Coffee could soon carry cancer warnings on packaging

A bitter legal “brew-ha-ha” that could roil the coffee world has kicked off in Los Angeles.

Starbucks and a host of other coffee sellers are fighting a lawsuit that alleges roasted coffee beans contain low levels of a carcinogen — and therefore coffee products sold in California, from lattes to packaged beans, should carry Surgeon General-like warnings.

A bench trial on the 7-year-old suit kicked off on Tuesday.

A little-known public interest group, the Council for Education and Research on Toxics, or CERT, sued roughly 70 companies, claiming the state’s Proposition 65, which requires warning labels on anything that contains materials that cause cancer, should apply to coffee.

Roasted coffee beans contain low levels of acrylamide, a carcinogen, CERT claims in court papers.

The coffee industry argues that the trace amounts of acrylamide found in coffee are too insignificant to cause a health risk — and foods such as toast, cereals, roasted asparagus and baby food all contain the chemical.

In July, the results of a study published by the American College of Physicians showed that coffee drinkers had a lower risk of death from a number of deadly diseases.

CERT lawyer Raphael Metzger argued in court this week that the benefits of coffee are “just a bunch of hypotheses” and that Californians have been exposed to “really high levels of a carcinogen” by drinking coffee, according to Law360.

Others say that this suit and similar ones are being pushed by increasingly aggressive lawyers.

Prop 65 has resulted in warning labels in a host of unlikely places, including parking garages.

CERT doesn’t have a Web site and shares the same address as the Metzger Law Group, of Long Beach, Calif., which filed the suit. The firm did not return a call for comment.

Slapping warning labels on coffee would result in a “feeding frenzy for the plaintiffs bar,” Joe DeRupo, a National Coffee Association spokesman, told The Post.