Lattes And Their Effects On Our Health

The latte is a signature item at any café anywhere in America. Many people have made the latte a daily addition to their morning routine. This may leave some people wondering: just how healthy is a latte?

Lattes have a significant number of calories. However, these can be reduced by replacing the milk with low-fat substitutes like skim milk, unsweetened almond milk, or soy milk. You should also look into alternate sweeteners such as Stevia or honey.

If learning this is concerning, you may want to keep reading. In this article, we’ll go through how healthy coffee-based and tea-based lattes are, as well as which kinds of milk and sweeteners are the healthiest to use.

How Healthy are Coffee-Based Lattes?

Asian beautiful young business woman in white shirt drinking latte art heart coffee working on desk

This is mainly going to depend on what you put in your latte. Obviously, milk and sugar can be unhealthy in large amounts. Most of the calories in a latte come from the milk.

The coffee itself is the healthiest ingredient of the latte. Coffee surprisingly has several natural nutrients and antioxidants. However, the caffeine in your coffee has both pros and cons.

Pros

One of the most noticeable pros of drinking caffeine is that it raises your energy levels. This is the main reason that most people drink coffee, but it is not the only benefit of caffeine.

Some research suggests that consuming coffee regularly may decrease the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Caffeine is also linked to a lower risk of depression, as well as a lower risk of liver scarring and liver cancer in people with liver disease.

Cons

However, too much caffeine can cause problems as well. For instance, too much caffeine can overstimulate the brain and lead to confusion.

Caffeine is also very addictive, often leading to several withdrawal symptoms, including headaches and irritability. In addition, coffee itself is a very acidic drink, which can result in heartburn.

What About Tea-Based Lattes?

Tea-based lattes are generally seen as a healthier alternative to their coffee-based counterparts. The main difference between the two is their caffeine content. Tea, on average, has a lower caffeine content than coffee. This is often the determining factor between the two.

Those who desire less caffeine in their daily routine will likely prefer tea, while those who desire more caffeine will likely prefer coffee. This is especially true for the latte. Since a coffee-based latte uses a highly concentrated espresso shot, it generally has a high caffeine content.

On the other hand, tea-based lattes use regular tea, meaning that their caffeine content is significantly lower than coffee-based ones.

Health Benefits of Tea and Coffee

Regarding antioxidants, coffee and tea seem to protect against different things. For example, both coffee and tea may protect against heart disease and some forms of cancer.

However, coffee protects against Parkinson’s disease, type 2 diabetes, and liver cirrhosis. Tea, on the other hand, protects against cavities, kidney stones, and arthritis. You’ll need to weigh these pros in order to decide which of the two drinks is right for you.

Which Milks are the Healthiest for Lattes?

As we mentioned earlier, milk is the primary source of calories in a latte, but you can reduce calories based on what milk you use. Whole milk creates the best texture for your latte, but its high-fat content also creates a high-calorie content.

Switching your milk to a lower fat option like 1% or skim milk may make your latte taste slightly worse, but it will also significantly reduce the number of calories in your drink. This is especially important to think about if you drink a latte daily.

Dairy-Free

If you’re trying to avoid dairy, there are several dairy-free options that you can choose from. For example, there is both coconut milk and almond milk. These both cut the dairy out of regular milk and significantly cut the calorie content.

However, they also cut the protein content of regular milk, so if you’re trying to bulk up, you may want to avoid these. In that case, you may want to check out soy milk. Soy milk has no dairy, cuts the calories of regular milk, and contains a good amount of protein, making it a wonderful option.

Which are the Healthiest Sweeteners for Lattes?

Blogger with laptop drinking latte at table in cafe

There are several different types of sweeteners you can use in your lattes. It’s all down to preference. So now, let’s see which ones are the healthiest.

Sugar

Sugar is particularly unhealthy in large doses, and studies have shown that most Americans get much more sugar than they need. This is especially true in the world of coffee and tea.

One teaspoon of brown and white sugar will add 16 calories to your coffee. This is especially troubling when you realize that some people even prefer more than one teaspoon. Thankfully, there are many sugar substitutes out there that contain fewer calories.

Stevia

Stevia (on Amazon) is a trendy option as it contains zero calories. It is also much sweeter than sugar, so you will likely end up using less of it than you would sugar. However, Stevia is a processed product, which can make some people a little nervous. But Stevia is a plant-based processed product, so it is not entirely unnatural.

Honey

If processed sugars make you nervous, honey is a great natural sugar substitute. Using the same amount of honey as sugar would add more calories to your drink than if you had just used sugar.

Thankfully though, honey is much sweeter than sugar, meaning that you will end up using way less honey than you would use sugar. This results in the fact that adding honey to your latte can cut some of the calories you would’ve added with sugar.

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