It’s fall now and everybody is on pumpkin overload. It truly is a great time of year. The trees look beautiful the weather is gorgeous and folks are decorating their homes in a festive way which means, you guessed it, pumpkins everywhere! No doubt your favorite coffee stop has re-stocked their pumpkin spice flavored options, but what is the nutritional price tag on that cup of heaven you just have to have? Well, lets talk about it.
Lets talk about the sugar first. After all, this IS a sweet treat we are discussing. A standard pumpkin spice latte is going to yield about 50 grams of sugar. That’s comes out to 12 teaspoons. When you make coffee at home do you put 12 teaspoons of sugar in your mug? I hope not. If you were planning on adding your favorite scone or scrumptious little treat to your morning order you can go ahead and add to that sugar total. Over consumption of refined white sugar will trigger body to store the excess sugar as fat as well as increase your risk of insulin resistance and diabetes.
Here’s another bombshell for you. Given the caloric content of the typical pumpkin spice latte, even if you only limit yourself to one a day, you can say goodbye to about 20% of your daily caloric intake. Meaning, you’ve just drank 20% of your nutrition for the day without any actual nourishment being provided to your body.
