Your favorite type of coffee and many coffee-flavored drinks may be sneaking tons of sugar and calories into your diet. Even if you’re working out and watching what you eat, a large coffee drink full of sugar, syrup pumps, chocolate, whipped cream, and other delicious ingredients can erase all of your hard work and even put you in a hole.
If you’re drinking black coffee, also sometimes called an Americano, then there’s not much to worry about. It’s very low in calories and has no sugar added. The calories start piling up, though, when other ingredients are mixed in.
Cappuccino is one of the most popular types of coffee.
Does cappuccino have sugar?
Most of the calories and other nutritional value of cappuccino comes from the steamed milk added to the drink. When you add milk, you’re putting low amounts of sugar into the drink.
It’s not the same as eating a candy bar, but for people who want to eliminate sugar or aim for a certain number of grams of sugar per day, then you should know that cappuccino does have sugar in it.
Let’s take a look at how much sugar is in a cappuccino. We’ll also go over what else is in there when you order one after dinner or at your favorite café.
How Much Sugar Is in Cappuccino?
A cappuccino involves adding milk to coffee. Almost all of the caloric value and sugar come from whatever type of milk you’re putting in your drink.
Certainly, if you drink whole milk, you will drink more calories, but even skim milk has about 12 grams of sugar in each cup. Something to note for people who think they are avoiding sugar completely by going for skim milk.
One thing to note as well is that many types of dairy milk alternatives, like almond milk or soy milk, are sweetened. If you want to avoid sugar, you need to confirm that the milk you are using or whatever your local barista adds to your drink is unsweetened.
Adding Sugar into Coffee
Of course, many people love their coffee drinks sweet. Black coffee has no sugar, but people typically don’t love to have it all the time. That’s why every café you walk into or any coffee counter at work has drawers or containers full of different types of sweeteners.
Adding sugar into your cappuccino increases the amount of sugar you are drinking and ups the total calorie count of your drink.
Whipped cream is also sometimes popular on top of a nice cappuccino, which increases the amount of sugar in the drink as well as total calories. There are things you can do to eliminate sugar. For example, try using alternative sweeteners like Splenda. This decreases the grams of sugar and calories in your cappuccino.
Other Cappuccino Nutritional Facts
What else is in that cappuccino you are drinking? Let’s take a look.
Again, these are numbers from your average normal-sized 12 fl oz cappuccino. Here’s what is inside:
- Sugar – 10-12g
- Protein – 8g
- Vitamin A – 8%
- Caffeine – 154 mg
- Calories – 120
- Calories from fat – 35
- Sodium – 100mg
So, as you can see, a cappuccino, while certainly not bad for you, does have calories and carbs that increase your sugar intake. It’s something to know if you are trying to stick to a strict diet. It is certainly helpful for people calorie counting or who have a daily cap on the number of grams of sugar they eat.
Cappuccino vs. Other Coffee Drinks
If you like milk in your coffee, you are often going to go back and forth on whether you want to drink a latte or a cappuccino. But what is the difference between the drinks when it comes to the amount of sugar in them?
Generally speaking, cappuccinos come with a lot of foam versus just added milk. It’s a very foamy drink. Lattes, on the other hand, have much more added milk because it is not foamy. A nice latte should taste creamy and smooth with perhaps a thin layer of steamed or foamy milk on top.
More milk, as you now know, means more calories and sugar. So, you can count on drinking more calories and sugar whenever you order a latte.
The same rules with lattes apply. The type of milk you add to your drink will affect your overall sugar intake. Adding sugar packets after you take the drink also adds to the total sugar count.
Cappuccinos are also quite a bit stronger than lattes because both drinks include one ounce of espresso before adding milk. When you have more foam and less milk added, you are drinking something stronger.
We’ve already covered this a bit, but drinks like Americanos and espressos are straight coffee. They don’t have any sugar in them because no milk or sweetener is added. Any whipped cream, heavy cream, foam, milk, etc., will add sugar depending on how much you add and what’s in the ingredients.
Making Coffee at Home Vs Buying From a Cafe
At the end of the day, the best way to know and control how much sugar is in your coffee is to make the drinks at home. You can buy unsweetened milk, certain kinds of sugar-free syrups, and do other things to limit how much sugar you’re taking in.
If you don’t have time just make sure that you tell your barista that you don’t want sugar in the drink when ordering. Learn more about different types of milk and how they affect your caloric intake as well as sugar levels, and go from there.
Most cafes are accustomed to detailed orders from customers, so they won’t mind if you’re covering all of your bases whenever you order a cappuccino at your local coffee shop.
To be safe, become a regular at your favorite café so your baristas will know what you want as soon as you set foot in the door.