Can Consumers Eat and Drink Healthily at Coffeehouses
As most consumers know, coffeehouses are not very good sources of nutrition for the health-conscious customer. Sure, if you stick to plain coffee or tea, you probably will not go too wrong. Both tea and coffee contain antioxidants that help your body resist various diseases and conditions. It is when you start adding substances such as sugar and half-and-half that fat, carbohydrates, and calories pile on. Even honey, which many people substitute for sugar as a healthy alternative, adds calories and carbohydrates to your beverages.
Starbucks is notorious for the calories in its coffee drinks, but it is not the only chain making high-calorie beverages. Even the smallest lattes at both Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and Peet’s Coffee and Tea are over 200 calories. However, Peet’s does offer a 12-ounce vanilla latte that has only 93 calories when made sugar-free with nonfat milk. Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf has a no-sugar-added caramel latte, but does not seem to offer it with nonfat milk.
However, most of the drinks available at any of these establishments and many others are very high in calories. Starbucks says it has sugar-free vanilla syrup, but gives no nutritional information on drinks made with it. In all, most of these beverages, depending on size and your choices, have half the calories of a meal. This is something you may want to think about if you are trying to count calories. Do you want to spend that much of your calorie-budget on a coffee drink?
Lattes and mochas are not the only high calorie consumables at coffee houses, of course. Most coffeehouses do not provide nutritional information on their baked goods, however, be assured even muffins are high in calories. A Starbucks bran muffin has 420 calories, 19 grams of fat, 45 mg. cholesterol, and 58 grams of carbohydrates. It does have six grams of fiber, but that is the limit of its healthy properties. The calories in a bran muffin and a Grande Vanilla Latte add up to more calories than a good meal.
Therefore, how do we indulge in the coffeehouse experience without developing larger waists, high cholesterol, and possibly Type 2 diabetes? The answer might be to find out whatever nutritional information you can beforehand by doing a little research. Many coffeehouses give nutritional information about their drinks on their websites or in flyers at their counters. When you are choosing foods, look for the packaged snacks that have nutrition labels on the bottom. Alternatively, you can ask a knowledgeable barista such as the one rapping in this video.
brewed on Apr 19th, 2010
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