$4 a day for a steaming pile of crap

October 17, 2007 1:47 PM

Due to budgetary constraints, I've cut back on my daily quad-shot 16 oz. latte and am brewing coffee to take to work in the morning. I've noticed a difference in my moods and energy levels, but, more importantly, brewed coffee does not bring out the poop like the espresso drink does.

I would always have an easy, complete BM after drinking my daily 4-shot latte, but do not get the same results after drinking two cups of dark roast coffee (with milk). I also don't enjoy the high as much and find that I crash harder.

I've tested it several times. I might go four days in a row with coffee and then one day will buy a latte. Boom! Instant results with the BM. Isn't caffeine just caffeine? Why the big difference?

posted by strangeleftydoublethink to Science & Nature (17 answers total)

Best answer: An espresso shot is roughly equivalent to a cup of coffee, so you're getting less caffeine now. Plus, the amount of caffeine in a cup of coffee can vary greatly depending on what kind you buy and how you brew it. My guess is you're getting less caffeine than your body wants. As to the "poop" issue, smokers often go through something similar when they quit, so I'm guessing that it's some kind of withdrawal symptom.

Diagnosis: drink more caffeine.
posted by lekvar at 1:54 PM on October 17, 2007

You might want to give your body time to adjust to the rather drastic difference in caffiene consumption. Give yourself a couple of weeks and things'll work themselves out (ha). Your body just needs time to learn to wake itself up instead of relying on the chemicals to give it a jolt.
posted by Pecinpah at 2:01 PM on October 17, 2007

Diagnosis: drink more caffeine.

Funny, my response would be the opposite. Keep drinking less caffeine and the withdrawal symptoms will fade.
posted by chrisamiller at 2:09 PM on October 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

Diagnosis: drink more caffeine.

No. Lord, no.

Look, I know you think that quad-shot coffee is awesome because it's giving you a good high and a good crap, but so do a lot of addictive drugs. Any "benefit" you gain from caffeine's diahrretic properties is offset by a myriad of health risks from that amount regularly- anxiety, sleep disorder, heart problems.

Do what people have done for years- get more fiber in your diet. Greens make you poop. Flax seed makes you poop.
posted by mkultra at 2:25 PM on October 17, 2007

Vice Magazine did an article about poop 2-3 years ago (I can't seem to find it) that details this phenomena in detail.

Salient points:

a) caffeine stimulates everything, including the muscles in your digestive track that move the process along

b) caffeine is also some kind of purgative

One good way to wean yourself off caffeine w/out things gumming up is to go on green tea for bit.
posted by beezy at 2:28 PM on October 17, 2007

Take a flax oil suppliment. It's a natural laxative.
posted by 45moore45 at 2:51 PM on October 17, 2007

Why not just ween off the 4-shot latte more slowly to let your body adjust? Try having a 3-shot for a couple of weeks, then a 2-shot, and so on.
posted by tastybrains at 2:51 PM on October 17, 2007

@beezy: Green tea has plenty of caffeine too. Just google "green tea" and caffeine.
posted by GeneticFreek at 3:07 PM on October 17, 2007

Coffee in moderation seems to be pretty good for your liver, reduces risk of alzheimers, makes your brain alert, but a quad shot is no not moderation. It will take your body a while to adjust to the new intake. Meanwhile, make sure you're drinking plenty of water, which helps a lot, as well as soluble(dried apricots - yum!) and insoluble(bran - as in oldfashioned oatmeal - also yum!) fiber. Exercise also helps initiate activity. There are many fine poop threads on AskMe.
posted by theora55 at 3:13 PM on October 17, 2007

If, against the above advice, you want to drink strong delicious cheap coffee, I'll recommend the Toddy cold-brewed coffee system. I've been using it all summer and fall, and it makes what it calls "coffee concentrate" which is basically espresso, but it brews it cold over 12 hours, getting all the flavor with much less acidity or bitterness. You can reconstitute it with water to make excellent coffee - but I just add whole milk to make a fantastic rich cold latte.
posted by nicwolff at 3:50 PM on October 17, 2007

Oh, and the great thing is that it makes 72 ounces of espresso at a time! Which you then keep handy in the fridge at a moment's notice.
posted by nicwolff at 3:52 PM on October 17, 2007

Not sure how much science there is to it, but I'm told by my French uncle that drip coffee (i.e. not espresso-based) will in fact add MORE caffeine to your system and make you feel quite a bit sicker than your quad-shot espresso.

The reason being that the extra water/liquid in drip coffee makes it easier for the caffeine to be absorbed into your bloodstream and as a result the high is just that much higher. It's also the reason he's able to drink an espresso after dinner without being wired all night long.

I suppose it makes sense... Personally my advice is to invest in a nice espresso-maker :)
posted by PWA_BadBoy at 5:07 PM on October 17, 2007

It depends on how your coffee is brewed and the size of your cup, but it's more than likely you're now getting slightly *more* caffeine with, say, two brewed 8 oz. cups of coffee than 4, 1 oz. shots of espresso and 12 oz. of milk. More likely they key change here is a reduction in your morning milk intake.

Have your two cups of coffee, and add an 8 oz. milk chaser.
posted by deCadmus at 7:09 PM on October 17, 2007

Three months ago, I went from 10-12 cups of coffee/day down to zero in one day. (I switch to decaf - yes, I realize it still has caffeine).
In that single day, I went from a mad, happy poop machine to having an ass like an unspun concrete mixer. (Same thing happened when I stopped smoking 6 months ago).
Get more fiber in your diet and joypoop will commence again.
posted by zerokey at 7:12 PM on October 17, 2007

Caffeine pills are a budget friendly way to make up the difference in caffeine between your coffee and the expensive stuff.
posted by happyturtle at 11:41 PM on October 17, 2007

I nominate the aeropress. It's inexpensive, can make four shots of espresso (or espresso strength coffee concentrate, whatever...) at a time, is easy to use, and gives you a good degree of control over the variables that affect the taste of your coffee. Espresso in hot milk is not quite a latte, but it is pretty damn tasty.
posted by benign at 6:46 AM on October 18, 2007

Also note that lighter roasts have more caffeine than darker roasts. If you think you are not getting enough caffeine, you may want to switch to a lighter roast, even though it will taste less like a dark.
posted by achmorrison at 7:34 PM on October 18, 2007