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Welcome to Part Two of my investigation into Nutrition Action’s rhetorical question, “Pour Better or Pour Worse?”  When we last met, I discussed some of the merits of different forms of caffeine delivery (short of intravenously . . .), and today I’ll put a dent into the milk, cream, dairy powder, sugar, etc. that are added to coffee and tea drinks to make them more appealing to sugar-shocked Americans.  Let’s dive right in, and hopefully we’ll be able to get back out from under all of the saturated fat!

It is not too difficult to make healthy choices at your local coffee house, provided that you know what to look for.  Before we get to the basic guidelines like avoiding whole milk and extra syrup flavors, here are some cold, hard facts about those creamy liquid delights (consider this a scare tactic):

How to Survive in Latte Land graphic

·        A Venti (24 oz.) Vanilla Bean Frappuccino® Blended Crème has as many calories as a Big Mac, almost as many grams of fat as a medium order of McDonald’s French Fries, and over five times as much sugar as a glazed donut from Dunkin Donuts.

·        A Venti (24 oz.) Java Chip Frappuccino® has 650 calories and nearly an entire day’s worth of saturated fat.  It’s like a cup of coffee, plus 11 creamers and 29 packets of sugar.

·        Adding a flavored syrup and whole milk to a Grande (16 oz.) adds 170 calories!

Everything is fine in moderation, but if your wouldn’t choose to eat at McDonald’s four times a week, why would you choose a Java Chip Frappuccino four times a week?  I can’t stress this enough, it is fine to enjoy a specialty coffee drink once in a while, just remember these tips to keep your coffee break from turning into a Big Mac break:

·        Substitute whole milk with non-fat milk or soy milk to save 50-100 calories and 4-5 grams of saturated fat.

·        Skip the whipped cream.  It adds about 120 calories and 7 grams of saturated fat to your drink!

·        Use no-cal, sugar free syrups over others which add about 70 calories to your drink.

Here’s what Nutrition Action has to say about Starbucks Frappuccinos®:

“The original Coffee Frappuccino Blended Coffee—which comes from a mix (mostly sugar, coffee, and milk) blended with ice and sans whipped cream—has only 260 calories and 2 grams of saturated fat in a grande.  Not too shabby.

. . . Shabby are all the other flavors which deliver 420 to 550 calories and about 10 grams of sat fat.”

Their experts recommend choosing a Frappuccino® Light instead of a Java Chip, but as a Frappuccino® lover myself I think that’s bad advice because Starbuck’s light version tastes horrible.  When I’m in the mood for a blended coffee, I go down to my local independent coffee house (where they make blended drinks with actual ingredients, rather than powder) and ask them to substitute the whole milk for non-fat or soy.  Some places use a dairy-based smoothie powder – to make their drinks creamy – which you can ask the barista to leave out in order to cut out sugar, carbs, and sometimes fat.  If I’m looking for a flavor punch, I bring my own banana or orange juice and ask the barista to blend that in too.  Orange zest is my favorite addition, but I know that's a bit too much to ask of you at 8 o'clock in the morning..

Furthermore, if you’re looking for something cold and icy, try one of Jamba Juice’s new all-fruit smoothies, or make your own with fresh produce.  Although fruit smoothies pack a lot of calories and sugar, they don’t fill you with empty calories from milk and refined sugar.  Instead, they provide nutrients that we should be getting from eating a balanced diet and natural fructose sugar that sticks with you for several hours (no sugar-high here!).  Thanks to decades of fad-diets, American common-sense now tells us that a non-fat sugar-free latte is healthier than a bowl of fruit (who the hell decided that fruit was bad for you?!), but the food pyramid still tells us to eat a variety of fruits and vegetables.  Can you imagine what the population might look like today if we all understood that we need to eat a diverse mix of unrefined produce and grains, rather than heavily-processed Weight Watchers products?

Cross-posted at Guerilla Health Education

The Nutrition Action Healthletter asked this important, albeit trite question in its June 2006 letter, and I have to say that I’ve been obsessed with it ever since. With Americans mindlessly drinking 21% of their daily calories (thanks to our capitalist friends at Coca Cola and Starbucks), one can’t help but be obsessed with the liquid Big Macs that tempt us 24/7, from the moment that saturated-fat-filled latte energizes our system to the 2am crash-out after a long night of Beer Pong.  Aside from what our mothers told us – to drink eight glasses of water a day and that drinking milk helps build strong bones – we have very little information about what we should drink, and even less about how to navigate through our many drink options.  Personally, I would be perfectly happy to leave behind the enormous world of beverages and settle for good-old H2O and a daily cup of coffee, but our choices just aren’t that simple anymore.  With that in mind, the information and advice that follows is an attempt to make sense of all of the options, in hopes of carving out some semblance of a healthy relationship to beverages.

Let us begin with caffeine, the only stimulant that it’s cool to be addicted to.  In the following days I’ll also touch on specialty coffee drinks (in other words, lattes, Java Chip Frappuccinos, etc.), but since caffeine spans beyond just coffee, it will be more simple to address caffeine’s merits alone.

Tea vs. Coffee: Let the battle begin!  When I order a straight-up triple espresso from my local barista, nine times out the person behind me says “you’re going to be up all night!”  Thanks, it’s 9 am and I don’t think these 230 mg. of caffeine are going to keep me up as long as your Venti drip coffee would (which packs around 415 mg.).  I say this not only to expose my own biases (something no “real expert” would do!), but also to point out the importance of serving size.  

• Espresso has garnered a bad caffeine rap.  In reality, because espresso is brewed so quickly, less caffeine (and more flavor!) is brewed into the cup.  As long as espresso drinkers restrict their intake to two or three shots per day, their caffeine intake will remain lower than that of a person who has 1-2 cups of drip coffee every day.  Espresso only becomes a poor drink choice when it comes with lots of whole milk and whipped cream.
• While a 16 oz. Rockstar is loaded with caffeine, just two cups of coffee (or a Starbucks Grande) far exceeds its energy drink opponents in caffeine content.
• A cup of black tea with made with two tea bags rivals drip coffee in caffeine content.
• If you’re looking for an energy jolt, restrict your caffeine intake to 300-400 mg per day.  
• For more information about how your favorite caffeinated-beverages stack up, check out Energy Fiend.

With that said, I would like to add one more disclaimer: the caffeine found in coffee, tea, chocolate, etc. have slightly different chemical compounds, and therefore impact people in different ways.  This is why some people can tolerate large amounts of a particular tea or coffee, but are sensitive to others.  This means that as well as serving size, it’s important for you to know what kinds of caffeine impact you negatively so that you can avoid them.  As well, energy drink manufacturers throw in other ingredients that work like or with caffeine.  Public Health “experts” and statisticians haven’t done much research on these ingredients (which is why they are still unregulated in energy drinks), but preliminary info indicates that they might have an impact on how our bodies process these super-caffeine sodas.

Next on “Pour Better or Pour Worse” . . . How to Survive in Latte-Land!

Cross-posted at Guerilla Health Education (Blogger)

Although any type of sexual activity with another person can put you at risk for contracting an STD or HIV, being sexually responsible means understanding your risks and how to reduce them. The most effective way to reduce the risks involved is to communicate with your partner. Here are some questions to ask one another before you hop in the sack!  Print your own copy and keep it with your condoms or by your nightstand; before engaging in any sexual activity, make sure that you and your partner have discussed each question!

Foreplay-Card