Giving up caffeine is a fool’s errand
Everyone is giving up something these days. Even before this week’s flood of new year’s resolutions, we’re in the age of subtraction as people shed vices like old skins. Cigarettes, alcohol – those villains have been booed off the stage by the newly health-conscious, whose accusing stare is now turning to a fresh culprit: caffeine. Like most sanitising trends, the anti-caffeine narrative is biggest across the pond. ‘Decaf desirability’ is ‘peaking’, the New York Times told us last month, as turmeric lattes, mushroom elixirs and chicory brews threaten to knock coffee off its perch. Over here, a Guardian podcast wonders if it’s ‘time to give up’ our ‘invisible addiction’ to caffeine,