Cut down on coffee!

System

"A standard latte or cappuccino may be fairly harmless in the diet stakes, but some coffee drinks provide a lot more fat, sugar and kilojoules than you might realise." Choice Magazine

I'm a capuccino drinker and am starting to worry about how many kilojoules I'm consuming by having up to 4 whole milk coffee's a day...

I'm interested in how much fat, calories & kilojoules are acutally contained in the coffee (ie: a short black). Can anyone shed some light..?   ???

Reschsmooth

From a quick google search: Whole milk (1 cup) 8g 2% milk (1 cup) 5g 1% milk (1 cup) 2.5g Skim milk (1 cup) .5g Condensed milk (1/3 cup) 9g Half 'n half (1 tbs) 1.5g Heavy cream (1 tbs) 3g Light cream (1 tbs) 2.5g So, if you have, on average, half a cup of whole milk (frothed to be almost a cup) in a cappuccino or latte, you are possibly consuming 4 gms of fat. If you have 4, that would make 16 per day. If I recall, the maximum amount of fat an adult male should consume is around 40 gms per day? Then again, I probably have no idea. But, the internet never lies! P

Lovey

G'day Paulie, I to did a search and came up with this website, www.calorieking.com In it I found that a double shot of espresso, ie 60ml contains 10 calories (42 kj), 0 fat, 0 cholesterol, 0 sodium, 0 fibre, 0 sugar. It sounds like a very healthy drink, combine that with its magical 'stay awake powers', and you've got the ideal diet food. Steve.

Unknown

Awesome!  I think I'll be switching to something short.. Cheers for the info.   I did a few searches too and ended up looking up all sorts of things on www.food.com.au Very interesting!

Lovey

Aaahhh, the internet. Is there anything it can't do? ;D Steve.

Reschsmooth

It can't actually pour the double shot?  8)

avitephen

Doesn

mattyj

nah, I heard that Vista is going to pull the doubles. unless I missed the service pack 2 pulling doubles. ha ha.

One-a-day

Hi One of the current healthy live long shows thats on the box had a bit of a diet short cuts segments and one suggestion was going skim instead of full cream in coffee's to give you a instant work out free loss of 2.5kgs a year, I think it was based on 2 a day and it must have been worked out on milks fat stats.

tommy

you could always switch to a weak decaf light soy hot mocca - with hot water on the side. I hear thats pretty good for you  ;D

One-a-day

and a couple of tablespoons of "Chai" flavoured quick or "Choc/Strawberry/caramel/bannana chai" topping to get a refreshing unique taste and don't forget to use chai equal or splendor sweetner in that :P

tommy

btw whats espresso? is it still served in cafes?

Bon

lol @ Tommy. I cannot see how an espresso would be bad - it's merely the seeds/nuts in a fruit crushed up with water run though it to extract the oils.. might have some protein? You hear of an ECA (ephedrine, caffeine, and aspirin) stack being used in the states a lot to help promote fat/weight loss. The primary cause is due to the ephedrine since it boosts metabolism, while caffeine and aspirin maintain the thermogeneic effect. I wonder if taking caffine after eating a meal that contains protein (creates a thermogenic effect), or post exercise would help to maintain the effect? It'd be nice if I could be a lazy, coffee drinking slob and manage my weight with coffee/caffeine... but, I think I'll have to actually get off my ass and have a couple of espressos before exercise for a boost instead.

mattyj

I think George Gregan once admitted to to taking caffiene boosts before big games, in the form of no-doze tablets ... It's considered legal in terms of the anti-doping laws in sport. I guess that's how the Italians won the Soccer world cup - diving practise and plenty of espresso!

askthecoffeeguy

I've been know to drink six double ristretto coffees in a day - ahh... the joys of parenthood. I find the more coffee I drink, the less milk I need! ACG

gregbyday

Here is an interesting artical on the health benifits of coffee http://www.webmd.com/content/Article/80/96454.htm Just need to watch your sugar intake and milk is very good for you

askthecoffeeguy

hmm... whilst I am glad to hear about the heath-giving properties of coffee, I would have to take issue with milk as a provider of sustenance. Its my belief that any substance (coffee included) which has been treated with pesticides, herbicides, and / or hormones - can not also be beneficial for human consumption. It may be too soon to say, as relatively speaking we have only been consuming these poisons and toxins for a short period of time. But for my money at least I am certain that there is a positive correlation between increased incidences of asthma and degenerative disorders, because of all the crap we consume on a daily basis. Anyway, that's just what I think. Anyone want to disagree with me? ACG PS - I had seven double ristrettos last Thursday, just for the record, and I feel all the better for it!

gregbyday

I will change that to milk is good for me then. I have a low body fat % and watch what I eat, you could even say fanatical. But I always consume full cream milk.

askthecoffeeguy

well... at work, so do I, but at home, its organic full cream all the way! ACG

taz

Easy solution. Keep drinking the coffee and do some exercise.

Bon

I believe the benefits are there for athletic performance & endurance when caffeine is consumed prior to working out. ACG, it's probably likely that organic products are much better for you.. but, I don't think it's of major health concern, I think a bigger issue is people's acidic-based nutrition which are lacking in fresh fruit & vegies to give them an alkaline balance.

askthecoffeeguy

I  I think a bigger issue is people's acidic-based nutrition which are lacking in fresh fruit & vegies to give them an alkaline balance.

I agree, the health giving properties of nutrition often seems to be an afterthought in the scheme of things, instead of a primary motivational factor. ACG

mimmo124

I read that the AIS (Australian Institute of Sport) was doing some research into caffine and fat metabolism. Apparently caffine ingestion before a workout makes your body metabolise stored fat cells for energy generation rather than using up glycogen stores in your muscles as the primary energy source. I am not a sports scientist so I can't tell you exactly how it works but as others have said, "it was on the internet so it must be true" ;-) Mimmo

askthecoffeeguy

I can tell you that I cycle 50km to work and back ea day and that a short double espresso before heading home is like rocket fuel!~ ACG

mimmo124

Caffeine and Athletic Performance Despite considerable research in this area, the role of caffeine as a performance enhancing drug is still controversial. Some of the data are conflicting, which is in part due to how the experimental studies were designed and what methods were used. However, there is general agreement in a few areas: Caffeine does not appear to benefit short term, high intensity exercise (eg. sprinting) Caffeine can enhance performance in endurance sports. Glycogen is the principal fuel for muscles and exhaustion occurs when it is depleted. A secondary fuel, which is much more abundant, is fat. As long as there is still glycogen available, working muscles can utilize fat. Caffeine mobilizes fat stores and encourages working muscles to use fat as a fuel. This delays the depletion of muscle glycogen and allows for a prolongation of exercise. The critical time period in glycogen sparing appears to occur during the first 15 minutes of exercise, where caffeine has been shown to decrease glycogen utilization by as much as 50%. Glycogen saved at the beginning is thus available during the later stages of exercise. Although the exact method by which caffeine does this is still unclear, caffeine caused sparing in all of the human studies where muscle glycogen levels were measured. The effect on performance, which was observed in most experimental studies, was that subjects were able to exercise longer until exhaustion occurred.

http://www.rice.edu/~jenky/sports/caffeine.html Then I found this...

Caffeine is a substance that binds to a part of the cell and enables fat to leave the cell more easily and spare glycogen (the main muscle energy source). It is hypothesized that fat will be metabolized much faster if you have some caffeine and then go exercise. However, this works ONLY when the person who is tested does not use caffeine on a regular basis. These rare people are called ?caffeine blind,? the 85% of Americans who do consume some form of caffeine (such as coffee, soda, tea, and products like Red Bull) are not going to see benefits.

So take from this what you may. I tend to think that espresso consumption has many health benefits on its own, seperate from the caffine side of the drink. of course only if consumed in moderation.....for me 2-3 a day. Mimmo

nzroaster

Organics???? I hope you realise that Organic does not equal un-sprayed/tampered. Every green bean imported into Australia is sprayed with pestacide. Organic certification can still be obtained due to certain substances being organic, this does not mean they are any better or less harmful than non-organic. Look into it and see what passes as organics, it is very shocking!!!

askthecoffeeguy

yes but surely there are their different grades, just as there are for all types of coffee... ACG