Caffeinated

How Our Daily Habit Helps, Hurts, and Hooks Us

By: Murray Carpenter

Narrated by: Sean Pratt

The additive that flows under the radar

The most popular drug in America is a white powder. No, not that powder. This is caffeine in its most essential state. And Caffeinated reveals the little-known truth about this addictive, largely unregulated drug found in coffee, energy drinks, teas, colas, chocolate, and even pain relievers.

We’ll learn why caffeine has such a powerful effect on everything from boosting our mood to improving our athletic performance as well as how - and why - brands such as Coca-Cola have ducked regulatory efforts for decades. We learn the differences in the various ways caffeine is delivered to the body, how it is quietly used to reinforce our buying patterns, and how it can play a role in promoting surprising health problems like obesity and anxiety.

Drawing on the latest research, Caffeinated brings us the inside perspective at the additive that Salt Sugar Fat overlooked.

©2014 Murray Carpenter (P)2014 Gildan Media LLC

Critic reviews

"Caffeinated offers a fascinating, often disturbing look at America's favorite recreational drug. The book is another reminder that some people will do just about anything to make money--at the expense of our health." (Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation and Command and Control)

Informative! But we need a revised & updated edition!

The content was informative & helpful but in 2025 it seems we need an updated version--hopefully the publisher has that in the works.
With this type of information, one wonders what sort of opposition and pressure the author and publisher may have faced taking on this topic.
The author is at his best portraying facts & vignettes from his travels & encounters with corporations and regulators.
The reader has a fluid and soothing voice but his volume fluctuates a lot throughout the reading, perhaps for effect. I found myself rewinding a lot when listening through a speaker system in the car & noisy outdoor conditions.

Caffeine in all its myriad presentations

Caffeinated is a compendium of facts, interesting stories, and history about one of our favorite unregulated drugs - caffeine. Murray Carpenter writes about caffeine's physiologic effects (on adenosine receptors), why people metabolize caffeine at different rates (because of genetic predisposition, smoking, or other medications), and that there is no standard amount of caffeine in a cup of coffee or tea. He recounts his trips to Guatemalan coffee farms, Mexican cacao farms, and a synthetic caffeine factory in China. He covers caffeine research by the military, the beneficial and problematic aspects of caffeine use by athletes, and the many regulatory difficulties surrounding caffeine in foods, beverages, and supplements. The marketing of caffeine in sodas and energy drinks by “Big Beverage” is one of the most important sections of the book, sounding suspiciously like nicotine marketing by tobacco companies.

The exhaustive research presented in Caffeinated is both a strength and a weakness. I'm a person who loves to see a good argument supported by relevant data and details, but there were quite a few times that the numbers presented by Carpenter became simply overwhelming. I'm also a person that can admit that there are many mornings where the only thing that gets me out of bed is the lovely anticipation of my morning cup of tea and how good it's going to make me feel. Caffeinated doesn't judge whether my dependence on that cup of tea is good, bad, or otherwise, but it does make the reader think about caffeine - not just coffee, tea, or soda - in all its myriad presentations.

Interesting listen

Good information to consider. I don't think we've heard the whole story yet. More to come, I'm sure.