What Sugar Goes in Coffee? Milk Tea and Non-Dairy Creamer
What sugar goes in coffee is a small choice compared with what goes into milk tea. A Weibo user who drank about ten cups over roughly two weeks could no longer zip up usual jeans. Vendors often use non-dairy creamer instead of milk, and its trans fatty acids pose a cardiovascular risk, with fat and sugar driving the weight gain.
The concern extends beyond weight. A 29-year-old woman in Guangzhou was diagnosed with fulminant diabetes and admitted to the ICU, a case doctors tied to frequent milk tea drinking. What is coffee made out of, by contrast, is usually just roasted beans and water, so the extras added afterward decide most of the health impact.
Recently, the topic of milk tea causing rapid weight gain has once again sparked heated discussion. Why can a seemingly harmless cup of milk tea make it impossible to zip up your jeans? Some people have even been sent to the ICU because of long-term consumption. The sugar and fat in milk tea are the culprits behind weight gain, and some vendors use non-dairy creamer instead of milk, which contains trans fatty acids that pose an even greater threat to cardiovascular health. This article will start from actual cases, analyze the mechanisms by which milk tea causes weight gain, reveal the potential risks of non-dairy creamer, and provide practical advice for healthy drinking. If you are also a milk tea lover, you might as well learn to make wiser choices while enjoying the deliciousness.
#How fast does milk tea make people gain weight# This was one of the trending topics on Weibo last night.
The pinned Weibo post was a complaint from a netizen. Like many office workers today, this netizen had the habit of drinking milk tea, usually 4 to 5 cups a month. In September, due to greater pressure, the frequency of drinking milk tea increased quite a bit, averaging one cup every two days. After continuously drinking 10 cups of milk tea like this, the result was that jeans that usually fit loosely could no longer be zipped up! Although they knew milk tea causes weight gain, the netizen exclaimed: This is too exaggerated! It's like blowing up a balloon! Milk tea is delicious, but don't be greedy~
This inevitably reminds people of an August Weibo trending topic #29-year-old woman diagnosed with fulminant diabetes and admitted to ICU#. According to a report by The Paper, in Guangzhou, Guangdong, 29-year-old Ms. Lin experienced symptoms such as dry mouth, abdominal pain, and dizziness, and multiple organ failure, and was diagnosed with fulminant diabetes and admitted to the ICU. Doctors said this condition was related to the woman's unhealthy habit of frequently drinking milk tea.
Young people who rely on milk tea to keep going never expected to end up in the ICU because of a small cup of milk tea. So how does milk tea, which seems harmless and brings contemporary young people a wonderful experience, make people gain weight and even pose a life-threatening risk?
You should know that the reason milk tea is so irresistible is that the fat and sugar in it bring good flavor and mouthfeel. The large amount of sugar in milk tea activates the sweet taste receptors on the taste buds. The sweet taste receptors send signals to the brain, the corresponding areas are activated, and the reward mechanism is further triggered to secrete dopamine, making people feel excited and happy, and the more they drink, the happier they feel.
The Shanghai Consumer Council once published a related article stating that a cup of milk tea with normal sweetness generally contains about 35 grams of sugar, and some can even reach 50 grams. This figure has already reached the upper limit for added sugar set by the World Health Organization. But I believe you, in front of the screen, would not just drink a plain cup of milk tea, right? The rumor that "milk tea turns into porridge" is not false. Many people like to add all kinds of toppings to milk tea, such as pearls, boba, pudding, coconut jelly, and so on. How should the sugar in these toppings be counted? As we all know, sugar and fat are the culprits behind weight gain.
It is not just about making people gain weight. We have to admit that the current milk tea market is uneven in quality. Some milk tea shops use non-dairy creamer instead of milk to reduce costs, and excessive non-dairy creamer can affect human health. But this raw material, non-dairy creamer, is not hard to buy. A search on Taobao shows it everywhere.
Non-dairy creamer is also called "creamer." After searching, it is a new type of product mainly made from refined vegetable oil or hydrogenated vegetable oil, casein, and other ingredients. The main components of non-dairy creamer include hydrogenated vegetable oil, glucose syrup, sodium caseinate, and sodium aluminosilicate. Among these components, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil contains trans fatty acids.
The Sichuan Provincial Health Commission published an article in July 2020 titled [A Big Reveal of Milk Tea Ingredients: What Are the Harms of Long-Term Milk Tea Drinking?], which mentioned that the intake of trans fatty acids is positively correlated with the incidence of cardiovascular disease. At the same time, the Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents also recommends that the daily intake of trans fatty acids should not exceed 2 g. However, milk tea made with non-dairy creamer contains 0.5 g to 2.7 g of trans fatty acids per 300 ml, and some even as high as 6.2 g, far exceeding the standard.
After reading this, are you starting to hesitate about whether to drink milk tea in the future? Don't be afraid, you also need to know how to choose when drinking milk tea~ Here are the following suggestions:
Try to choose milk tea made with fresh milk.
If sweetness is optional, do not choose full sugar. Less sugar or no sugar is best.
Exercise more after drinking milk tea and reduce the intake of other energy sources.
As the saying goes: It's tasty, but don't be greedy~
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
