Scientist Develops Caffeinated Baked Goods

Zephyros writes "The AP is reporting on a scientist who has found a way to get caffeine into donuts, bagels, and other baked goods without the bitter flavor. Each piece has as much caffeine as two cups of coffee. No word on when or where they will be available, but for those of us that just don't get the same kick from the morning cuppa that we used to, this may be another tasty delivery vector to look forward to for that jump-start."

Re:Great...

[Cadallin]

Estimating from the LD50 of Caffeine in Rats, that would be pretty freaking hard. Assuming no major underlying cardiac conditions, it would take around 10g of pure Caffeine to kill the average person. Double that for the average Slashdotter (who is both noticably more massive than average, AND likely to be quite Caffeine resistant, rather like trying to kill a Heroine addict with other, lesser depressants with similar Modes of Action). As for how much it takes to makes the average person start tripping balls and THINK they're dying, well that IS a lot lower.

Chocolate

[Aneirin]

I never knew of caffeine as being bitter by itself until this article. I believe we already have donuts with caffeine, its called chocolate.

Re:Great...

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

I took around 2 grams of caffiene once (important lesson: when dealing with chemicals, don't just eye stuff, buy what you need to accurately measure).

Horribly unpleasent night, pretty shitty day after, and a general aversion to caffiene for a while..but really, the dangers of caffiene OD is really overstated. I'd certainly not recommend anyone OD, and it can be fatal if you REALLY overdo it, but to get to that point you will likely start experiencing seriously unpleasent side effects long before you get near fatal dosages.

Unless you're taking the caffiene raw like I was, it isn't easy to even drink/eat enough caffinated products to get anywhere near the DangerZone(tm). YMMV of course.

Brewed leaf green tea != matcha

[Estanislao Martínez]

I wouldn't draw conclusions about the caffeine content of matcha (powdered green tea) from the content of brewed leaf green tea. One of them is the stuff that readily dissolves into hot water from dried tea leaves; the other one is the whole of the leaves, ground into a fine power, and then dissolved in water.

Googling is only giving me contradictory claims as to which has more caffeine, so far.

Re:Brewed leaf green tea != matcha

[yeolcoatl]

The girl (Japanese, pharamcist) has the following to say:

"[matcha] has more caffeine than [sencha]. [matcha] is 32mg/100ml, [sencha] is 20mg/100ml,"

For some reason, slashdot preview doesn't seem to like unicode.

Re:Great...

[dgatwood]

According to http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/caffeine/caffeine_ dose.shtml [erowid.org], the lethal oral dose ranges from 3-20g, depending on age, weight, rate of digestion, tolerance., etc. A 2g dose would probably not be fatal in most cases, but it's way too close for comfort. Indeed, there are reported cases of adults requiring hospitalization due to heart misbehavior triggered by as little as 2g, according to Wikipedia (citations given).

Re:How will this help?

[vidarh]

If you think the effects of caffeine are psychosomatic, you are seriously deluded. Since you're in the uk, buy some Pro Plus caffeine pills, and try slowly upping the dose (you're doing so at your own risk...). At some point you will start to have serious problems sitting still (i.e. you will feel a compulsion to "do stuff"), and will start getting a pricking feeling on the skin, and start shaking. You may . Now, at that point you've taken far more than is advisable for normal use, though far less than lethal dose... Caffeine is fairly potent.

As others have pointed out, though, you probably have developed a high tolerance. After years of drinking massive amounts of coke I'm at the point too where I can drink a couple of energy drinks right before bed and still sleep like a baby.

But it definitively has significant effects. I sometimes use caffeine before lifting weights (I alternate between using nothing, using creatine, and using caffeine), and typically a dose of 200mg or more will let me lift at least 5kg more for several parts of my routine, and will make me feel a lot less tired during the workout so I keep the intensity up much better. I've tried up to 350mg, and some research supposedly indicates that up to 650mg to 900mg is the most useful to improve exercise, but the effect on my stomach is bad enough at less than 300 that I'm not going to test that...

The downside is that at around 250mg or above, if I for whatever reason take it and get distracted so I don't get to the gym quickly, I will start shaking. A short run or a couple of sets of heavy weights will stop that pretty quickly, though.

To me it also has a very clear effect if I feel tired, but it's of course temporary and I feel more worn out when it's over, so I only take caffeine if I would benefit from a temporary improvement and know I can rest properly afterwards.

But seriously, if you have problems staying awake even with that kind of caffeine intake, cut the caffeine for a while and start exercising. Then slowly reintroduce caffeine only when you "need" the effect for a short period of time. Starting to lift weights two years ago has done far more for my energy levels than any amount of caffeine ever did. Cut sugar and carb intake too - especially if you're unfit, as insulin resistance will make you tired far more easily with those kind of foods.