A Nice Cuppa

In a world filled with fast food and not enough gyms it’s easy to see why America is considered the most overweight nation. And with the number of coffeehouses continuing to climb, many Americans can count on adding on a few more pounds. In an article on Yahoo!, Cheryl Koch, M.S., R.D. discusses just how significant coffee consumption can be to ones diet.

Plain, old-fashioned black coffee has no fat or calories. It’s, as Koch puts it, the “newer fancy coffee drinks” that can stack on the calories - up to 200 calories per cup. When ordering a regular cup of coffee, consumers can request artificial sweeteners and milk in place of cream, and in coffeehouses, bar drinks such as lattes and cappuccinos can be made with skim milk instead of whole to cut down on the fat and calories. While some people still take their coffee black and drink it because they enjoy the taste and aroma, many people go for the drinks that are basically dessert-in-a-cup. Those dessert-in-a-cup drinks are the ones that wreck our daily fat and calorie intake. For example, according to the Starbucks website, the 16 oz Javachip Frappaccino has 510 calories and 22 grams of fat.

You don’t have to give up your coffee, or even those dessert-in-a-cup drinks, just order them sensibly. Koch offers the following suggestions for enjoying coffee while still keeping it healthy -

Here’s how to enjoy coffee in your diet and keep the fat and calories to a minimum:

Ask for low-fat or skim milk
Skip the whipped cream
Avoid sweet syrups
Sweeten with artificial sweeteners