Food for thought

I always knew I was missing something by not drinking coffee.

However, before I tell you what I'm missing, please be advised that what follows is for mature readers only (defined as "old enough to drink coffee"). It is not suitable for the faint of heart or stomach (defined as "still drinking hot chocolate"). So stop reading NOW if you would never, ever put something in your mouth that came out of a cat's behind. Oops! Sorry! Didn't mean to give it away!

What I'm missing, according to a recent news story, is an opportunity to drink, voluntarily, coffee that has been processed through a cat's digestive system. Yes. These particular beans go into one end of the kitty, come out the other end, and are then -- one hopes after a complex and well-regulated sanitization process -- made into the very expensive Kopi Luwak coffee.

How expensive? It starts at about $200 a pound.

And you thought a grande macchiato at Starbucks was expensive.

Now, before you rush out and buy some beans and stuff them down Fluffy's mouth in the hopes of building yourself a rich coffee empire, let me share some important facts. One -- and the reason for this is not mentioned in the article I read -- is that there is a particular cat used as the vehicle for making Kopi Luwak coffee. And no, it is not the Kopi Luwak cat. It goes by the name palm civet (loosely translated, "will eat just about anything"). Two, this cat is not roaming your neighborhood or waiting at your local pet store for you to adopt it. It lives in Southeast Asia. So, now that you are armed with these important facts, you can rush over to Asia to find some palm civets and start building your coffee empire.

What I'd like to know is, what else is in there with those coffee beans? Actually, never mind, I would not like to know. But how do they know they haven't inadvertently included, maybe, some cat hairs? Or even mouse hairs? You can never convince me that this stuff is sanitized enough to not make you sick. Not that anyone has ever claimed to get sick from it. But shoot, just the thought of it makes me want to -- well, never mind.

It should come as no surprise that this whole disturbing process originated in Asia. It's not enough that cats and dogs sometimes end up as meat there, now cats are being used as a cooking method. We can only hope that the next step is not to use a cat's or dog's posterior as an oven.

So excuse me while I pass on this exotic opportunity and head to the kitchen to make some good ol' fashioned hot chocolate. THAT, at least, is sanitary. Unless, of course, you count all the chemicals that could be in the water -- lead, chlorine....