Caffeine: Red Bull is NOT the Root of All Evil . . . But Coffee Is

For my sins, I have the immeasurable fortune of being a licensed door supervisor. A couple of years back, this was known as being a doorman. Back in the more heady 80s, and before, people like me were known as 'bouncers'.

The bouncer, both in terms of the use of the word and the clichéd stereotype of the cauliflower-eared Neanderthal who hit first, then asked somebody else what the problem was, has been slowly phased out. The industry is now pretty tightly regulated. It's all about people skills now; the psychology of the profession. Crowd control, anger management, conflict resolution, and all that, delivered perhaps most succinctly in the observation that my attitude affects your attitude, which affects your behaviour, which affects my attitude, and so on.

Don't worry - you still get to hit people. As the great Dalton once observed: "Be nice. Until it's time to stop being nice."

Currently, I work in a charity-supported project that looks after people who have been made homeless by dependencies on things like drugs, and alcohol. Even sex. It's a halfway house where they try and get their generally miserable lives back on the right path. If they succeed, the charity helps them move into normal accomodation, and away they go.

Recently, I was privileged enough to be eavesdropping - I mean, I was right there - a conversation between a social worker and one of her clients. (I think that’s the right word - it might be 'case studies'.)

The social worker, female, late thirties, is of managerial level. The chap, nineteen, is a known junkie, and was looking particularly dishevelled, even for him.

This all took place in a kitchen. Her, seated. Him, standing. Me? Probably flexing or somesuch. I'm pretty sure I was near a mirror.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asked.

“Well,” he mumbled, “I’ve been up all night. I can’t sleep.”

She looked bemused. “Have you been taking anything?”

“Yeah,” he said, “I’ve had some white, some pot, some speed, a few tabs of Pro Plus and a can of Red Bull…”

“A can of Red Bull?” she said, aghast, now rising out of her chair, arms flung towards the good Lord for guidance, “That’s ten cups of coffee right there! No wonder you couldn’t sleep.”

Well, isn’t that interesting, I thought.

Putting aside that the Red Bull would be the very least of his worries - I mean, it’s your right, as it was that of the jaded social worker, to glaze over the chap's intake of cocaine, cannabis and amphetamines, I guess, but avoiding all that is of course the real ticket to the Land of Nod. A can of Red Bull is not, in any way, shape or form, the caffeine equivalent of ten cups of coffee.

In fact, it’s not even one cup.

There’s a lot of rubbish written about nutrition - a lot. Sure, it’s not an exact science and given that all of the Recommended Daily Allowances (RDA) and that are offered as a guide for an average person - and we’re all quite different, I can assure you - we can forgive them the odd error or exaggeration. But you can pretty much guarantee that whatever is the scare food of today will be the magical key to that awful word - wellbeing - in a decade from now.

Eggs, chocolate, wine, red meat, sweeteners, butter, bread, nuts and even fruit and vegetables: give it enough time, and all of these will go through the cycle of ‘great’ to ‘hate’ and back again. You watch: by 2017, doctors will be prescribing binge-drinking and STDs (gotta catch 'em all!) as a cure for cancer.

But for all the garbage that comes out of the mouths of the so-called experts, there’s none as fickle, or plain stupid, as folk. This, indeed, is why experts even exist in the first place. People will believe any old crap about nutrition, depending on how well it suits their purpose. Usually, these tidbits are picked up from casual conversation with other morons or from a skim-read of an article in a decent newspaper or from taking something in People magazine at face value.

Example: one time, I was down the gym, and I overheard two men talking about weight loss. "I can't understand it," said one to the other, "I've been on a really healthy diet for months now and I'm actually gaining weight."

"What are you eating?" said the other.

"Bread," said the first, "Lots and lots of bread. I mean, how healthy can you get?"

Right.

His stupidity does have a point, though; bread is, in and of itself, not unhealthy per se. But it is fattening, certainly in volume. A lot of people seem to very easily confuse the idea that what is generally accepted as healthy food is automatically going to make you lose weight. It doesn't work like that. Very, very few foods if eaten moderately are unhealthy, even stuff with a high-fat content like junk food. Conversely, nearly all foods can be problematic if consumed to a high-enough volume.

Which brings us back to the Red Bull and, specifically, caffeine. A normal-sized can of Red Bull has 80mg of caffeine. That’s a reasonable amount, especially compared to other standard soft drinks. Diet Coke comes in second with about 45mg. Dr. Pepper has 41; normal Pepsi about 37.5 and normal Coke about 34. (Why does Diet Coke have over 10mg more than regular? Taste. You’ve got to get it from somewhere when you’re dealing with almost zero calories.)

But all of this is chump-change compared to the glory of coffee. Eight ounces of proper coffee (drip or filter) - which is less than the standard 8.5oz can of Red Bull and 12oz (330ml) Diet Coke - has something between 100 to 175mg of sweet, sweet, glorious caffeine. Even a cup of instant Joe can have as much as 100mg. And, come on, you can feel it, too. Have a cup of good coffee and you’ll get the buzz quicker, and harder, than from a Red Bull. You know it, I know it, heck, everybody knows it. If they would go so far as to think about it.

Even tea, a drink which is really only for girls and the Chinese, can take on Red Bull and kick it firmly in the knackers. Eight ounces of standard British tea has about 60mg of caffeine, which is slightly less than the can of Red Bull. But given that most proper British folk have a mug of tea, the caffeine intake is probably closer to 90. Sure, it’s more volume than the one can of Red Bull, but that’s not the way the latter is advertised, is it?

No: Red Bull gives you wings, is what we're told. Whereas a nice mug of PG Tips is for just before bedtime.

Lies, lies, lies.

You’d almost be better off with the white and the speed.