Costa Coffee - That's A Latte Sugar!

We find ourselves in the midst of a booming café culture in the UK and to cater for this trend, a staggering amount of coffee shops have popped up in recent years. This is not surprising considering we purchase over 45 million cups of coffee every day with 1 in 5 of us are making our trip to the coffee shop a daily occurrence.

With this many people making visits so regularly, does this relentless coffee consumption come at any cost to our health? Despite research claiming moderate consumption of caffeine to be perfectly safe or even beneficial to human health, many people still believe it to be the most harmful ingredient in their coffee. However it may surprise you to know that many items found on the menu of large coffee chains contain alarming amounts sugar which, unlike caffeine provides us with little to no nutritional value.

We thought it would be useful to collate a list of the worst culprits found on the menu of Costa Coffee – the largest coffee chain in the UK with over 2000 outlets. You will see how certain items can surpass or at least put a serious dent in your 30g daily sugar limit recommended to us by the NHS.

Top 5 hot drinks by sugar content (size medium): 1. Mocha Latte (38g)

2. Mocha (34.8g)

3. Chai Latte (28.5g)

4. Gingerbread Latte (26.1g) 5. Vanilla Latte (26.1g) Top 5 cool drinks by sugar content (size medium): 1. Raspberry and White Chocolate Creamy Cooler (69.7g)

2. Caramel Fudge Creamy Cooler (68.6g)

3. Double Chocolate Cookie Mocha Cooler (65.7g)

4. Strawberry and Cream Creamy Cooler (58.8g)

5. Belgian Chocolate Creamy Cooler (57.6g) If you were to order one of the above in large or ‘massimo’ size, you will find yourself consuming excessive amounts of sugar. So much so that certain drinks on the Costa menu are not available in large due to the sheer volume of sugar customers would be consuming in one sitting. The large hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows however, has not yet been axed from the menu. This drink contains a massive 72.9g of sugar - nearly two and half times the recommended daily limit!

Now that’s taking the biscuit…

Unfortunately, drinks are not the only culprits responsible for soaring past your daily sugar allowance. The temptation of the cakes, traybakes and muffins whilst waiting in the queue is sometimes too much. Perhaps our list of the top 5 most sugar-filled treats can help you resist:

1. Layered Carrot Cake (56.9g)

2. Salted Caramel Muffin (49.7g)

3. Fruity Caramel Crispie Bites (45.1g) 4. Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffin (39.6g) 5. Cherry Bakewell Tart (39.1g)

A quick fix…

Costa Coffee is aware that the calorific content of some of their products is very high. As a result, they have intentions of offering healthier alternatives to each of their drinks with added sugar by 2020. This would be a welcome addition to the menu of a coffee chain that aims to have 2,500 outlets in the UK by then.

In the meantime, there are a couple of steps you can take to start cutting back:

Share your treat with a friend Ask for sugar free syrup Opt for the primo size Stick to the plain Americano (1.9g sugar in a medium) Choose the sweetener ‘Stevia’ instead of granulated sugar