Is French Press Coffee Bad for You?

What’s all this bad press surrounding the French press? Papers have been obsessed with kicking around the story of coffee being bad for you. In fact, news circulating about the French press suggests that it’s an unhealthy brewing method.

This slight hostility towards one of our favorite coffee styles stems from its inability to filter out the substance known as cafestol, which triggers the rise of LDL or bad cholesterol levels in our bodies. There is, of course, more to this story that we’ll be discussing today, so you’ll know for sure whether French press coffee is bad for you or not. 

What Sets the French Press Coffee Apart?

Unless we’re talking about Turkish brew, grounds aren’t welcome in your coffee. Not only can these minuscule deposits ruin the taste of your drink, but they can also ruin the overall feel of it.

There are quite a few ways to filter out the grounds from your coffee, among them is to let the grounds settle before pouring as carefully as possible.

More often than not, there is always some form of filter used for a particular coffee style. Paper filters, for instance, are what’s customary for drip and pour-over coffee. In contrast, mesh filters are the norm for methods like the Moka pot, espresso, percolator, and French press. While these filters all function to remove coffee grounds from your drink, they do have some slight differences.

Should You Steer Clear of French Press Coffee From Now On?

To answer this question, we’re going to have to get a bit sciencey. Coffee is known to contain more than a thousand chemical compounds; some are trapped by paper filters but not by metal ones. Among the compounds removed more thoroughly by a paper filter are cafestol and kahweol. Both have been proven to increase the risk of coronary heart disease.

Now, since the French press makes use of a filter made of metal instead of paper, it follows that the level of LDL-increasing compounds in its finished coffee is higher compared to drip or pour-over coffee—300 times more, to be exact.

While metal filters can still remove a certain amount of cafestol, it doesn’t even come close to the amount filtered out by the pour-over method. So, really, it seems unfair that people are singling out the French press method when there’s a range of other coffee styles that make use of metal filters. In fact, think of the others that don’t make use of any filter at all.

The reason why the coffee press is at the center of this “is coffee good or bad for you” debate is because of a viral post by an influential health blog.

Why Is There so Much Attention on the French Press?

The reason why French press coffee is at the center of this “is coffee good or bad for you” debate is because of a viral post by an influential health blog.

Why all this talk about the French press, when there’s a bigger name making use of a similar filter method?

We are talking about espresso, which has stayed out of the limelight so far because of this key difference. Espresso is consumed in small cups while French press coffee is consumed in large mugs. While you pretty much get the same concentration for both these styles, the small serving size of the espresso makes you ingest a reasonably small amount.

How Does French Press Coffee Affect Your Health?

The compounds kahweol and cafestol have indirect effects. They can push your systems to produce higher levels of bad cholesterol and triglyceride. When this happens, your risk of getting strokes or heart attacks increases.

Here’s a clearer picture of how consuming French press coffee increases LDL levels:

Drinking five four-ounce cups of French press coffee per day can increase triglyceride levels by 11 mg/dL and bad cholesterol levels by 7 mg/dL. While these numbers aren’t something to go crazy over, they do serve as a warning.

Take note that these figures could easily push LDL levels from normal to borderline high or from borderline high to within the danger zone. The increase in your body’s triglyceride levels, while not as serious, must still be noted, particularly if they’ve been problematic to begin with. 

Protecting Your Health

If you’re already being plagued by cholesterol problems, it might be a good idea to ditch the French press. You can switch to paper filter methods instead, like the pour-over or drip methods. You can give the espresso a try too, but make sure not to overdo it.

If your problems with cholesterol aren’t too serious, you can start changing things up by not going overboard. Start by not consuming more than one four-ounce cup of French press coffee per day and adjusting the French press coffee ratio, so there is a lower concentration of LDL-increasing compounds in your drink.

Going for darker roast coffee is also a great option as it has lower cafestol levels. You can also try combining your French press coffee with paper-filtered styles like the pour-over. 

Final Thoughts

Unless your cholesterol problems are bordering on dangerous or beyond that level, then we wouldn’t go as far as to say the French press method is bad for you. However, it is worth pointing out that consuming more than one four-ounce cup of French press coffee daily may put you at the risk zone at some point in the future.

As such, you’ll want to switch things up and mix in some pour-over or drip styles for some days, go for a lower ratio of coffee to water, or opt for darker roast coffee to reduce the cafestol levels in your drink.