CREAMED?
Maybe you only use plain coffee creamer at the office. Or perhaps you indulge in hazelnut, French vanilla or some other flavored coffee creamer.
Either way, you may not realize how much saturated fat, trans fat, sugar, or calories you are pouring into your mug. The nutrition labels are part of the problem...
- The serving size (one teaspoon) listed on coffee creamer containers is smaller than most people use. That is because it is designed to whiten a 6-ounce cup of coffee. That's a teacup. Most mugs hold 8-12 ounces.
By the time you consider large mugs, counting a heaping teaspoon as a flat teaspoon, topping off your cup with a little more coffee and adding a little more creamer to the mix, and... multiple cups of coffee throughout the day, you may be getting MUCH more from that creamer than you think. - Coffee creamer companies round off their numbers so they don't look bad. What this means is if a food has less than 0.5 grams of fat (trans, saturated, or total) per serving, labels can round the number to zero. But if that serving listed is small (one teaspoon is small) you could end up with enough fat to matter. You can't just multiply the fat numbers on the label by your servings because any number times zero equals zero.
When Nestle was contacted they said the unrounded number for a "flat" teaspoon was 0.27 grams of saturated fat. NOW you can do the math
So... if you use 2 tablespoons of coffee creamer in your 12 ounce mug of coffee, you are drinking 1.6 grams of saturated fat. And if you drink 3 mugs a day, or top off your coffee with more coffee and creamer three times, you are downing almost 5 grams of saturated fat-- a quarter of a day's worth. - Experts recommend as little trans fat as possible, and no more than 2 grams total each day. Also, no more than 20 grams of saturated + trans fats per day per 2000 cals. (So if you only eat 1500 cals daily then that is only 15 grams of these fats per day, 1000 cals is 10 grams per day, etc)
BEST CHOICES
Best choices have no partially hydrogenated oil (which means no trans fats) and no more than 0.6 grams of saturated fat per serving. These numbers may not match the numbers on the labels because the serving sizes have been increased.
| Liquid creamers and Half & Half (2 Tbs.) | cals | sat fat | trans fat | total fat |
| International Delight Fat Free | 60 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Land O' Lakes Half & Half, Fat Free | 20 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 0.3 |
| Silk Creamer | 30 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 0.5 |
| Milk--Fat Free, 1%, 2%, or Whole | 10-20 | 0-0.6 | 0.0 | 0-0.6 |
| Powdered creamers (1 Tbs.) | ||||
| No healthy choices | ||||