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Has Daylight Saving Time messed with your bedtime? Or perhaps the tumbling stock market has you tossing and turning past lights-out. Or maybe, just maybe, you can't sleep because of that "decaf" you ordered at dinner.

A long-standing debate among the caffeine-wary is whether decaf served in restaurants is actually what it's billed to be—or is really a cup of the high-octane stuff? Are you among the wide-eyed skeptics? Read on.

Do-it-yourself caffeine detectors called D+caf Test Strips will tell you if your beverage is—or isn't—the real thing. Just stick one of the tiny strips into a spoonful of coffee or tea (sans any milk or sugar, which eliminates drinks like lattes and sodas) and you'll have your answer in less than a minute, according to Discover Testing, which makes the strips. If the line above "D" (decaf) on the strip is darker, you're good to go; if it's darker above the "C" (caffeine), beware—your drink probably contains more caf than you'd like.

All decaf tea and coffee contain a sprinkling of caffeine (less than a milligram per ounce), but these strips purport to alert drinkers if there are more than 20 mg in a six-ounce serving. For some perspective, a Starbucks "tall"  (12-ounce) decaf coffee contains about 20 milligrams of caffeine; its full-caf equivalent contains closer to 260 mg, according to the coffee purveyor's Web site. Discover Testing says that as many as a third of supposed decafs are phonies.

So how much will it cost you to sip in confidence? A box of 20 test strips will set you back $9.95 or just under 50 cents a cup. 

Image courtesy of zoonabar via Flickr

2 Comments

1. 1. Sharon McEachern 07:20 PM 3/12/09

   There's good reason to be concerned about consuming too much caffeine. Today almost no one knows just how much caffeine they actually consume every day. Why not? Because caffeine is in EVERYTHING! Beverage, food and pharmaceutical products have higher and higher concentrations of caffeine -- even chewing gum and potato chips! There's one energy drink that claims to have 1200 mgs of caffeine. Compare that to the 30 to 100 mg found in an average cup of coffee.
   
   As a result, caffeine intoxication is a serious problem. The nation's poison contro centers and hospital emergency rooms are seeing increasing numbers of people sick with coffee intoxication. More than half are under 18 years old.
   
   Ask an emergency room physician about it. They'll tell you that a symptom of caffeine intoxication is is nauseau, and then vomiting. Uncontrollable vomiting.The docs will also tell you that although hospitals have medication to stop symptoms of peopoe who overdose on other drugs, they do NOT have anty meds to stop vomiting due to caffeine. THERE IS NONE. And what happens to peoople who can't stop vomiting? They get really dehydrated -- not good -- and the following constant dry-heaves do no't help your blood pressure, your heart, etc.
   
   You just gotta stay aware. The Ethic Soup blog has a good series of concise, informative articles on caffeine at:
   
   http://www.ethicsoup.com/caffeine-the-worlds-most-popular-drug.html
   
   Then share the information and stay away from energy drinks in particular.
   
   Sharon McEachern

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2. 2. jeendee 01:05 PM 3/16/10

   It is true that there's no definite way of knowing how much caffeine you consume everyday. You can only be aware of how much you "think" you know you're taking. <A HREF="http://www.californiateahouse.com/Decaf/View-all-products.html">Decaf Tea</A>, unlike most people think, is not zero in caffeine. Although it has caffeine but not that much. One can only hope to regulate his caffeine intake and not eliminate it.

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