Mold Toxins in Coffee: Why Organic Isn't Enough

Gary Brecka (0:00)

What if I told you that the thing you look forward to every single morning, your coffee could contain toxins produced by mold, and you'd have absolutely no idea. Coffee is a fruit. What we call the bean is actually the seed inside of a coffee cherry. That fruit gets picked, processed, dried, stored, put into bags, transported, stored again, and then it's roasted. And eventually it ends up in your kitchen. So you've got an agricultural product plus moisture, plus storage, plus time. What can grow under the wrong conditions? Mold. And certain molds produce toxins. Mold can leave behind toxins in coffee and your senses can't tell whether they're there. And then I found a number that just stopped me. 2024 Systemic Review looked at more than 3000 coffee samples. A toxin produced by mold called ochratoxin A was detected in 54.6% of them, more than half. And once I knew that, I couldn't unknow it. And eventually I realized the coffee I was looking for was the coffee I was going to have to create.

What if I told you that the thing you look forward to every single morning, your coffee could contain toxins produced by mold, and you'd have absolutely no idea. You wouldn't see it, you wouldn't smell it, you wouldn't even taste it. You'd wake up tomorrow, make your coffee exactly the same way you always do, take that first sip, and never think twice about it. I didn't either, and I've spent years telling people to test virtually everything that goes into their body. So how did I miss coffee? Let me tell you what happened. I've looked at thousands and thousands of people's labs, and I've had people sitting right across from me saying, Gary, I'm exhausted. I can't think clearly. I've got headaches. I wake up tired, more tired than I went to bed. I just feel like crap. There can be hundreds of reasons why somebody feels that way, but when someone's history of testing gives us a reason to investigate possible mold exposure, I want to find the source. So we start looking. Did you have water damage? A leak? What's happening with air conditioning? Is there something in your office? Where are you spending your time? What are you being exposed to over and over again? And then one day I realized something. Maybe we're asking the wrong question. We're asking, what are you breathing every day? But what about what are you drinking every day? And that's when I started looking at coffee. Here's something most people don't know. Coffee is a fruit. What we call the bean is actually the seed inside of a coffee cherry. That fruit gets picked, processed, dried, stored, put into bags, transported, stored again and then it's roasted. And eventually it ends up in your kitchen. So you've got an agricultural product plus moisture plus storage plus time. What can grow under the wrong conditions?

Mold. And certain molds produce toxins. Those toxins are called mycotoxins. Forget the word. Here's what matters. Mold can leave behind toxins in coffee and your senses can't tell whether they're there. That's what sent me into research. And then I found a number that just stopped me.

54.6%.

A 2024 systemic review looked at more than 3000 coffee samples. A toxin produced by mold called ochratoxin A was detected in 54.6% of them, more than half. I remember reading that and just thinking, wait a minute, I've been drinking coffee every morning for decades. Has anybody ever tested mine? I didn't know, so I went to my coffee, picked up the bag, turned it around, nothing. I could tell you where it came from, I could tell you the roast, I could tell you I was apparently supposed to taste chocolate and berries, but I couldn't tell you whether anybody had tested it for mold. That's when this became a problem for me.

So then I discovered mold wasn't the only thing I should be asking about. Let's talk about heavy metals. Here's something nobody else talks about when you talk about coffee. Some of the best coffee growing regions in the world are around volcanic areas. Why? Because the soil can be incredibly fertile, mineral rich, amazing for growing coffee. Which sounds great until you ask, what's actually in that soil? Because depending on the geology, soils can also naturally contain metals, lead, cadmium and arsenic. And coffee is a plant, it interacts with the soil that it grows in. So researchers have measured heavy metals in coffee at varying concentrations. That doesn't mean every cup of coffee contains dangerous levels. That's not my point. My point is, do you know what's in yours? Because I didn't. And here's the irony that really got me. I filter my water. A lot of you probably filter your water, and then take that perfectly filtered water every morning and pour it over coffee you've never tested. You're worried about the water, but what about the coffee? So now I'm standing in the kitchen looking at this bag completely differently. Mold testing, can't find it. Heavy metal testing, can't find it. Pesticides, didn't know. Glyphosate, didn't know. Nothing on the bag. But don't worry.