Newhouse News Service

It’s the caffeinated coffee conundrum: If you didn’t drink coffee, you’d sleep better and be more awake in the morning and wouldn’t need to drink coffee in the morning to be more awake.

At least that’s what caffeine experts and nutritionists say. They constantly remind us that caffeine is, as one put it, “the world’s most commonly used psychoactive drug.”

Nutritionists suggest that food, not a stimulant, provides a natural morning lift by firing up the metabolism.

“Food is fuel, you need fuel for energy,” said registered dietitian Marilyn F. Crosby of the Nutrition Forum in Syracuse, N.Y. “You can get that by eating breakfast – some cereal and fruit. You don’t have to have caffeine.”

But for many coffee junkies, the morning ritual is important: Arrive at work, turn on the computer, reach for the steaming cup of java.

For them, caffeine-free coffee alternatives may be the answer. These are coffeelike beverages made from grains, nuts, roots, natural sweeteners or other ingredients.

Coffee substitutes offer “a feeling of comfort that a warm drink gives,” said Caroline MacDougall, inventor of one such product, Teeccino, based in Santa Barbara, Calif.

MacDougall introduced Teeccino in 1995. Since then it’s been offered in health food stores nationwide and at www.teeccino.com.

It’s created the same way as coffee; ingredients are roasted and coarsely ground. But instead of coffee beans, Teeccino is made from carob, barley, chicory root, figs, dates, orange peel and almonds.

Although she calls it “herbal coffee,” MacDougall added that it’s richer and bolder than herbal tea. “It has that same full-bodied, roasted flavor” as regular coffee, she said. And drinkers prepare it the same way, in drip coffeemakers or French presses.

Soy Coffee also is brewed this way. It’s a New York-based coffee replacement made from roasted soybeans.

Spokesman Bill Aaronson said he hasn’t had regular coffee in years. “I wake up feeling good,” he said. “I like Soy Coffee because I can have it any time, day or night, and it won’t keep me up.”

Plus, Aaronson said, soy is high in protein and helps lower cholesterol, so Soy Coffee is actually a healthy drink. It’s sold at natural foods stores and online at www.soycoffee.com.

Truly adventurous coffee-substitute pioneers might try creating their own. Such recipes were popular during the Civil War, when coffee beans were scarce, particularly in the South.

Here’s a version published in several Southern newspapers in 1861. It’s attributed to one R.J. Dawson of Greensboro, Ga.:

“Take the common garden beet, wash it clean, cut it up into small pieces, twice the size of a grain of coffee; put into the coffee toaster or oven, and roast as you do your coffee – perfectly brown. Take care not to burn while toasting it. When sufficiently dry and hard, grind it in a clean mill, and take half a common sized coffee cup of the grounds and boil with one gallon water. Then settle with an egg, and send to the table, hot. Sweeten with very little sugar, and add good cream or milk.

“This coffee can be drank by children, with impunity” Dawson said, “and will not (in my judgment) either impair sight or nerves.”

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