Holiday Drinks Remixed

By Nicole Stevenson
[Happy Holidays]
What simple changes can shave 200 calories off your favourite holiday hot chocolate?  Nicole Stevenson shows you how to reduce your liquid calories.
The holiday season is a time for indulgence.  Baking is a big part of the tradition, there are holiday pastries at all of your favourite haunts and your date book is more jam-packed with get-togethers than at any other time of year.  But what you may not notice are the fatty, high calorie, sugary drinks that are thrust upon you during the holiday season.  Between the traditional hot cocoas and the eggnog-based lattes, you’re likely sipping more calories than you’d like to recognize.

Caloric Coffees

Walk into your local coffee shop and it’s impossible to forget what season it is.  At what other time do the words “eggnog” and “latte” go together?  You may already know that the snowman sugar cookie is loaded with empty calories and you may already be avoiding the candy cane brownie, but are your drinks of choice just as bad?

A Starbucks Peppermint Mocha, for instance, seems a seasonally appropriate drink to sip while catching up with friends, but did you know that it contains 410 calories, 15 grams of fat and 54 grams of sugar?  The good news is that Starbucks will always adjust each beverage to each customer’s needs.  Order a tall instead of a grande, non-fat milk over 2% and skip the whip; you’ll save 190 calories, 13 grams of fat and 14 grams of sugar.

Or try a simpler café mocha a la Tim Horton’s, which is half hot chocolate and half coffee, and contains only 180 calories, 8 grams of fat and 23 grams of sugar.  But don’t think avoiding the fancy drinks will get you off scot-free—even a regular ol’ cup of joe can have a surprising effect on your waistline.  A medium double-double at Tim Horton’s has 75 calories, 3.5 grams of fat and 9 grams of sugar.  This doesn’t seem like much, but if it’s your second or third for the day, the numbers begin to add up.  Swap the cream for milk and use a sugar substitute, and you’ll save 51 calories, 2.5 grams of fat and 7 grams of sugar.  Plus you may actually be able to taste the coffee!

Holiday Hot Chocolates

The Starbucks Gingerbread Crème is a tasty Christmas treat, but if yours is a regular grande with whipped cream, you may not be aware that it contains 340 calories, 9 grams of fat and 39 grams of sugar.  And that peppermint hot chocolate?  This delicious but unhealthy holiday drink will cost you 440 calories, 16 grams of fat and an astounding 61 grams of sugar.  But don’t despair—like your coffee of choice, there are ways to cut it down.  Instead of having a grande, get a tall.  Instead of the standard 2% milk, choose skim.  Instead of whipped cream, top it with a few chocolate shavings or some cinnamon.  With these little changes, you’ll save 200 calories, 14 grams of fat and 15 grams of sugar.

If you can, have your visits at home and make your own hot chocolate.  You can mix chocolate syrup in with your skim milk or even mix a fat-free and/or sugar-free hot cocoa mix with some boiling water.  Instead of piling on the whipped cream, which may contain about 10% fat, opt for the traditional mini marshmallows, as you can have 10 at only 22 calories and 4 grams of sugar (that’s right, no fat!).

You could also choose from the ever-growing herbal tea selections at your favourite coffee shop.  Second Cup’s caramel rooibos tea is a light, sweet, nutty and caramel-flavoured delight that when taken plain is free from all of the things that will make you fat.
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