By Lisa J. Gotto
Okay, so you love, love, love your coffee—most of us do. But if you are among the many who like it light and sweet, listen up! There are several seemingly innocuous ways you are ruining your must-have java infusion because you crave flavor or are trying to save a few calories.
Look at it this way; one plain 12-ounce cup of ewed coffee has just three calories. Once you start your lightening and sweetening ritual, however, that innocent cup of coffee becomes the delivery mechanism for chemicals and additives that have already been proven bad for us, like the corn syrup found in many dry processed creamers. And liquid creamers? Forget about it! Those are chock-full of processed ingredients. How about pouring a little vegetable or palm oil in your coffee? You wouldn’t really think of doing that, but yet you are when adding in either the regular or sugar-free versions of liquid creamer.
And what about those findings on artificial sweeteners? The news is not good. Incase you missed it, recent research conducted on the most popular type of artificial sweetener, Splenda, or sucralose, has found links to leukemia or blood cancer in mice. While Splenda disputes this claim, even before this finding the chemical process used to create this product has had many users questioning known side effects it has with the digestive system.
There are a few better options out there.
1
If you’re a flavor craver, start out with flavored coffee grounds instead of adding in flavor after.
2
How sweet it isn’t! It’s no secret that sugar, in all its forms including raw sugars, has no health benefits and is actually detrimental to our health in the long-term. So the trick here is to distract the taste buds by offering them alternatives. Love mochas? Add a couple dashes of organic cocoa to your coffee grounds and ew. Another flavor that’s easily added to coffee even after it has been ewed is cinnamon. Even nutmeg is catching on!
3
Moo! Try organic half and half if you need it super light. Health experts agree, stay away from “fat-free” half and half as the fat is taken out and substituted with corn syrup and thickeners. From a health perspective, it is better to consume dairy products in their full-fat form according to a study conducted at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
