PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – A judge in California has ruled coffee companies must include a cancer warning label on their products. However, despite the judge’s decision, a coffee connoisseur in Rhode Island said Sunday you should just relax and enjoy your cup of joe.

Ben Gaul has been in the coffee industry for decades. The judge’s ruling this past week stems from a lawsuit saying the process of roasting coffee beans produces the chemical acrylamide, which, in extremely high doses, has been linked to cancer in mice.

Gaul says it’s impossible to drink enough coffee to have any adverse effects.

“You’d have to consume so much that it’d be impossible to consume that much,” says Gaul, the head roaster of the Coffee Exchange on Providence’s East Side. “We would have to have tens of thousands of times the dosage that we can get from a cup of coffee.”

That same compound is produced in many foods we eat every day, including grilled steak, French fries, and even roasted vegetables. 

“We have a long history of cooking our foods. Our bodies are used to consuming these and metabolizing these,” he adds.

So why the cancer disclaimer on coffee in California?

Gaul said the judge wasn’t necessarily wrong. “It just has to do with the way the law is written.”

That law, Proposition 65, was enacted in California in 1986. It requires warning labels for hundreds of compounds that are known to cause cancer.

So while your cup of coffee does contain acrylamide, experts agree that the level is so low, it’s harmless.

“This is not something to be worried about. It’s not something to be scared about,” says Gaul.

Though he does admit that — despite big strides in recent years — more research still needs to be done into coffee’s health benefits, as well as potential risks.

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