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Science

Scientist Develops Caffeinated Baked Goods 195

Posted by Zonk from the we-truly-live-in-an-age-of-wonders dept.
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."
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Scientist Develops Caffeinated Baked Goods More

Scientist Develops Caffeinated Baked Goods

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  • Why am I not surprised... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Hobbs0 ( 1055434 ) on Friday January 26, 2007 @10:02PM (#17779988)
    ...that this was an American scientist?

  • Insubstantial Article (Score:5, Interesting)

    by x_MeRLiN_x ( 935994 ) * on Friday January 26, 2007 @10:03PM (#17779992)
    Whole article:

    DURHAM. N.C. (AP) -- That cup of coffee just not getting it done anymore? How about a Buzz Donut or a Buzzed Bagel? That's what Doctor Robert Bohannon, a Durham, North Carolina, molecular scientist, has come up with. Bohannon says he's developed a way to add caffeine to baked goods, without the bitter taste of caffeine. Each piece of pastry is the equivalent of about two cups of coffee.

    While the product is not on the market yet, Bohannon has approached some heavyweight companies, including Krispy Kreme, Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks about carrying it.
    Not much of an article.. No substantial information regarding caffeine content. I was looking forward to comparing this to Sky Rockets [thinkgeek.com] and Bawlz [thinkgeek.com]. :(

  • One thing is for sure... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Friday January 26, 2007 @10:03PM (#17779994) Journal
    cops will be mega-hyper

  • Great... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tadrith ( 557354 ) on Friday January 26, 2007 @10:04PM (#17780004) Homepage
    Given how many products are suddenly having caffeine added to them, I wonder how long it will take before somebody does something really stupid with all of these products, and deliberately or inadvertently manages to harm themself or someone else. It doesn't take all THAT much caffeine to cause some pretty nasty side effects, especially if you don't drink it all that often.

    • Re:Great... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Friday January 26, 2007 @10:06PM (#17780026) Journal
      how long it will take before somebody does something really stupid with all of these products, and deliberately or inadvertently manages to harm themself or someone else. It doesn't take all THAT much caffeine to cause some pretty nasty side effects, especially if you don't drink it all that often.

      S-s-s-stop b'b'b'b'being s's's'so PPPPPParan n n noid!!!
           

    • Re:Great... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Cadallin ( 863437 ) on Friday January 26, 2007 @10:20PM (#17780122)
      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.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Kattspya ( 994189 )
      Not really. You would need about ten of these donuts (if each donut contains 200mg of caffeine) to experience some nasty side effects. When I was young I popped twenty or so 100mg caffeine pills in about an hour. I was jittery and sweaty for about five hours then I got a severe stomach ache, diarrhea and fell asleep at about seven PM.

      You would have to try really really hard to do yourself in with this.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by GiMP ( 10923 )
        Apparently the OD limit is 400mg (although, yes, fatal dosage is much higher). One of these donuts and a double-shot of expresso or a large (by US standards) McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts coffee is enough to push you over that edge.

        Think about how you felt the last time you drank 4-5 cups of coffee within an hour, then say with honesty that this is a good idea.
  • Gee, just what the world needed. At least the donuts won't just promote diabetes anymore.
  • Just what the world needs.

    As if sugar-soaked foods like donuts and those goddawful "Twinkies" aren't bad enough, some moronic scientist has to discover another addiction vector to get weak willed and stupid plebians hooked on their diabetes and heart disease industry recruitment products.

    How come /. doesn't have an "Only in America" tag?

    • what the world needs its just a tad of discipline and self control. no one is forcing you to eat that stuff. i dont think you can really blame it on lack of education either, with the amount of "fat" awareness in tv these days its pretty clear that most overweight people are not thick boned or have glandular conditions.

      I myself am pretty weak and its like an addiction with Baked goods, if i want to stop eating them i have to go cold turkey. but after a couple of weeks, the skin looks much better (less pimpl
      • "what the world needs its just a tad of discipline and self control. no one is forcing you to eat that stuff."

        What part of "weak willed plebians" did you fail to comprehend? Do I sound like a weak willed plebian?

        However, you are right, I am not forced to eat this stuff, therefore I don't.

        On the other hand, what I am forced to do is;

        a) deal with children who constantly demand to be fed this crap.

        b) pay the inflated health insurance premiums that are required in order to subsidise
        the poo
      • > what the world needs its just a tad of discipline and self control

        until that objective is reached I'd ban use of stealthy addictive things in food. Let us coffee people understand if and how we're dependent on the stuff.

        > no one is forcing you to eat that stuff.

        subtle advertisement will. caffeine causing addiction will. Don't forget millions of people were convinced by Hollywood to smoke terribly smelling tobacco leaves, recently mixed with various chemicals.

        Going a lil OT, this sounds to me like th
      • Yeah... caffeinated cookies to keep me going at work? I don't think so. There's no way in hell I'm putting all that fat on my hips. If I really need a pick me up that is sweet, I'll just go down to Starbucks and order a mocha frap for $7. At least then the price will deter me from doing it all the time. But other than that, a healthy diet, exercise, and plenty of rest should be enough to keep you going through the day.

  • Next Up (Score:5, Funny)

    by umbrellasd ( 876984 ) on Friday January 26, 2007 @10:12PM (#17780062)
    Chocolate Chip Meth Cookies
  • Still no cure for cancer. Good to know research money is well spent.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Firehed ( 942385 )
      I doubt a whole lot of research went into these, and if there was, it was wasted. You can get caffeine in a powder form [wikipedia.org], so mixing a spoonful or two into the baking flour shouldn't have required much research. To be honest, I'm surprised it only just happened.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by CosmeticLobotamy ( 155360 )
        There's another article on this somewhere that says caffeine isn't soluble and tastes bad, and the work went into encapsulating it.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Hadlock ( 143607 )
          Soluble in what? Air? I get a caffeine buzz going before I finish my red bull, and I've never seen them print on the can "shake before drinking".

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by kfg ( 145172 )
      Still no cure for cancer.

      Why? Because that's hard.

      Good to know research money is well spent.

      Most of which goes to . . .cancer research. Outside of warfare perhaps the biggest money sink in human history. I know this might be hard to grasp, but spending money only implies spending money, not results. Throwing money into a hole just wastes your money.

      Money only buys labor and "stuff," not understanding.

      KFG

  • Why is this news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by abshnasko ( 981657 ) on Friday January 26, 2007 @10:16PM (#17780088)
    ...people have been doing this with Marijuana for years.
    • While working in the California desert in the 1960's, I was told that the Navaho Indians had "peyote cookies" that they could carry with them on the job site, away from the reservation. I never saw the cookies, my friend just pointed to the Indian workers, and said that they had them. The Indians looked normal to me, none of them were doing anything strange at the time. Perhaps some of them had the peyote cookies, but not all of them, I don't know.
      Here is a link [newscientist.com] with some info on what peyote has, and does f

  • Taste and smell of coffee (Score:4, Insightful)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Friday January 26, 2007 @10:16PM (#17780090)
    I for one like the way coffee tastes and smells. The bitter taste (I drink coffee w/o cream or sugar) is part of the thing that wakes me up in the morning!


    -b.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by metlin ( 258108 ) *
      I agree.

      That was my very first thought when I read about this. I mean, if all you wanted was a stimulant, get yourself some caffeine pills.

      Part of what makes a coffee special is its taste.

      • I mean, if all you wanted was a stimulant, get yourself some caffeine pills.
        Have you tried caffeine pills? No-Doz is truly unpleasant and not very effective. Another brand (yellow tablets, 200mg) isn't bad, but it's still not as effective and pleasant as drinking coffee.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Manchot ( 847225 )
      I'm not a big coffee fan, myself. I much prefer to wake up with an nice, cool can of Diet Dr. Pepper.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by udderly ( 890305 ) *
      I'm not giving up coffee for any other caffeinated food or beverage. For one thing, I love the smell and taste of hot black coffee. For another, I harbor the suspicion that some of the other complex compounds in coffee contribute to the effect.

      I have noticed this in myself and have queried many a co-worker and friend whether they thought that an equivalent dose of caffeine in other forms (soda, pills, etc) was as effective as coffee. Most have responded that they think coffee is more effective.

      Not sc
  • My normal morning brew:

    4 heaped tea spoons of instant espresso mixed with half a cup of boiling water. Repeat on the hour every hour.

    This isn't sufficient to keep me awake in meetings. Caffeine is rubbish, any effect is has is psychosomatic at best. Fortunately these days I *run* meetings and generally manage to keep them to 15 minutes or less. Anyone who can't get to the point and make a decision inside 15 minutes isn't worth employing anyway.
    • It's not rubbish. Unless you don't ever drink it, you wont see much effect until you drink quite a bit. For instance, my mother very rarely drinks caffeinated soda, but she'll get some Dr. Pepper if she's driving late and it does the trick. Me...well, I drink a pretty good amount, but if I get enough, I can get the effect. I drank four cans of Full Throttle and three cans of Mountain Dew at a LAN party over the course of maybe 2 hours. I was hopping around in my seat.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by vidarh ( 309115 )
      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 leth

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Hadlock ( 143607 )
        Also, like any other drug, caffeine takes a while to fully peak. Usually about half an hour on an empty stomach, a little longer if you've been eating food before hand. Pair it with sugar and you've got a real pick me up.

  • Why is caffeine not a drug in America? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LearnToSpell ( 694184 ) on Friday January 26, 2007 @10:19PM (#17780118) Homepage
    It's a stimulant, right? Sometimes the war on drugs just makes me shake my head. We flip out about baseball players taking greenies, and then say "well, they can just drink coffee or Coke instead!" Truly bizarre.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by iPaul ( 559200 )
      Nicely said.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kfg ( 145172 )
      Sometimes the war on drugs just makes me shake my head.

      The war on drugs has nothing to do with drugs, per se.

      It's about race, class, Calvanist anti-sensual morality and just plain power mongering social control.

      I left something out. What the hell is it?

      Oh, yeah, money. You can always learn something by following the money.

      KFG
      • Yeah, but what you describe pretty much covers any type of prohibitionism. Drugs, booze, guns, pornography, violent video games, etc.

        I agree with you that the War on Drugs is stupid, but so many of the people who are against the War on Drugs support some other prohibitionist cause.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by renoX ( 11677 )
      >Why is caffeine not a drug in America?

      Because the problem with drugs is the addiction triggered by them.
      I don't think that there are so many people addicted to coffee..

      Now, if you asked the same question about Marijuana, this would be more interesting: I had some friends which on Saturday nights party smoked Marijuana: they didn't get addicted at all, they wouldn't smoke during the week, or at all parties..
      Sure I knew also one guy who was addicted: he smoke everyday, so it's possible, but you can get ad

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cheesey ( 70139 )
      Why are alcohol and tobacco not drugs?

      They're at least as dangerous as many illegal drugs. More people die because of overuse or long-term addiction to alcohol or tobacco than any other drug. If the war on drugs was really about protecting public health, both would be illegal.

      Of course, we know what happened when alcohol was prohibited. The consequence of prohibition is organised crime. When alcohol was legalized again, the gangsters moved on to substances that are still prohibited in this "land of the free
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • It's time Slashdot introduced a new icon for stooopid bad science. Maybe Einstein with wearing a dunce cap? Or Homer Simpson wearing lab coat?
    • Would that mean creating a correlatory icon for "clever bad science"?

      What about "stupid good science"?

  • Coffee Cake (Score:5, Funny)

    by EricJ2190 ( 1016652 ) <EricJ2190 AT gmail DOT com> on Friday January 26, 2007 @10:24PM (#17780158) Homepage
    This gives coffee cake a whole new meaning.
  • Do all those Japanese green tea flavored cookies and ice cream and such have caffeine in them, I wonder? (They're made using matcha, which is ground dried tea leaves...)

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by iPaul ( 559200 )
      Anything Asian gets a pass, 'cause it's like "holistic" and "ancient."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 0rionx ( 915503 )
      Since matcha does contain caffeine, most products that have had it added also contain caffeine. On the other hand, the caffeine concentration in green tea is (depending on variety) generally a lot lower than that in coffee. Given the potency of matcha, most recipes don't call for much of it to be added, so I doubt you'd be able to get much of a buzz even if you lived off nothing but sembe and mochi ice cream.

  • "The AP is reporting on a scientist who has found a way to get caffeine into donuts, bagels, and other baked goods"
    Police heaven!

  • Two points (Score:2, Troll)

    by iPaul ( 559200 )

    1) You were always able to dunk your doughnuts in coffee - thus adding both a pleasant flavor and caffine to the doughnuts. (Hence the name Dunkin' Donuts).

    2) WTF! Really!?!? What is so totally wrong with our food that we have to add stimulants. We've already f'ed up chicken to the point where almost all of it is covered in a bacteria because it's washed in it's own s**t! Your milk and beef is so full of hormones and anti-biotics we're passing them into the sewage system and it's making mutant fish!

  • That's just what we need! (Score:5, Funny)

    by ArcherB ( 796902 ) * on Friday January 26, 2007 @10:32PM (#17780230) Journal
    Wired fat people! Will they shake, or jiggle?
    • They will shake and jiggle. They will cause minor earthquakes. And then they will eat more because they're hoping that the caffiene will burn off the calories in the donuts.

  • Chocolate (Score:2, Informative)

    by Aneirin ( 701613 )
    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: (Score:2)

      by thelexx ( 237096 )
      You'd have to eat nearly a pound of milk chocolate to get the amount of caffeine in one cup of coffee.

      http://www.healthcentral.com/peoplespharmacy/408/6 0913.html [healthcentral.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vidarh ( 309115 )
      Try letting a caffeine pill dissolve on your tongue. It's not a pleasant taste. I can clearly taste caffeine in several types of products, and the bitter taste of caffeine is one of the things that makes me hate most diet colas, as the sugar in regular colas is the main things masking it and very few products successfully mask the taste without ridiculous amounts of sugar.
  • I saw the headlines on the news sites, and I thought... surely slashdot will pick this one up... this is certainly news that matters! This could get interesting... I mean, sure it starts with donuts... but in the future I imagine pokey office space looking endorser testimony about how they can't get going in the morning without their spiked tofu... "Man this 'jolt(tm) yogurt' really keeps me awake!"
  • It's called "dunking your donut in your morning coffee"

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kelson ( 129150 ) *
      Yes, but imagine how much less coffee you'll have to drink when you dunk your two-coffee-cups-equivalent donut in your coffee!

      That's three cups worth of caffeine in only one cup of liquid! Just think of the time you'll save on bathroom breaks!
  • Wasn't ENHANCING flavor Coca-Cola's excuse for putting caffeine in nearly all their products?

    Freaking rats.
  • "Caffeinated bacon? Baconated grapefruit? ADMIRAL Crunch?!?"
  • Tomacco was accidentally created by Homer Simpson when he "planted a little bit of everything" and fertilized his tomato and tobacco fields with plutonium. The result is a tomato that apparently has a dried, gray tobacco center, and, although being described as tasting terrible by many characters (Ralph Wiggum: "Eww, Daddy, this tastes like Grandma!"), is also immediately and powerfully addictive. (Wikipedia)

  • Wired Milk! (Score:4, Funny)

    by resistant ( 221968 ) on Friday January 26, 2007 @11:04PM (#17780424) Homepage Journal

    I'm telling you true, what I really want is caffeinated milk, that's what to do. Man, I love skim milk, and if it were wired, I'd be racing around just like a cow siren yelling, "MoooOOOoooOOOoooOOOoooOOOoooOOO!!!"

    • Visit the Korova Milkbar [phinnweb.org] for your supply of Moloko Vellocet [wikipedia.org].

      It seems to me that the addition of pharmaceutical grade caffeine to food items that ordinarily have none is one step down the slippery slope toward its eventual demonization and illegality. I am surprised it didn't happen a lot sooner, considering that cola drinks are likewise "spiked" unnecessarily. I have to imagine this is an historical artifact of the Coca-Cola switch from cocaine to caffeine. The dangers are not so overt, so it was ignored fo
  • What is so new about that? Just go and visit your grandma and ask her for some her delicious coffee cake...
  • I'm guessing that many people don't know that coffee is a common ingredient in pumpernickel bread [bread-maker.net]

    Maybe they should have asked a baker, instead of a scientist?

  • Double breve and two caffeinated doughnuts.
  • If adopted by these large companies, it will be a liability morass.

    They are going to add an addictive stimulant into cheap, unhealthy
    food, and then sell it to the public? Sounds just peachy. Cha-CHING!

    This idea makes the fast food and the tobacco industry look a lot less evil.

    Have people gone completely insane?

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