Drinking coffee is a lifestyle for many people. You’re not alone if you’re one of those whose day feels incomplete without a cup of caffeine after breakfast. Coffee has significant health benefits — but only if you keep it black, which most people don’t. Instead, they overwhelm their cups with syrups, sauces and whipped cream, increasing their sugar levels to inordinately high levels. If you want to reap the full benefits of coffee, curb the carbs and sugars on your favorite beverage. Here are a few tips for reducing your carb and sugar intake when drinking sweetened coffee drinks.
1. Order Your Coffee Sugar-Free
Losing weight isn’t about just analyzing your food. It’s just as important to look at what you’re drinking as well. You might be cutting down on carbs from your meals, but it’s ineffective if your coffee and beverages are full of them. Plain coffee has nearly zero carbs, so it’s easy on the stomach, even if you drink it several times a day. What loads a cup with carbs is the sugar you add to it.
The easiest way to ditch the carbs is to get your latte or cappuccino without sugar. Sugar, starches and fiber make up all the carbohydrates. If you’ve been ordering extra sweet coffee or buying canned sugary options, you’re filling your body with carbs you must work hard at the gym to burn. If you can’t make the immediate transition to sugar-free coffee, you can at the very least ask your barista to reduce the amount of sugar in your favorite drink.
2. Substitute With Alternative Sweeteners
If you dislike the taste of black coffee and find it just to bitter, fret not. There are a number of healthy alternative sweeteners available.
These are different from natural sweeteners, like maple or honey. Although honey is natural, it’s still packed with carbs — a tablespoon contains 17 grams, so it’s not the best substitute for those looking to lower their carb intake.
Stevia and monk fruit are popular plant-derived artificial sweeteners with low or zero carbs, making them ideal choices for coffee lovers who want to cut down on sugar. They’re classified as novel sweeteners, along with tagatose and allulose.
Tagatose and allulose are rare sugars found in small quantities in apples, citrus fruits, wheat, figs and raisins, which explains why coffee shops don’t regularly use them. They make your coffee sweet but without the carbs.
Doctors also often recommend novel sweeteners for people with diabetes or problems with glucose levels. They can drink their coffee without elevating their sugar levels.
Related Article: The Ketogenic Diet and My Journey to Cutting Down Carbs
3. Make It Non-Dairy
If you can’t drink black coffee, replace whole-fat cream milk with non-dairy almond or coconut milk. Cow’s milk has vitamins and minerals but is also dense with carbs and fat. A cup of whole milk has 11.5 grams of carbs, while a low-fat cup has 13 grams. It doesn’t seem much, but if you drink coffee three or four times daily, the carbs can add up and make you full.
Here are some other dairy milk replacements to look for:
- Oat
- Flaxseed
- Rice
- Cashew
- Hemp
- Coconut
When picking your non-dairy milk, remember to carefully read the label. Not all products marketed as non-dairy are low-carb. Sometimes manufacturers add sugar, artificial flavors and synthetic vitamins. The irony is that many low-fat products will make you gain weight because they contain copius amounts of sugar.
If you open for plant-based milk product be sure to avoid products that include the following ingredients.
- Emulsifiers and gums like xanthan or guar gum
- Genetically modified oils like corn and canola
- Added sugar or cane
- Synthetic Vitamin D2
- Unnatural flavors and colors
- Carrageenan
4. Drink Flavored Coffees
Contrary to what many coffee-lovers may believe, black coffee doesn’t have to be flavorless. In fact, that couldn’t be further than the truth. Drinking flavored black coffees are a great alternative for those looking to reduce their sugar intake.
The best flavored coffees will typically be naturally-flavored and are a delightful option for those seeking to reduce sugar intake without compromising on taste. By infusing the coffee with natural flavors like cinnamon, vanilla, or hazelnut, these brews offer a satisfyingly sweet and aromatic experience, sans the added sugars. These flavors are usually derived from real ingredients, making them an even healthier alternative to artificial sweeteners.
Below we’ve added a few of our top picks for the best flavored coffees in the industry.
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5. Skip the Whipped Cream and Extras
Vanilla, hazelnut and caramel make each cup taste like dessert. Yet, every pump of syrup or sauce in your coffee is chock-full of carbs. The white mocha sauce on your chocolate coffee or frappe contains 40 grams of calories.
A tall coffee drink typically gets three shots of syrup or sauce. That’s 120 grams for each cup, which is more than three times the carbs of an average slice of cheese pizza. If you drink two to three cups of coffee a day, the carbs will quickly rack up and go over the recommended daily value.
While whipped cream, syrups and sauces make your drink more sweet and enjoyable with every sip, think of all the unnecessary sugar that goes into your beverage. Skip them to lower your carb count and more efficiently reach your personal health goals.
6. Enhance Flavor With Keto Creamers
Giving up whipped cream and sauces doesn’t mean you can’t delight in candy-esque flavors in your coffee. The Keto diet has gained popularity over the years. It’s a low-carb and high-fat diet that supports people who want to lose weight.
If you have the same goal, keto coffee creamers provide an infusion of sweet and smooth flavor to balance the taste in your drink and reduce the carbs. It improves your coffee experience even without milk, whipped cream and flavors. Bear in mind, while these Keto creamers are low in carbs they are high in fat. Note: Those who are on the keto diet, are in a state of ketosis which means they naturally burn fat for energy instead of glucose (carbs).
Creamers that work on a low-carb diet are usually made of coconut, nut, almond and vanilla extracts. These options are often sugar-free, gluten-free, and have no additives or preservatives.
7. Downsize and Downgrade Your Coffee
Downsize your coffee so it has less milk and sugar. A 12-ounce tall latte will naturally have fewer carbs than a 20-ounce venti size. The larger the coffee, the more milk and sugar you’re getting, adding to the amount of carbs you consume. By simply downsizing, you snip out some of the carbs.
Another tip is to downgrade your drink. It means decreasing the pumps of syrups, sauces or toppings, and slowly reverting to the traditional latte or cappuccino until your tongue adjusts to the taste. The best thing about doing so is you save money from paying for add-ons that can spike your sugar levels.
8. Add More Ice
You can lower the carb count on iced drinks by simply plopping in more ice cubes instead of milk. You can try this with your iced coffee, frappe or seasonal blends. When additional benefit of using less milk is that it allows more of the refined flavors of the coffee to express themselves.
A latte recipe has a standard ratio of 1/3 espresso and 2/3 cold milk. At most coffee shops the default to preparing all beverages is using whole-fat milk, which multiplies your carbs and significantly masks the natural flavor of coffee. Personalize your drink for less more ice to cut down the milk content. You can still enjoy your frosty or iced treat in a carb-less way.
9. Customize for Long Shot Espresso
If you can request more ice on cold drinks, you can also customize your hot beverage for a lungo or long-shot espresso. Coffee machines have automatic settings, so the extraction time for espresso stops between 20–35 seconds, which is the standard brewing time.
Ristretto is a short shot, meaning the extraction time is less than 20 seconds. The espresso has higher brewing strength, less water and more caffeine per volume. Lungo or long shot is the opposite because it’s more diluted with water than a straight-up shot of espresso. It extracts liquid from the beans for more than 35 seconds, so the taste is more intense. It’s a cross between espresso and Americano. Since the brewing time is longer, it’s more bitter and has more caffeine per cup.
A long-shot espresso is a better base for hot beverages to lower the milk ratio that stacks up the carbs on classic coffee drinks. As mentioned in the previous section, less milk makes the flavor of coffee shine through. It’s a good trick if you want to remove excess carbs.
10. Make Your Coffee at Home
Crafting coffee at home is ideal for those interested in the fine art of brewing. You can control the amount of milk, sugar and flavorings to adjust the flavor to suit your taste. While coffee shops allow you to customize your latte or cappuccino, you might dislike the beanie flavor of soy in your coffee or the amount they put in. There’s nothing like being able to personally fine-tune your coffee to perfection from the comfort of your own home.
At home, you can play around with the flavors and milk options to achieve a brew best-suited for your flavor profile. You might love almond milk instead of soy and a vanilla keto creamer might taste best to you instead of the coconut creamer. It’s fun experimenting and combining various alternative sweeteners and plant-based milk choices to balance the drink’s flavor profile.
Related Article: Enjoyed Carb-free and Sugar-free Flavored Coffees
Lowering Carbs in Your Coffee: Final Thoughts
Coffee is a must-have drink for many. Unfortunately, what many don’t realize is that their perceived need for coffee may actually be more of a need for sugar. The reality is that sugar-loaded coffee drinks can be extremely unhealthy especially if drunk on a regular basis. If you want to switch to a healthy way of drinking the world’s favorite beverage, you have still have plenty of options as we’ve demonstrated in this article. It just requires a little adapting on your part along with a dose of discipline.
In summation, craft your coffee without sugar and start shedding those excess carbs. Otherwise, use stevia as a sweetener and opt for non-dairy milk. Skip the caramel sauce and other add-ons, and use keto creamer. Opt for a smaller size, and add more ice and coffee to trim down the milk ratio. Following all these tips will make you appreciate coffee more in a healthier manner.
Become friends with black coffee. I know it’s an acquired taste but over time it’s likely that your palate will be come more sensitive and refined, allowing you to appreciate even more all the delightfully subtle notes that coffee has to offer.
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