Scientists Grow Decaffeinated Coffee Plants

An anonymous reader writes "According to a CBC News story, researchers have genetically modified coffee seedlings to produce up to 70 per cent less caffeine." The Japanese researchers quoted in the article say "..demand for decaffeinated coffee is growing worldwide. Caffeine can trigger palpitations, increase blood pressure and disrupt sleep in sensitive people", and so "..used a tool called RNA interference to genetically engineer the one-year-old plants." Seems like these boffins may be competing against the University Of Hawaii researchers we mentioned last year to take away your buzz.

Whats the point?

I mean really, if it can't help me stay up all night coding whats the point?

Re:Whats the point?

i'll bet the researchers drink real coffee.

Re:Whats the point?

Come on, Slashdot. Decaffinated coffee plants? That is neither news for nerds or stuff that matters!

Now, if they had genetically engineered a Mountain Dew tree ...

Re:Whats the point?

" if it can't help me stay up all night ..."

Actually caffeine has been known to cause erectile dysfunction, or simply put; "Staying Up Problem". If you really want to stay up all night (not coding!), then don't touch caffeine!

Re:Whats the point?

Fortunately, just this morning I received an e-mail offering me a product to help relieve that very problem. Actually, I received 27 of them.

Re:Whats the point?

Actually caffeine has been known to cause erectile dysfunction, or simply put; "Staying Up Problem".

And this is a problem for the typical Slashdotter because...?

Re:Coffee is yummy

some people can most often regulate their sleep patterns naturally but that they actually like the flavor of coffee.

I'm a biotech student, and as such genetic modification is hardly anathema to me;

BUT DON'T FUCK WITH MY DAMN COFFEE!

And yes, I actually do like the taste of it (at least the stuff I make). I would be curious to find out if this new stuff tasted any good...

Decaffeinated?

How about they get working on super-caffeinated coffee? And we can call it Coffee 2. Then the regular caffeinated version of coffee can be renamed to Coffee 2. But the super-caffeinated version will be Coffee 2 Hi-Caffeine and the regular-caffeinated version will be Coffee 2 Full-Caffeine.

Re:Decaffeinated?

It could be called Coffee 2, even if it is really coffee 1.1 in disguise.

Re:Decaffeinated?

or maybe it could be called coffee millennium edition even though its really just an update.

Re:Decaffeinated?

We could incorperate linux kernel code in the genome sequence but we may pick the wrong lines and get sued by SCO.

Re:Decaffeinated?

Thank god for instant espresso which allows you to put that extra spoonful in your normal cup...

C-C-Cup?CupsareforwussesMAN!!Nnnnrgh!!*twitch* ForarealHITjusteatitwithaspoonstraightOUTofthejar! !!*twitch*

Re:Hmmm...

I don't know about you, but the only reason I ever even come close to touching coffee is for the caffeine. There are better beverages without caffeine

Of course there caffeine-free beverages that are better than coffee. But all of those contain alcohol and some people occasionally want to drink something that is both alcohol AND caffeine free.

I'm not sure why. People can be weird sometimes.

fifififinally.

i rerereally cococould uuuuse thththis stufffff.

decaffinated coffee...

about as popular as dry water.

Or alcohol-free beer.

not necessarily true

You might be surprised to hear this, but coffee has became probably THE national drink of Japan. It's really an jaw-dropping thing because people usually have a concept where they are sipping green tea all the time.

The thing is, though, that they actually seem to genuinely like the stupid beverage (and almost everybody drinks it black - and by almost i mean 99.9% of the people), because they don't really have any perceptable needs for the caffine.

Being that most everybody is extremely health-conscious here*, it is not surprising that they are making "natural" decaf coffee - or I should say, decaf coffee that has not gone through the decaf cycle (which to many, ruins the taste).

* there is a dichotomy here - because while many guys goes on diets and somesuch, they are almost always horrible workaholics and a large percentage smokes and drinks like it's going out of style. So, it's almost like hipocritical health consciousness - but hypocritical or not, the demand is still there for the low-caffine beverage.

Re:not necessarily true

"natural" decaf coffee - or I should say, decaf coffee that has not gone through the decaf cycle (which to many, ruins the taste).

De-caffeinated coffee ruins the point of drinking coffee, anyone who wants de-caff (or no alcohol beer, or nicotine free cigarettes) should just go and drink orange juice and leave those of us with a serious addiction to it.

I'm more worried about it cross-polinating with real caffeine plants and diluting my Coding Coffee [dooyoo.co.uk]

very bad idea

Caffeine can trigger palpitations, increase blood pressure and disrupt sleep in sensitive people

I don't think this is a good idea to get "sensitive people" used to the taste of stuff which is not good for them.

This is like Coke Light : though it has no sugar inside it still tastes exageratedly sweet and this would be a better idea to get the "users" curious about differently tasted products.

I am afraid, at the end of the story, everything will taste the same and recipe will consist of posologies. :/

What next...

opiate free poppy plantations?

Dilbert

Today's Dilbert [dilbert.com] seems apropos.

Re:Dilbert

Kinda makes you wonder if either A) Scott Adams knew about this already or B) Scott Adams reads Slashdot...

Beer...

And I thought alcohol free beer was bad enough.

Isn't the caffeine in the coffee the point of coffee?

Nooo!

*Jaw drops open*

This is blasphemy!! This, this, this... This is an outrage! Oh, the humanity!

It's time to stop this nonsense once and for all! Coders, Admins, hackers, and yes, even Microsoft employees, virus writers and marketdroids, repeat after me:

No to GMO! We want Real Coffee!

I mean, Decaf' Coffee? If God wanted us to drink this, he would not have invented Starbucks!

Oh, wait... I am a tea drinker...

Err... Well, never mind me. Carry on... ;-)

genetic modification.

Until reading this I was fairly neutral about the GM issue.

On one hand I thought greenpeace were a load of insane hippies who are in need of a damn good kicking, but I was also suspicious of the motives of the biotech companies. I was, however, prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Now I know. Greenpeace are right! Those bastards mean to destroy us all, and I have proof!!! [dilbert.com]

Dangers of GM food

Caffeine can trigger palpitations, increase blood pressure and disrupt sleep in sensitive people

So we must protect the fools who, in spite of the symptoms, insist on drinking coffee. Not only do we have to do that, but we'll just have to do it by letting loose modifed genomes with no idea of how this will change the ecosystem?

GM food has not been proved safe in long term cultivation and it will not help to relieve hunger in 3rd world countries. Hunger is a political problem, not an agricultural problem. The production capacity of the Earth would feed the current and future population very well if the distribution of food were done fairly.

And doubtless before long

Coders will be growing illicit high-strength skunk coffee beans under arc lights in their basements.

Someone needs to look at what the whole drive for effectless "drugs" tells us about society. THC free hemp yes, because hemp is a useful plant (makes good cloth,easier to grow than cotton). But surely the sole purpose of coffee beans is to produce...coffee? If you don't like the side effects, there are any number of alternatives. Decaffeinated coffee is like devaluing the brand name.

Or perhaps I've missed the business implications. Perhaps I should just patent my new process for making alcohol free vodka, and get rich.

Re:And doubtless before long

I don't know about you, but I grow illicit high-strength skunk weed buds for the flavour, too.

Do we really need more Frankenfoods ?

You would have thought that now scientists have decided they were wrong about cholesterol and that eating margarine rather than butter and cutting out eggs was actually "a really bad idea"(TM the food industry) they'd learn to leave alone.

We spent millions of years to evolving to eat the shit that grows around us - not some factory grown crap that no-one actually has any idea about what it's effects on everything else (us, other plants, the biosphere) might be. Some scientist with too much funding and driven by greedy food corporations (Hi Monsanto!) simply is not going to improve on what we evolved to consume.

Sometimes I despair at the thought that a company will produce "Batchelor Chow" (and then realise they have - it's called Pot Noodle in the UK). And that it won't be Matrix style uber-computers feeding us recycled human but uber-corporations run by humans.

Re:Do we really need more Frankenfoods ?

I don't know about your particular species, but humans did not evolve millions of years to eat the shit that JUST GROWS around us. Most of the shit we ate for the last millions of years is gone... what we eat is what we BREED AND CULTIVATE.

We're "civilized" now. We cultivate, and genetically-engineer the food we need, and exterminate species that we find sub-optimal when new "frankenfoods" are found.

This is not new. It predates all corporations, industrialization, etc. We've been doing this ever since we discovered agriculture and the domestication of animals, which was a few tens of thousands of years ago.

Cows and chickens are frankenanimals. Corn and wheat are frankenfoods. We use genetically-engineered felines (cats) for industrial (pest control) and emotional purposes (pets). We breed qualities into and out of living organism according to our needs.

If you're going to attack Monsanto because of the dangers of new, more efficient ways to genetically-engineer life, at least realize that we've been doing this for a long, long time. We have had our disasters and our successes, but already our nutrition is based on thousands of years of Frankenfoods.

Re:Do we really need more Frankenfoods ?

Oh stop it.

Breeding is not equal to genetical engineering. There is no way to do transgenetic breeding, iow. to introduce genes from one species into another species by breeding. With GE, it's no problem at all; bioluminous tabacco plants (with firefly genes) anyone?

Consider this before you claim GE is harmless or nothing new.

I didn't think people would be stupid enough....

to buy my thc-free marjiuana before.

But now I'm not so sure.

decaf, oh, the horror!

I'm kind of surprised that people are so shocked that someone might actually make, or drink, decaffinated coffee. Its not like this is a perversion of nature or something, the point is that there is a huge market out there for the stuff. Millions of people drink decaf every day.

We may not understand it, but the point is that genetically modifying the plant to produce less caffeine is both safer, and tastes better, than whatever god-awful shit they do to it now.

I guess I just think this is a cool, and potentially profitable use for the level of genetic engineering that we are able to do nowadays. If this kind of stuff works, and makes money, then we get to see the really neat stuff down the road!

Just another data point

I'm sure this story will be full of "what's the point?!" comments. Just a single data point / anecdotal bit of evidence. I always had trouble getting to sleep (and, consequently, getting up in the morning) although I stuck to only two or three cups of instant, and nothing after midday/1pm. Just for the hell of it, I had a cup of tea for my morning kickstart a couple of weeks ago, and stayed off coffee the rest of the day. Result: solid refreshing sleep;
4) happiness! (better than profit! any day...)

Re:Just another data point

Good for you! If you don't want caffeine, why drink coffee? There are thousands of alternatives.

But for me, let me say:

It is by caffeine alone
I set my mind in motion,
It is by the beans of Java
That my thoughts aquire speed,
The hand aquire shakes,
The shakes becomes a warning,
It is by caffeine alone
I set my mind in motion.

Coffee = Bad breath + motivation to talk a lot

I'm all for decaf. At least for my co-workers.

In other news...

...consumption of coffee is expected to increase by over 200 percent.

Decaf

Decaf is like masturbation. When it is all you have it is ok. But, man you would die for the real thing!

Don't laugh. Just like me you are reading slashdot. You know what I am talking about;)

For reference...

For reference, here's a summary [coffeeresearch.org] of some current decaffeination processes. An excerpt:

"Coffee is decaffeinated using a variety of processes. All of which are relatively harmless to your health, but harmful to the beverage quality."

yeah

Caffeine can trigger palpitations, increase blood pressure and disrupt sleep in sensitive people

Yeah, great stuff!

proof the world is going barmy

Surely the kind of person who thinks caffeine will kill them, is hardly likely to touch a genetically modified plant? Never mind that maize, wheat, barley et al are all genetically modified grass, and cabbages, Brussels sprouts, broccoli and swedes are all genetically modified turnips. OK, in those cases the GM was done the slow way, but evolution is still technically genetic modification.

If ever anyone needed concrete evidence that the world is going stark, raving bonkers, this is surely it. First it was Lucozade Light {for the benefit of foreigners, Lucozade is a high-calorie drink with glucose for an instant energy boost. Table sugar is sucrose, which the body has to hydrolyse into glucose and fructose.} The whole point of Lucozade is to provide quickly-assimilated calories. If you need fewer calories then just drink less; if you still need fluid then dilute it with water.

Not so long ago we ate loads of fried food, fat and sugar, we smoked woodbines, we drank beer and whisky all the time and we didn't die! We weren't all pasty-faced, nesh asthmatics either. Nowadays it is "trendy" to be a health freak, so people latch onto any convenient buzz-words without thinking properly what they mean. Then they drive their cars from the bedroom to the bathroom to the gym, where they pay good money to sit on a fake bike and pedal nowhere. I bet some young mother somewhere is probably bringing up a baby exclusively on soya milk because she thinks breast milk is bad for you.

Last year, in a Tesco supermarket, I found Organic Milk -- available in skimmed and semi-skimmed varieties, but not full cream. So, you go organic to get nothing artificial added, then they go and take something natural away. {it's not that long ago I remember drinking unpasteurised milk - a test of faith in the immune system :) but a worthwhile one}.

What next, decaffeinated Red Bull? For crying out loud, if you don't like the thought of caffeine, then don't drink coffee! Or drink tea, which contains something that stops your body absorbing caffeine.

Somebody needs to patent a home coffee decaffeinator - and maybe a home milk skimmer/semi-skimmer - to sell to the trendy brigade. Or, failing that, a way of distributing a clue .....

Pointless GMOs?

We already have several methods for removing caffeine from coffee much more efficiently than this, so what is the point. I would have much more respect for work on GMOs if the scientists concentrated more on areas which would benefit mankind rather than business interests.

Whats wrong with current Decaf?

Besides the fact that it lacks caffeine, and tastes mediocre at best, I wonder what the problem is with currect decaf.

Decaf is nowadays produced by removing caffeine from coffee beans using liquid or supercritical CO2, instead of organic solvents used in the old days. The current process is friendly to the environment (CO2 can easily be recycled), and safe to the consumer as well.

Personally, I do not object genetic modification of the plants, but I think many people (especially Europeans) do. Decaf is also considered a 'healthy' product, and it might be a bad marketing match to introduce modern biotech there. Furthermore, I doubt it will taste any better, since caffeine itself has a bitter flavor to it that might be important in the taste of 'real' coffee.

One question remains: Where does the caffeine they currently remove go? And: Will caffeine become more expensive when there are no 'leftovers' from removing it from coffee?

Why not simply outlaw caffeine?

1. Ban popular addictive substance
2. ???
3. Profit!!

Coffee is both popular and cheap, so something had to be done about it. Banning the traditional kind and replacing it with a kinder, gentler version is the first step. Bombing coffee-growing regions while turning a blind eye to coffee-lords who grow new hi-grade plants is the next step. Finally, a 25% cut of what is definitely going to be big business...

Ites' first rule of thumb says "follow the money", and for caffeine-free coffee this seems the only plausible plot. Certainly no-one is actually going to buy the castrated version.

COFFEE MAKES YOU STRONG! STRENGTH CRUSHES ENEMIES

Caffeine can trigger palpitations, increase blood pressure and disrupt sleep in sensitive people

Cool! Are there any side effects?

Info About Coffee

Firstly Coffee is the second most traded comodity, behind oil.

The way most coffee is decafinated these days is with a process called the "Swiss water method".
This involves soaking unroasted coffee beans in water. The water absorbs the coffee flavor and the caffine.
These beans are then trown out, the water is filtered of caffine, and only caffine. To do this the water is pased through a carbon filter.
The result is decaf coffee flavoured water. This water is used to soak a new batch of beans. Scince the water is super saturated with coffee flavour, it cannot abosorb any more flavour, but it can still absorb caffine. So the caffine is removed from the beans whilst keeping the flavour. The water is used for about 3 batches then the whole process starts again with new water.

The extra steps involved in decafinating coffee is what makes it a bit more expensive. So next time you have a decaf coffee, just think of all the steps involved to make it that way. Ohh by the way, coffee needs do be 97% free of caffine to be called decaf.

If you want to know how i know all this, i help roast coffee for Gloria Jeans

LOLOLOL COFFEE IS MY LIFE BLOOD LOLLOLOL

LOL IM A PROGRAMMER LOL I DRINK COFFEE LOL CAFFEINE LOL DONT COME TO CLOSE LOL I HAVE THE SHAKES AND MIGHT SNAP ROFL I HAVENT HAD MY MORNING CUP OF COFFEE LOL

Unfortunatly, I've met more imaginative heroin addicts.

I fucking hate this caffeine gimmick, it's not that hard to stay up late when coding, or make it to work in the morning without bending over for caffeine.

In other news...

Scientists have also found a way to remove Dihydrogen Monoxide from water in a process called "deaquificiation".

Headlines I want to see.....

In stead of "Scientists Grow Decaffeinated Coffee Plants" I want ot see headlines like...:-

Scientists Grow caffeinated Coffee Plants with 50% more Caffine

or

Scientist grow a Jolt Cola Plant

or

Scientist grom a Caffine/Pizza combo plant

Why _less_ caffine??

Jaj

Forget functionality, I want taste!

Why is it that all the new crops I hear about are all about functionality? It's decaf this, Roundup-ready that, when the number one priority for food products should be taste.

I hope their new bean has a unique and interesting taste; if so, I'll definitely be buying it--caffeine or not. But these guys shouldn't be focusing on caffeine, they should be trying to produce a coffee bean that can be grown easily in many regions, yet tastes as good as Jamaica Blue Mountain. They should be making coffees that taste more like chocolate, or like orange or like a thousand other things.

It would have been quicker...

just to invent a nontoxic brown magic marker for your teeth.

Manually implemented sigs are of unlimited length...

My Life With The Caffiene Free Kult

I used to drink about 4 cans of soda and a pot of coffee every day. Cup of coffee and two cigarettes were my breakfast. Caffiene was my lifeblood, but when I decided to quit smoking, I decided that I would be no chemical's bitch. Further, in a fit of masochism, I decided I would get the asshole out of my system all at once, so on the same day, caffiene & nicotine left my life and withdrawal entered it.

I was expecting that getting rid of cigarettes would make me feel better, and it did. My heart stopped pounding, my sense of smell returned, my lung capacity increased, all the things I was led to believe.

What I was not expecting was that quitting caffiene made me feel even better.

I slept better, I woke up with more energy and felt more lively throughout my day. I quit having headaches on the weekends when I decide to sleep late. I found that a 15-minute cat-nap at around five o'clock would let me stay up until two in the morning without any serious repercussions.

In short, in the eighteen months since I gave it up, I have never once considered going back. Giving up caffiene is maybe the best health decision I have ever made.

But, I still love the taste of coffee. I spent years acquiring the taste, and I didn't give up that taste just because I gave up caffiene. Decaf fits my needs. It's got less caffiene than a chocolate bar, and still tastes like coffee. I can get my unleaded and drink it, too.

Now, if they could make caffiene-free coke not suck, I'd be in business.

Living without caffiene is a bit like having TiVO. You have to stop yourself from evangelizing to the people around you constantly, lest you alienate everyone by not shutting up about how great it is.