This article explains why you should avoid adding sugar to your coffee, and what to use instead.
Sugar is known to cause several chronic health problems like inflammation, diabetes, weight gain, and heart disease. Continuing to add sugar to your coffee won’t only ruin its taste, but can cause or worsen these health conditions.
Luckily for us, here are five awesome sugar alternatives that’ll help us kick our sugar habit and lead healthier lives, and you can use them as coffee sweetener alternatives.
Let’s dive in!
Why Should I Avoid Adding Sugar to My Coffee?
Table sugar is one-half glucose and one-half fructose. Fructose is in almost everything and it’s what makes sweet things taste sweet.
Adding this stuff to your coffee all the time can cause serious health problems. The most obvious being, it spikes your blood glucose levels which causes your pancreas to work hard to produce extra insulin. This often leads to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
Other health effects include migraines, mood swings, and chronic fatigue.
A less talked about way that sugar is killing you is by affecting immune function. Bacteria and yeast feed on sugar in your blood and if your blood is sugary, then bacteria and other organisms will build up. This weakens your defense against infection and diseases.
Obviously, this isn’t good.
So here are 5 substitutes for table sugar that are healthier and sweeter.
Coffee Sweetener Alternatives
1. Raw Honey
The keyword here is raw. If you’re using regular honey in your coffee, then you might as well use table sugar.
Regular honey has so many additives and preservatives mixed in, that it barely contains any honey in the final product.
But raw honey is exactly what it sounds like. It comes directly from the bee’s hive. It’s often cheaper than regular table sugar and sweeter, so you won’t need as much.
Raw honey also has a lower GI than table sugar so it doesn’t raise blood glucose levels as fast, which is great for diabetics and prediabetics.
If that wasn’t enough reason to start using raw honey in your coffee, raw honey contains several vitamins, enzymes, and antioxidants like;
- Zinc
- Copper
- Iron
- And calcium!
Sweeter coffee and stronger teeth? Count me in! You might be wondering, what is the sweetest coffee?
2. Xylitol
Xylitol is table sugar’s identical twin, minus the negative health effects.
It looks and tastes exactly like table sugar and if you were to add xylitol to one cup of joe and table sugar to another, it’ll be difficult to taste the difference.
Xylitol is also a great way to lose weight. It only contains 2.4 calories per gram, compared to table sugar’s 4 calories per gram.
It’s also a good alternative to sugar if you’re trying to cut out carbs. Xylitol is a sugar alcohol which technically is a carb, but since they don’t raise blood glucose levels, they don’t count as net carbs.
And lastly, my favorite benefit is improved dental health. Studies show that xylitol prevents tooth decay and gum disease. So you’re strengthen your teeth and gums by simply swapping out table sugar for xylitol, which tastes exactly the same.
Now let’s move onto my personal favorite.
3. Cocoa Powder
Who doesn’t love mocha? Coffee and cocoa are my two favorite things in the world. Not only is it tasty, but it’s healthy.
Cocoa is packed with theobromine which reduces chronic inflammation and your risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
Simply add 1 to 2 teaspoons to your coffee in the morning and prepare to experience pure ecstasy.
Also, cocoa contains important nutrients that most Americans are deficient in. These nutrients include;
- Selenium
- Phosphorus
- And potassium.
Flavanols are substances that have gained a lot of popularity for their cancer-protecting properties. And the good news is cocoa powder has more flavanols than any other food.
So you protecting your body against cancer and getting important vitamins and minerals, all while drinking that delicious mocha. What more can you ask for?
4. High Quality Maple Syrup
Avoid any brand of maple syrup that contains high-fructose corn syrup. Look for maple syrup in health stores as these won’t contain much high-fructose corn syrup, which is worse than regular table sugar.
But who knew that maple syrup doesn’t only taste amazing when paired with pancakes, but with your coffee as well.
Maple syrup’s biggest benefit comes from its unusually high zinc content. If you’re a man, you should love zinc because according to the book “Healing Foods”, zinc is responsible for increased testosterone, increased muscle mass, and it helps with the production of sex hormones in men and women.
I feel that maple syrup isn’t as sweet as table sugar, so you might need to add a little extra. But who cares? You’re getting that extra zinc!
5. Coconut Sugar
Coconut sugar is made from the sap of the flower buds from the coconut tree and it offers several health benefits.
If you’re suffering from diabetes, then avoid table sugar and opt for coconut sugar as it has a low GI. GI is the measurement of how food affects your blood glucose level and coconut sugar’s GI is 35 while regular table sugar is 65.
Coconut sugar contains the same amount of calories as table sugar, but its calories are packed full of nutrients like calcium, iron, and potassium. Table sugar doesn’t contain any nutrients and that’s why we call it empty calories.
The Final Word on 5 Coffee Sweetener Alternatives
Table sugar is a toxin that’s slowly killing us and by adding it to our cup of joe, we’re ruining the taste of our coffee while shorting our time on earth. But luckily there are several sugar substitutes to choose from that are healthier and tastier.
