We all have grown a little fond of getting those famously frou frou drinks at the local coffee shop, or the local Starbucks. My boyfriend and I were just at a Starbucks in fact, and most of the people ahead of us in line were ordering things like macchiatos, vanilla infused coffees, lattes, mochas, and other various sugared and fatted up versions of straight, plain coffee. I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not a fan of plain old, boring coffee. Even when I drink it from a pot made at home, I have to load it with powdered creamer and sugars, making it appear white and taste as close to a dessert that I can.
Not good for you, I know, but there are definitely ways you can cut the calories in these caloric goodies, but fun to drink treats dramatically, and not feel as bad about your coffee treats. The first thing you want to worry about is cutting the fat. A lot of the calories in the heavier coffee drinks comes from them using very fatty heavy cream. If you replace that with skim milk or soy milk (although I personally think soy milk tastes awful in coffee), then you are instantly cutting out almost 2/3 of the fat calories and the fat grams are almost gone.
Another thing a lot of these coffee joints offer now are low calorie, sugar free flavor syrups. So instead of loading the sugar into your drink, you can actually create a nice, light sweet flavor without adding too many sugary calories and carbs to your drink, which we all know also leads to sugar crashes and pigging out later on in the day since your blood sugar becomes seriously destabilized by drinking these sugary sweet drinks.
If I had to pick though, I’d say that cutting the fat is the more important part, and I’m not a huge advocate of sugar substitutes, although I think using them in extreme moderation should be ok. I was listening to the radio the other day and one of Starbuck’s big competitors was advertising their new low cal frozen drink on the air, saying that they had a new indulgent twist on something that tastes bad but really isn’t, so a lot of these coffee shops are jumping on the bandwagon and realizing that people who are conscious of calorie intake don’t necessarily want to blow fourth a day’s calories on a silly coffee drink.
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