Unless you have your coffee black, sugar will be sneaking its way into your coffee one way or another. BUT, before you switch to peppermint tea, there are ways you can keep it to a minimum.
So, what can make coffee high in sugar? All those things we like to add – milk, straight-up sugar, sometimes chocolate powder and syrups.
Let’s take one of the most popular – the small flat white. Say if you’ve got 175mls of full cream dairy milk in it, that’s 8.4 grams of sugar or about 1.5 teaspoons.
And if you have a large or add sugar or syrups, it just goes up from there.
Estimates of sugar in coffee
Small Flat White/175 milk: 8.4g
Large Flat White/300ml milk: 14.4g
Iced latte/300ml milk: 14.4g
Iced vanilla latte/300ml milk: 24.4g
If you’re looking at this and thinking that’s too much sugar for me, here are some ways you can reduce it:
> Switch to black coffee. This may take some getting used do, but it’s worth giving a go. Your taste buds will adjust and once they do, you’ll benefit from removing all that sugar. You might also get to taste more flavours in your coffee that were hidden by milk and sugar.
> Of course, ditch the added sweeteners, such as straight-up sugar, syrups and chocolate powder. If you must, wean yourself off – but your taste buds will get used to it eventually.
> If you just can’t do without, consider other natural sweeteners, like monk fruit or dates.
> Reduce the amount of milk you have in your coffee.
> Switch to unsweetened plant-based milk.
Estimates of sugar per 100ml of milks
Full cream/blue dairy: 4.8g
Oat milk: 3.5g
Almond milk in a carton: 1.6g
Almond milk base: 0.2g
And that’s it!
