Since all coffee beans contain caffeine, the process to eliminate it from the beverage is, well, processing it. Beans will undergo a process using chemical solvents, primarily with methylene chloride to eliminate the caffeine and turn the drink into decaffeinated coffee.
This is becoming a problem, as methylene chloride is not the safest of ingredients. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is ringing the alarm over its dangers “It is a volatile, colorless liquid with a chloroform-like odor. Methylene chloride is used in various industrial processes, in many different industries including paint stripping, pharmaceutical manufacturing, paint remover manufacturing, and metal cleaning and degreasing.” So probably not something we would like to put in our body in large quantities.
OSHA has even gone as far as to declare it a likely carcinogen, which is where the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) comes in. The have been studying the substance to consider the health risk it poses and have decided to, along with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), ban it from most commercial application, especially food production…
lagradaonline.com/en/goodbye-decaf-coffee-us-prohibition-near/
Tess