Most Delicious Poison: The Story of Nature's Toxins—From Spices to Vices

by Noah Whiteman

Blue and violet flowers tend to be bee-pollinated, while orange and red flowers—colors bees can’t see well—are often bird-pollinated because most birds can see red well. Orange and red are private color “channels” that plants evolved to advertise to their “subscribers” of a feathered variety.

In the United Kingdom, people generally drink coffee that contains low to modest levels of cafestol and kahweol (filtered coffee, instant coffee, or espresso). A UK study followed 171,616 people from 2009 to 2018 to determine whether drinking coffee was associated with reduced risk of death, and if so, by how much. In general, those who drank coffee had a lower risk of death than those who did not, and this finding held for the risk of dying from cancer or cardiovascular disease.