Coffee causes cancer. That is the warning coffee shops in California will have to post in highly visible places, after a David v. Goliath court battle in the state ended with a win for the little guy.
A small nonprofit organization, The Council for Education and Research on Toxics, went up against the powerful coffee industry, led by Starbucks Corp., over a chemical called acrylamide, which is produced during the bean roasting process. Acrylamide is a known carcinogen. Despite this, studies have shown that coffee actually lowers the risk of liver and uterine cancers and is not associated with a higher risk for breast, prostate or pancreatic cancer.