“Every great food standard in American history was written in the ink of a scandal that never should have happened.”
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Before 1906, American meat packers did things that would make your stomach turn. Spoiled meat was repackaged. Diseased animals were processed. Labels said one thing while the product contained another. The industry had no standard. And so the industry did whatever it pleased.
Then Upton Sinclair published The Jungle. President Theodore Roosevelt read it. And within months, Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 — the foundational document of modern American food regulation.
The standard didn’t arrive because the industry chose to do better. It arrived because the industry had been caught doing worse. This is the pattern. This is always the pattern.
Consider the FDA’s Standards of Identity — the legal definitions that determine what can and cannot be called by a particular name. Today they seem obvious. But each one was fought for:
In every single case, the sequence was identical: profit motive exploits an undefined category — consumers are deceived — a legitimate producer suffers — a court or regulator steps in — a standard is born.
THE LACCSA STANDARD
The Low Acid Coffee Certification Standards Association is doing for low acid coffee what Lactaid did for lactose-free milk — forcing a definition into existence before the fraud becomes permanent. Read their mission →
When Lactaid first brought lactose-reduced milk to market, competitors quickly appeared with products that made the same claim — without the same results. Lactaid went to the FDA. They argued, essentially: if the term means nothing, then the product means nothing. A consumer who needs lactose-reduced milk and buys an imposter isn’t just deceived — they are harmed.
The FDA agreed. A standard was set. The category was protected.
Now replace “lactose-reduced” with “low acid coffee.” Replace Lactaid with Puroast. Replace the FDA with the court system. The argument is identical. The stakes are identical. The outcome should be identical.
As documented on Wikipedia’s Low-Acid Coffee page, the science behind true low acid coffee — peer-reviewed, university-validated, published — has existed since Dr. Taka Shibamoto’s landmark 2008 paper at UC Davis. Puroast contains 5X less acid and 5X more antioxidants than the average cup of coffee. That is not a claim. That is a fact with a citation.
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Future generations will look back at this moment in the low acid coffee category the same way we look back at the meatpacking industry of 1905. They will see a category that was ripe with potential — a real scientific discovery that could have changed the way millions of Americans consumed their most beloved beverage — and they will see how the bad actors moved in, diluted the promise, deceived the public, and nearly killed the category before it could grow.
And then they will see the standard that was set. And the company that fought for it.
Q: What was the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and why does it matter today?
Passed in response to Upton Sinclair’s exposé of the meatpacking industry, the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was the first federal law requiring truthful labeling of food products. It established the principle that consumers deserve to know what is in the products they buy — a principle directly applicable to today’s unregulated low acid coffee category.
Q: How does the Lactaid precedent apply to low acid coffee?
Lactaid successfully argued that the term “lactose-reduced” required a legal definition after competitors began making the same claim without delivering the same result. Puroast is making the identical argument for “low acid coffee” — that the label must mean something measurable, verifiable, and legally enforceable.
Q: Who is Dr. Taka Shibamoto and why does his research matter?
Dr. Takayuki Shibamoto is a researcher at UC Davis and one of the world’s leading coffee chemists. His landmark 2008 paper was the first peer-reviewed study confirming that Puroast’s roasting process genuinely transforms chlorogenic acids into phenolic antioxidant compounds — delivering 5X less acid and 5X more antioxidants than leading commercial coffees.
Q: What did the NC A&T 2024 study find?
Researchers at North Carolina A&T State University independently tested seven coffee brands all marketing themselves as low-acid. Six of the seven had equal or greater acidity than standard commercial coffee. Only Puroast delivered verified low-acid results — confirming that the category is rife with unsubstantiated claims.
Q: What would a federal standard for low acid coffee look like?
A federal standard would establish a minimum pH threshold (researchers point to 5.5), require independent third-party testing, mandate disclosure of how the low-acid claim is achieved (roasting vs. decaffeination vs. chemical treatment), and prohibit brands from using the term without meeting verified, measurable criteria.
The Coffee That Started the Standard
Shop Puroast — 5X Less Acid. University Verified.
Shop All Puroast Coffee →Sources: LACCSA | PubMed — Shibamoto 2008 | Low-Acid Coffee — Wikipedia | ACS Antioxidant Research | NC A&T Study 2024
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