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? re: coffee & sweeten it


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Hi.  I usually drink a green tea (loose leaf) cup in the morning.  Before the whole30, if I work late at night and have to be up early in the morning, I like to order a Caramel Macchiato to wake me up a bit (this is every once in a blue moon).  I'm not a coffee drinker (the taste is too bitter for me - and sometimes the Caramel Macchiato is sometimes too strong for my taste buds) but I like the energy I get from it.

In the next week, I have a couple of late nights that I need to work and be up really early the next morning.  Would this be compliant:  ordering a blond coffee from Starbucks and adding homemade almond milk to it? Now, I make my batch of almond milk unsweetened.  If I need it to be sweet, I add a medjool date to it and sometimes a vanilla bean.  

 

I've read through the forum and most say to drink the coffee black, but I just can't stomach the taste.  But I need something a little stronger than my green tea.  So would it be ok to sweeten the almond milk and add it to the coffee?

 

thx

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The homemade almond milk is fine with the Starbucks coffee. The date is technically acceptable, but grinding up a date to sweeten your coffee borders on failing the spirit of a Whole30. 

 

We make allowances for sweetening dishes, but that is really meant for things like adding apple juice to apple cider when making quick pickles. The sweetness of the juice cuts the harshness of the vinegar to give you a pretty decent pickle. 

 

If you are drinking coffee occasionally as a caffeine injection, I guess the ground date is okay if that helps you get it down. Using coffee as a stimulant is not really in the spirit of a Whole30 either, but occasional use is not going to keep you from making progress. It would be a problem if you needed a stimulant to jack yourself up every day and if you used a date every day to make your coffee acceptable. 

 

So I am giving you a grudging, guarded okay. :)

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Thank you all so much for the advice and clarifying.  Usually the green tea does it for me (unsweetened of course) to perk me up in the morning.  Just those once in a blue moon late night work shifts that I have - the next morning is rough for me - I'm so not a morning person.

 

Espresso?  Does it taste like coffee?  Maybe I'll give that a try...

 

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Espresso?  Does it taste like coffee?  Maybe I'll give that a try...

 

Your caramel macchiato would be mostly milk, with a shot of espresso, and then whatever they use for caramel flavorings/sweetener. I think of it as concentrated coffee, but it only takes a little to get the caffeine content of a regular cup of coffee. Served straight, it comes in really cute little coffee cups (well, I don't know about at starbucks. At places that use actual ceramic cups, it's in really cute little coffee cups.)

 

I found I can tolerate unsweetened coffee blended with coconut milk, but I don't really like it, so I don't have it often, just when I really need the caffeine. For me, it seems it was never the coffee itself that I liked, just the milk and sugar.

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I drink only espresso or iced americano.  Can't stand american coffee.

 

Espresso is only as good as the one making it and in my experience, unless the coffee bar is owned by someone who appreciates good espresso (for example, native Europeans from a country that drinks espresso daily) it will not taste good unsweetened.  I have a nice Italian espresso machine at home and use Peet's Major Dickason's Blend.  It makes a gorgeous crema and is not overly bitter. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I gave up coffee years ago when I found it gave me heart palpitations.  Surprisingly, it was really easy.  Coffee is addictive!  I found once I gave it up, it didn't need it at all anymore.  Now, when I have a sleepy morning, one cup of decaf Earl Grey tea will be enough to give me that extra lift.  

 

Just saying...

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