As you suggest in the introduction, I have become very skeptical of nutrition science over the years. There are so many variables to control for, and they rely so much on self-reporting, that I just don't think the statistics are reliable. Also, there's a lot of political influence from the food industry that decides which studies get funded and published.

It's nice to find a like-minded person😀. I think that science will not soon make progress in this direction. Sometimes it amazes me that humanity is able to make such progress in electronics, but cannot research what should or should not be eaten😆.

I stopped drinking coffee for about 6 months

This is impressive. Most people are unable to change their habits.

I have the knee-jerk "kids shouldn't drink coffee" response, too, and I'm not sure what to think about that

I let my daughter taste it and luckily she didn't like it. Therefore, now this question may continue to remain a mystery for me.