Yes, you can eat coffee grounds and we have the proof of one of its benefits. True story: one of our team members’ mom used to crave for coffee grounds when she was pregnant, especially during the first trimester. Her mom would wake up feeling nausea every single morning. No remedy could stop her morning sickness and vomiting.
Until she discovered by accident one day while craving for a cup of coffee and with no energy to make herself another cup of coffee she decided to swallow a scoop of coffee grounds from the coffee filter instead. Something magical happened that day! She suddenly felt better and the usual queasy feeling she had every morning seemed to be in control. She ate coffee grounds throughout the first trimester of her pregnancy.
This happened over 40 years ago when our team member was only seven. She thought her mom was out of her mind eating waste.
This may sound crazy to some even today.
But is coffee grounds a remedy for morning sickness? Are there benefits of consuming coffee grounds? According to Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry’s Evaluation of Spent Coffee Obtained from the Most Common Coffeemakers as a Source of Hydrophilic Bioactive Compounds stated that:
The main hydrophilic antioxidant compounds (3-, 4-, and 5- monocaffeoylquinic and 3, 3-, 3, 5-, and 4, 5-dicaffeoylquinic acids, caffeine, and browned compounds, including melanoidins) and the antioxidant capacity were evaluated in Arabica and Robusta spent coffee obtained from the preparation of coffee brews with the most common coffeemakers (filter, espresso, plunger and mocha)…
The above is super scientific but all we know is that coffee grounds may still have antioxidants. Does that means we will start eating coffee grounds?
We don’t think so. We prefer the taste of brewed coffee than the tasteless coffee grounds. Though while doing our research we found a blogger that actually used un-brewed coffee grounds to bake.
Note: Un-brewed means fresh ground coffee that has not gone through the processed of being brewed and washed off their aroma and taste.
Brittany from BlissfulBritt.com created the Coffee Ground No-Bake Energy Bite. Her recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of fresh ground UN-brewed coffee, almond butter, dry oatmeal, flaxseed, honey, chocolate chips, dried cranberries and vanilla.
They look really good and the biggest plus is, no baking is required. Go to her website and find out more on how to make your own No-bake Energy Bite with ‘antioxidant’ rich coffee grounds.
According to Eating Well magazine over 18,000 coffee studies were done in the past decades. More and more of these studies are showing the benefits of drinking coffee. If you drink two to four 8-ounce cups a day you might have reaped the following benefits quoted by the magazine:
- Brain gains
- Defeating diabetes
- Hearty benefits
- Liver lover (lower liver cancer)
Read more on Eating Well’s website.
Benefits aside, if you are thinking about eating tasteless coffee grounds why don’t you try the dark chocolate covered gourmet coffee beans from Costa Rica sold by Café Britt. These are made from 100% Costa Rican espresso coffee beans covered with pure dark chocolate. If you don’t like dark chocolate the company also makes white chocolate covered gourmet coffee beans from Costa Rica. Buy them directly from Cafe Britt at Amazon.com or Cafe Britt’s website.
To conclude, our team member’s mom proved over 40 years ago that you can eat coffee grounds. And of course the coffee grounds may have the remnants of the natural goodness of coffee beans. That does not mean we will start eating. We would rather drink a good cup of coffee with dark chocolate covered gourmet coffee beans from Costa Rica.
Do you eat coffee grounds? Leave your comment below.
