Mold in Coffee

Most people don’t associate mold with coffee. Why would you?

You grind the beans and do a pour-over, or you load the coffee maker and hit the brew button, or you drop in a Keurig pod and hit small. medium or large.

What does mold have to do with coffee?

In all fairness, it never would have occurred to me that mold in coffee was a problem either,

except…

for several personal negative health experiences in my life concerning mold
and my wife’s hypersensitivity to mold

The Idea of Mold in Coffee…

The first time the idea of mold in coffee – linked to its adverse effect on health – came to my attention was an article written by the father of bio-hacking, Dave Asprey. This was somewhere in the 2015 or 2016 date range. He told a compelling story about getting really sick and not being able to identify the cause.

Doctors failed to pinpoint the problem or the solution.

His deteriorating health forced him to find out why. So he went on a kind-of-a-war-on-mold-crusade once he figured out that mold and mold byproducts were making him seriously ill.

Asprey’s relentless diligence – to find answers and get well – brought the subject of the effects mold and mycotoxin on human health to the attention of more scientists, doctors and the public. He also became an aggregator of data related to mold research and the harmful effects on the human body. He became a vocal advocate regarding solutions to mold related illness. Because he a skilled marketer, more people heard what he has to say than other advocates.

I did.

He created Bulletproof Coffee and established stringent mold detection parameters in the coffee he branded.

The big guys blow off mold in coffee as nothing to be worried about. There is truth in that statement for many people. But there are huge variations in a peoples’ response to mold because everybody’s biology is different.

Dave Asprey’s Article: Are Mold Toxins in Coffee Making You Sick?

The world of diets and health can be confusing to navigate because of conflicting advice and ideas. Part of the reason is that everyone has a different set of genes and weaknesses. That’s why one person feels like crap after a mold toxin exposure while another person feels fine.

Your individual epigenetics – how your cells read your genes and react to the environment – are as unique as your fingerprints. Mold toxins are harmful to everyone, but your reaction to small amounts may be more noticeable than your co-worker’s or your mom’s.

What Are Mycotoxins?

“Mycotoxins are toxic secondary metabolites produced by a fungus. Basically, they can be called fungal poisons.

According to David Straus, Ph.D., a professor of microbiology and immunology at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, “Spores don’t release mycotoxins into the air. The mycotoxins are in the spores and are only released from the spores when they become solubilized in water.”

Therefore, when occupants inhale air contaminated with elevated toxigenic mold spores, the mycotoxins solubilize in body fluids. Doris Rapp, MD, explains that “the mold itself can grow in and on human tissues and cavities, such as the lungs, and the mycotoxins they produce can cause chronic systemic poisoning.””

And another article…

Mycotoxins have been known to cause health problems like cardiomyopathy, hypertension, cancer, and kidney disease. One study found that 26% of all coffees contain mycotoxins.

Small Amounts of Mycotoxin Are Cumulative in the Body

One of the big problems is detecting mold mycotoxins in small amounts in the human body.

Furthermore, doctors are not trained in detection or remedies for the adverse effects of mycotoxins. Basically, they just don’t know about it. The symptoms of illnesses caused by – or related to – mold are very similar to other illnesses – like chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. As a result, it’s very easy to mis-diagnose mold related illnesses.

Since they are cumulative, it follows that for long term coffee drinkers, even those who have minimal negative response to small amounts of mycotoxins, are accumulating this toxin in the kidneys over time.

Ochratoxin

The Biggest Potential Problem

There are no US standards regarding limits of OTA in foods.

It is so alarming, in fact, that many countries set strict limits for OTA in foods, including coffee. The US has no standards for coffee, so it lags behind the EU, South Korea, Singapore, and even China, which all set limits at economically feasible levels.

Dumping Contaminated Coffee

Dan Cox, a coffee expert regularly cited on CNN, with 30 years in the field says:

“DUMPING”

“Coffee merchants sometimes “dump” coffee beans which fail to pass one region’s OTA standards, instead selling them another region where the toxin is not regulated. The net effect of this is that coffee contamination is a real problem in the US.”

This is spooky: A High Percentage of Coffee Contains OTAs

The OTA problem in coffee has been known for a while. A 1989 study [13] says that 58% of beans are contaminated. Six years later, another study [14] found that 52% of samples were contaminated. The International Journal of Food and Chemistry Toxicology concluded “regular coffee consumption may contribute to exposure of humans to OTA.” More recently, this study [15] of Brazilian coffee found “Practically all samples (91.7%) were contaminated with moulds.” 83.3% of samples contained Aspergillus niger, a major toxin former, yet all of was “good enough” for European standards.

Comprehensive List of Research on Mold Toxin:

Ochratoxin Medical Literature

My Personal Experiences with Mold…

Most of my life I have been very healthy with a very hearty immune system.

The First Time I Dealt with Mold Personally: Plumbing Repair.

In the 90’s while renovating a house in Seattle, I cut into the sewer main under the house during a plumbing repair. There was a high concentration of mold inside the pipe and as I tapped into the pipe without a mask, I inadvertently breathed in mold. I was unaware of the potential for mold in this circumstance and lacked the experience with mold to prepare for it.

The mold got into my lungs and made me weak. Although I managed to complete the project, I noticed a shortness of breath for at least 6 months after the event. It noticeably diminished my natural vitality and the effects lingered for a long time.

It was not until much later that I realized how dangerous mold is.

The Second Time…

The next time was in Florida after I tore out the floor boards in our bedroom to rebuild the floor. We discovered that there was mold under the linoleum and apparently we had been breathing “mold” for some time. I experienced shortness of breath, intermittent fatigue and a constantly running nose.

At the time, it did not occur to me to associate the symptoms with a mold problem. Until we moved into a new house and the symptoms went away after several months. In retrospect, my wife and I made the connection in our discussions.

The Third Time Was Mold and Coffee…

My wife has asthma. She is very sensitive to toxins and smells and she has a compromised immune system. From exposure she gets severe migraines, blurred vision as well as a an asthmatic reaction. The severity of the response is situation dependent.

We did not associate mold with coffee consumption – in this case – initially. After we moved to our current location (about two months before Covid set in) we started looking locally for really good coffee. As a result we sampled lots of coffee – with predominately disappointing results – for about a year and a half.

Over the course of those samplings, we noticed that my wife would sometimes get a pain in her side, or feel really weak or get a headache subsequent to morning coffee. At first we did not link it directly to coffee. My wife made the connection one day, asking:

“I wonder if it’s the coffee?”

So we began observing her physical responses to new coffee samples. Whenever she reacted, we switched coffee the next day to observe any changes.

Bad coffee during Covid got expensive

After consistent observation and time we identified which coffees:

do not have a negative effect on her system and
also meet our flavor and quality standards

Those are the coffees we drink now.

Until we understood the problem, we were not aware that we needed to do this. Now, whenever we try a new coffee, we follow the same procedures.

Our observation efforts were not an exact science for two reasons:

We didn’t really think about keeping meticulous notes until after the fact.
At the time, we were spending a substantial amount of money throwing away pound after pound of coffee trying to find coffee we liked, far exceeding our coffee budget. Even if we had considered it, we did not have the budget to get the coffees tested in a lab.

Regarding mold, we now refer to my lovely wife as “our coffee geiger counter”.

Mold in Coffee Is a Real Problem

In conclusion, mold in coffee is a real problem. Consequently it is a good idea to minimize exposure if you drink a lot of coffee. Drink mold free coffee if you can.