Coffee remains one of Americans' favorite daily rituals, but researchers say that a growing number of drinkers may be overlooking one ingredient that's quietly adding more calories to their morning cup. Researchers from the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University analyzed dietary data from 30,000 U.S. adults and found that while coffee consumption remained largely unchanged between 2003 and 2018, the calories associated with those beverages increased considerably.
According to the National Coffee Association, 66 percent of American adults drink coffee every day, consuming about three cups daily. The findings, published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, showed that average coffee intake held steady at around 13 ounces per day over the 15-year period. Meanwhile, calories consumed from coffee rose from 43 kcal per day to 60 kcal per day.
Rashmi Gajree, a U.K.-based registered nutritionist who was not involved in the study, told Newsweek that non-dairy creamers are not inherently bad for health in moderation, but their nutritional value depends on the ingredients they contain. To understand the change, researchers examined data from eight cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 2003 and 2018. They categorized coffee beverages and analyzed the ingredients being added to them.
The most common additions in 2018 were dairy milk, non-dairy creamer and sugar. However, one ingredient emerged as the biggest contributor to the increase in calories. Consumption of non-dairy additions rose from an average of 3.65 grams per day to 10.5 grams per day over the study period.
The largest increases were seen in non-dairy creamer and non-dairy milk. By 2018, non-dairy creamer contributed an estimated 18.5 calories per day to coffee intake, surpassing both sugar, which contributed 16 calories, and dairy milk, which contributed 11 calories. In comparison, non-dairy creamer contributed just 7.71 calories per day in 2003.
"We found that non-dairy creamer being added to coffee has now passed both sugar and dairy for its contribution to the total energy consumed from coffee. Non-dairy creamers can be high in saturated fat, which is calorie dense. This could explain the increased calories that non-dairy creamer is contributing," said Yongyi Pan, the study's lead author and a Ph.D. candidate at the Friedman School.
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