Become a Low Carb Coffee Expert!
We could never give up our morning coffee, not forever anyway. Coffee has been shown to provide your body with tons of benefits as long as you keep it in moderation. If you find yourself stopping by your favorite coffee shop every morning, you may find those added grams of sugar adding up quickly. Here’s a sobering fact: a Starbucks White Chocolate Mocha Venti coffee has 18 TEASPOONS of sugar. Teaspoons, people. A third of all drinks tested by Action on Sugar contained more sugar than Coca Cola. There’s sugar hiding in your coffee and lots of it.
So what’s a new low carb-er to do? Well, you can always opt for making your coffee at home with real, un-artificially flavored coffee beans and lots of heavy cream. But if you wake up every morning looking forward to a hot cup of ready-made coffee at your coffee shop, there are ways you can help them make your coffee keto-friendly.
1. Choose Unflavored Coffee Beans
Go for the real coffee beans like arabica or robusta. These have their own natural flavors and subtleties that can be lost in artificially flavored coffee beans. You’ll soon start noticing flavors like nuts, chocolate, and even fruitiness. Experiment with different beans and soon you’ll find a blend that excites you!
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2. Skip the Milk
Milk is not low carb! It contains a relatively large amount of sugar (lactose). Whole milk is the lesser of the evils, containing a relatively higher amount of fat than skim and the 1 & 2%s. What you’re looking for is heavy cream. Heavy cream is low carb, high fat. It’s the cream collected off the top of milk when it’s left to separate (what’s left is skim milk, a.k.a. pretty much water). Heavy cream (or heavy whipping cream or whipping cream) is gold in the keto community. It’s delicious and adds a richness to your coffee that you won’t get from anything else. Ask for a splash of heavy cream in your coffee instead of milk or creamer. Anywhere from 1-4 tablespoons will do it. Careful, though, heavy cream is high in fat, so it’s high in calories. Make sure you don’t overdo it at 50 calories per tablespoon.
Try to make sure the barista is using heavy cream and not just half&half – which is half milk and half heavy cream. Better than using milk, but not as good as heavy cream.
3. Consider Sugar-Free Syrups
We’re not huge fans of putting sweetness in our coffee. We love the flavor that natural coffee takes on with the texture of heavy cream. But we understand new low carb-ers need to ease into this way of eating. If that means replacing their sugary drinks with sugar-free options to lessen the blow, then so be it. If you love your sweet fix in the morning, consider using sugar-free syrups that many coffee shops offer. Brands like Torani and Da Vinci’s can be found across the country and have lots of sugar-free flavors. Ask your barista to use a sugar-free syrup in your coffee. Most common sugar-free syrups are vanilla, caramel, and hazelnut. Some even have sugar free white chocolate and cinnamon dolce!
If your coffee shop doesn’t have syrups or you don’t use them, you can also opt for sugar-free substitutes like erythritol or stevia. Popular brands like Truvia, Pyure and Swerve, make great sugar substitutes and even come in handy, portable packets! If you can, avoid Splenda and Sweet&Low – they contain ingredients like sucralose, aspartame and dextrose (none of which are low carb friendly and can raise blood sugar as much as regular sugar itself).
4. Avoid “Pre-Made” Drinks & Their Ingredients
Generally, if you order a pre-made drink like a White Chocolate Mocha Frappucino, you’re getting a coffee mix base that comes delivered to the coffee shop in a box and cannot be replaced. Even if you ask for a sugar-free version, they will give you sugar-free syrup, but the base itself still has loads of sugar in it. Be wary of “sauces,” like caramel and chocolate, that get drizzled on top, those are not sugar-free. Even the whipped cream is sweetened – so watch out for that.
5. Stick to These Brews
Here are a couple of golden standards we find to be a pretty safe bet across most coffee shops:
- Americano with heavy cream – an American is simply your standard black cup of coffee. It’s a shot of espresso watered down with water to create a cup of black coffee. Add your desired amount of heavy cream and you’ve got your best option out there. Low in carbs and high in fat! You can choose this drink in hot or iced – it’s delicious either way.
- Cold Brew with heavy cream – if your coffee shop sells cold brew coffee, you’re in luck! Cold brew coffee is, many times, less bitter than regular drip coffee, which will lessen the need for sweetness. Try a cup and see for yourself!
- Coconut or Almond Milk Latte – if you love your lattes, try them with unsweetened coconut or almond milk. These milks are lower in sugar than the dairy milk usually used in lattes and will still give you that rich mouth-feel. You can also ask your barista to make a latte using half water, half cream – some will make a killer latte that way!
6. Be Your Own Barista!
The best choice of all is to do it yourself. You don’t need a fancy machine to make a delicious cup of coffee. If you’ve got a coffee machine or a Keurig, that’s awesome! But a simple choice can either be a moka pot, Turkish coffee pot or our personal favorite – a French press. Brew your coffee your favorite way and grab that heavy cream! You can purchase your own sugar-free syrups in loads of flavors for pretty cheap. Add in cinnamon, vanilla extract or cocoa powder to get really creative. Here are our favorite coffee brews we make every day:
NUTRITIONAL DISCLAIMER
The content on this website should not be taken as medical advice and you should ALWAYS consult with your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. We provide nutritional data for our recipes as a courtesy to our readers. We use Total Keto Diet app software to calculate the nutrition and we remove fiber and sugar alcohols, like erythritol, from the total carbohydrate count to get to the net carb count, as they do not affect your blood glucose levels. You should independently calculate nutritional information on your own and not rely on our data. The website or content herein is not intended to cure, prevent, diagnose or treat any disease. This website shall not be liable for adverse reactions or any other outcome resulting from the use of recipes or recommendations on the Website or actions you take as a result. Any action you take is strictly at your own risk.
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I work at Starbucks, and just wanted to add that you could absolutely get a frappuccino made with heavy whipping cream instead of milk. You can customize your dairy choice, base (creme, coffee, or lite -> sugar free), and whatever syrup or sweetener goes in it. Just avoid the whip because it is made with regular vanilla syrup.
Thanks for the tips!
So expresso frappe with heavy whipping cream instead of milk is keto healthy? Are there any other substitutes I need to add to it?
I’m a bit confused. On one hand, it sounds like you encourage Torani sugar free syrups on low carb & ketogenic diets. On the other hand, you caution against Splenda, saying it spikes BS just as regular sugar. Torani sugar free syrups are sweetened with Splenda. I know that spiking your BS can kick you out of ketosis. Can you please clarify? And if Torani is not a good option, are there any other sugar free syrups out there that are sweetened with Stevia instead? Thanks.
We tolerate a small amount of Splenda when it comes to certain recipes. However, many people still use it for baking (using it and consuming it in large quantities) which we advise against. If you’d like some natural syrups, Sukrin is the way to go! Their syrups are made of a plant fiber called isomaltooligosaccharide and it’s naturally sweet. Try them out 🙂
The problem with Splenda is not the sucralose (which doesn’t spike BS) but the bulking agent it’s made with: maltodextrin. I don’t know those American SF syrups but if they’re sweetened with sucralose and don’t contain maltodextrin you will be ok. 🙂
I use Keto Kreme to give me all the MCT oils and coconut butter, let messy than poring MCT oils and cutting grass feed butter in a cup. Wouldn’t know what to do without it
Good tip, we’ll look into that!
Where do you get keto kreme
Heavy cream is found in pretty much all supermarkets. It’s sometimes called Whipping Cream or Heavy Whipping Cream and comes in a milk carton (short or tall).
Thanks hon
Most of the whipping creams have *sugar…is it ok to use or i MUST find the one without?
Best to find one without! Many supermarkets have them next to the regular whipped cream. You can also make your own by whipping heavy cream with a bit of erythritol or stevia until fluffy 🙂
Let’s be sure to know the difference between whipped cream (dessert topping), and whipping cream (high fat dairy used to MAKE whipped cream).
“Keto Kreme” isn’t in reference to Whipping Cream. It’s a product name the person above was referring to. It can be found on Amazon, etc.
If you’re going Keto then you really shouldn’t worry about high-calories. Seriously, eat 3k a day of fat calories while staying keto and tell me if you gan weight. There’s been experiments on this by Taubes, with 5,800 a day. He gained less than 1/4 of what you’d gain with sugar cal.
Truvia is high in carbs!
Truvia should be a mixture of erythritol and stevia. Erythritol is a sugar alcohol that cannot be digested by the human body and therefore is usually not counted towards your carb count.
The truvia in packets is not. If you get a bag, however, Truvia is shady and calls it a “baking blend” that mixes erythritol, stevia, and actual sugar. That IS high in carbs. It almost fooled me! For large quantities, like baking, I use Z-sweet. But for coffee or tea, I keep truvia packets in my purse. 🙂