Everybody loves a good debate to go with a good cup of joe.
How is French Press Coffee Different?
Let’s start at the beginning. Unless you’re drinking Turkish coffee, you don’t want any grounds in your coffee. They taste bad and feel worse.
There are many ways of keeping the grounds out of your coffee. The simplest: letting the grounds settle and pouring very carefully.
Most coffee styles use some sort of filter for the job. Paper filters are the norm for drip and pourover coffee, while other methods like espresso, percolator, Moka pot, and French press use a metal filter. In either case, the filter removes the coffee grounds from your finished drink, but there are small differences.
So, Is Coffee, Or French Press Coffee Bad For Me?
Coffee contains over a thousand chemical compounds, and some of these are trapped by a paper filter, but not by a metal one.
The key compounds cited by the Harvard Health article that started this controversy are cafestol and kahweol. Both are diterpenes that are removed much more thoroughly by paper filters than by metal ones.
Now, stick with me here, a study measured the concentration of cafestol in French press coffee at around 300 times that in paper-filtered drip coffee. The metal filter does remove a bit of cafestol, but not much compared to boiled coffee.
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Bottom-line About Press coffee And Your Health
The effects on consuming cafestol and kahweol are indirect, pushing on your body’s systems in such a way as to increase your LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels. High levels of these are linked with increased risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Here’s where it get’s interesting. The key question is, how big of an increase? Five cups of French press coffee a day increases LDL cholesterol levels by about 7 mg/dL and triglyceride levels by about 11 mg/dL.
These aren’t big numbers – the optimal range for LDL cholesterol is 100-129 mg/dL – but they’re not nothing. That number is easily enough to push your LDL from good to borderline high or from borderline high to undesirable. The triglyceride increase is less troubling, but still worth noting, especially if you already have problems with your triglyceride levels.
According to Dr. Eric Rimm, epidemiology professor at Harvard School of Public Health, “five to eight cups a day of unfiltered coffee may actually raise your ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol.” French press has not been linked to an increase in cancer risk or other dangerous illnesses. That said, Dr. Rimm suggests you keep an eye on your cholesterol levels, more specifically LDL. He also says you shouldn’t have more than four cups of unfiltered coffee per day, and five filtered cups per day.
What Can You Do To Protect Your Health?
If you’re already having problems with your cholesterol, cutting out French press coffee might be a good idea. Make sure you switch to a method with a paper filter – switching to a Moka pot won’t help you. Don’t overdo the espresso either.
If you want to take some small precautions, start by not overdoing things. The figures above are based on consuming five cups (that’s tiny 4 fluid ounce/120 mL cups, not actual 8 fluid ounce cups or that oil drum you call a mug) a day. If you’re drinking a ton of French press coffee, consider mixing it up with paper-filtered preparations like a pourover.
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Conclusion
I started researching this article assuming that the answer to the question, “Is French press coffee bad for you?” would be no. I was getting there, and about to say that it was fine unless you were drinking it by the gallon, but then the note that the study referred to 4 ounce cups floored me. My answer now is that french press coffee is a bit bad for you.
My French press is 750 mL, or about 6¼ of those mini-cups, and that puts me right in the risk zone. My cholesterol levels are not that bad, but not that good, so I’m going to be changing my routine. I’ll keep drinking French press coffee some days, but I’ll switch to using a pourover-style for others. I’ll also bring up my coffee consumption the next time I talk to my doctor, and I suggest that you do the same.
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this is very upsetting. i’d been drinking non-paper filter coffee for years, using through an espresso machine (doubles) or using a metal filter…both of which are adding to my cholestrol.
so i went back to organic unbleached paper filters to run my coffee through. i could tasted the difference…the coffee had a sweeter, much more mild tasted. i liked it better…for a couple of cups. but i’ve been having it for a few months now and hate it. it just doesn’t have the depth and fullness of non-paper filtered coffees. worse, i prefer the very light roasts.
and, yes, my cholesterol is not good…somewhere around 300.
but still, i just can’t stomach this mild coffee, castrated coffee no matter how long i let it brew or how many beans i use. i’m going back.
the only good in all of this is that much of my cholesterol level had been from my massive sweet tooth, so i’ve cut all that way down. also, i have about 1-3 cups of coffee a day, not a lot, but certainly not the mini-4oz cups. we must do what we must…so back i go to unfiltered coffee.
so i was sad to read this article, which basically bore out what i’d read elsewhere 🙁
Thank you for writing this article. It was very informative and answered my questions. I had done a search asking is “French press coffee bad for me” and your site came up. I’m glad it did, now I know about your site! I have learned a lot already. Again, Thank you!