’
Another felt sure the continent would simply not allow the madness to continue: ‘I’m quite sure France and Italy won’t permit this.’
Someone else took to X to question whether decisions like this should even be a bureaucratic matter: ‘EU warns, “Coffee is DANGEROUS for you!” 1,000 years after humans started drinking it, wouldn’t we know for sure by now?
‘Bureaucrats NOT CHEMISTS or biochemists claim report proves caffeine “harmful to humans if swallowed”.’
Another user kept his outrage short and sweet, saying: ‘Honestly, the EU are nuts.’
Someone else felt Europe was just moving in entirely the wrong direction: ‘The EU continues to prove how out of touch and dumb they are.’
And on the EU’s notion that caffeine is ‘harmful’ to humans when swallowed, one user hit back jokingly by saying: ‘It’s a good thing I only splash coffee on my face!’
Anders Vistisen, chief whip of the Patriots For Europe party, also compared the EU’s latest strange comments to its attempt to limit coumarin in 2013, a compound found in cinnamon that can be toxic if too much of it is consumed.
It would have amounted to a ban on the Danish pastry, a beloved national delicacy. Only a furious outcry from bakers saw the sweet treat re-categorised as a ‘traditional’ food so it could be treated as an exception from the ban.
Mr Vistisen said: ‘It would suit everyone much better if many of these matters were left to national competence and personal choice.’
Other EU bans, on titanium dioxide and other food colourings, have hit bakers extremely hard too, forcing them to stop making or at least rework certain recipes.
Scientific studies into the health effects of coffee are being done all the time and have, in the past, claimed the drink brings fairly big health benefits.
Reduces early death risk
Research by the National Cancer Institute in the US in 2018 found people who drink six or seven cups of coffee each day were 16 per cent less likely to die from disease within a 10-year period than those who didn’t.
Less likely to get depression
Another study, done by the Harvard School of Public Health, found that women who drank four or more cups of coffee per day were 20 per cent less likely to suffer from depression.
Women have higher pain threshold
British scientists at Goldsmiths, University of London, found women who drank coffee – 250mg of caffeine, to be precise – tended to have a higher pain threshold than those who didn’t.
Lower type 2 diabetes
The Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee said in 2018 it had trawled through nearly 30 studies of almost 1.2million people to find drinking three or four cups of coffee each day could slash the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 27 per cent.