French press coffee is essentially unfiltered. Unlike drip coffee that passes through a paper filter the coffee passes through a fine mesh strainer in a press pot leaving the oils in the cup. It leaves tiny bits of sediment too.
There are reasons to believe that these oils and bean particles can elevate cholesterol and potentially be bad for you but largely these findings are unsubstantiated.
To some extent the oils can be found in many forms of coffee including espresso and moka and other forms of steeped coffee. These oils are actually good for you and can help you feel energized. They actually make green bean coffee extract and sell it in the supplement isle. Many people buy this stuff simply for the stuff that paper filters remove from your cup.
The differences between french press coffee and moka pot coffee can be found here if you care to read more.
See this video for a quick look into how to brew french press coffee… and why you might want to aside from the health benefits.
What About Espress? Is It Healthy?
As for espresso, this is brewed very quickly so the difference is quite striking but overall you still get those oils which have many nutrients that have positive effects on your health.
Like me, you may have bumped into a lot of news stories giving you “horror like case studies” of how regularly drinking french press coffee can increase chances of cardiovascular type diseases and higher risk of cancer — with a general bleak outlook for your health.
However, as Dr. Rob Van Dam — an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nutrition (Harvard School of Public Health) found there isn’t actually a lot of scientific evidence to back these “stories” up & in actual fact there are “potential health benefits” to drinking french press coffee, which we will now discuss below.
- Firstly (and this is by no means anything new) he suggests that regular coffee consumption can help protect you from Type 2 Diabetes.
- Another study reports that it reduces the chances of getting cognitive diseases such as Parkinson’s disease & Alzheimer’s disease etc.
- There is even evidence to suggest that it doesn’t actually promote cancer but actually fights against it & prevents it, particularly a strong case be made out for liver cancer.
Then in his very “latest study” he found not only does coffee not shorten your life it may in actual fact extend it, with regular coffee drinkers having a “lower risk of death” than those who didn’t drink it. Although it must be said, all the evidence is fresh and new (although is looking “good”), it is not confirmed. It is not like those who don’t like coffee must start drinking it, “for health reasons”.
A few warnings: He did also find though, that when drinking coffee it is best to brew it with a paper filter, this then removes a “harmful substance” that has proven to increase your LDL cholesterol. Also, there is an upper limit as to what is recommend ‘per day’ (as with everything in life we consume really) — but this isn’t really concerned with the caffeine concentration but rather our calorie limit for the day.