Nutritional value in coffee, what's in your cup of coffee?



Among many of us, coffee is an important part of our diet. We prefer to drink this caffeine bomb in the morning for a big boost, to 'socialize' or to end a delicious meal.

There is a lot of talk about coffee being good for you and others saying it's bad for you, but this doesn't change our use... The demand for coffee is still increasing every year.

An important indicator to assess whether coffee fits well into your daily diet is to look at the nutritional value of coffee. What's in a bag of coffee beans?

It's all very good in terms of calories. 2 kilocalories per 250 ml of coffee. Provided you drink it without milk and sugar of course...

The nutritional value in coffee

Ever since the discovery of coffee, people have known that coffee has a particularly positive effect on your health, but what are the nutritional values?

One cup of coffee, without milk or sugar (250 g) contains 2.4 kilocalories, 0.3 grams of protein, 0 grams of carbohydrates and 0 grams of fat. Coffee is a source of potassium and magnesium.

The following nutritional value table is based on information provided by the USDA.

• Calories : 2.4
• Fat : 0g
• Sodium : 4.8mg
• Carbohydrates : 0g
• Fiber : 0g
• Sugars : 0g
• Protein : 0.3g
• Potassium : 118mg
• Magnesium : 7.2mg

source: USDAhttps://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/171890/nutrients 

Carbohydrates

A cup of black coffee, without added milk or sugar, contains no carbohydrates.

Fats

Black coffee also contains no fat, but adding milk or saturated fats, such as in 'bulletproof coffee', naturally changes this.

Protein

One cup of coffee contains a minimal amount of protein. Here too, when you add milk to your cup of coffee, this of course changes drastically.

Calories

Plain black coffee contains 2.4 kilocalories. But when you turn your coffee into a dessert by adding syrups, whipped cream, sugar, milk and other flavors, your 'healthy' cup of coffee can turn into a calorie bomb with up to 440 calories, choose wisely!

Read also: How many calories are in coffee?

Other elements in coffee

You now know how many calories, fats, carbohydrates and proteins are in your cup of coffee. But then the big question is: how does coffee fit into your diet, and what is the effect on your health? I explain these points below.

Caffeine

The most famous is, of course, caffeine. You will find about 40 mg of caffeine per 100 grams of brewed coffee.

This of course depends entirely on the type of coffee and the brewing method. If you start from the two most famous types of coffee, you are of course talking about Arabica and Robusta. Robusta often contains twice as much caffeine as Arabica.

In the Caffeine calculator you can see exactly how much caffeine you can have.

Also read: 100% Arabica, what exactly is this?

Coffee and your health

If you look at the table with the nutritional value per cup of coffee, you can say that coffee is quite a healthy drink. No sugars or extra fats.

In a healthy and balanced diet you can therefore easily have a few cups of coffee. In addition, coffee is also full of antioxidants that have an anti-inflammatory effect on the body.

Read also: 4 reasons why drinking coffee is healthy.

Weight loss

Caffeine has long been linked to weight loss through scientific studies that have shown this.

A 2019 meta-analysis measured the impact of caffeine on weight loss and found that consuming caffeine can help with weight loss and a decrease in BMI index.

For this you have to take a dose of 3mg / kg caffeine just before your workout. That is more than 2 cups of coffee for a 68 kg person to really get this effect.

The effect was mainly seen in people without a sporting history. So it's certainly not a significant advantage, but hey: it doesn't help, it doesn't hurt, right?

A little extra coffee and a little extra exercise is good for everyone :-)

source: Effect of acute caffeine intake on the fat oxidation rate during exercise: a systematic review and meta-analysis .

Also read: Coffee as a pre-workout, you have to try this!

type 2 diabetes

At Harvard University, they have done several studies into the relationship between coffee and the development of type 2 diabetes.

This study showed that people who increased their coffee intake over a period of 4 years were less likely to develop type 2 diabetes.

Drinking 1 cup of coffee more than normal reduced the risk of developing this disease by 11%.

Source: Harvard University

Good medicine for Alzheimer's

According to the Universities of South Florida and Miami, the caffeine component helps slow and in some cases even prevent Alzheimer's disease.

The people on whom this study was conducted were in the early stages of the disease. After 2 to 4 years, it turned out that none of the people who consumed a high level of caffeine daily at the start of the study had developed Alzheimer's.

The other group that had developed Alzheimer's had a low caffeine level at the start of the study. Unfortunately not significant, but very worthwhile and interesting for further research.

Source: Health.usf.edu

Other nutrients in coffee that boost your health

Coffee is packed with essential nutrients such as Vitamin B, Magnesium, Potassium and Folic acid.

By drinking two cups of coffee daily (250 ml per cup) you quickly get 25% of the daily recommended amount of Vitamin B2! Isn't this a nice bonus?

Source: Nutrition data

Antioxidants

We all need antioxidants to reduce inflammation and ward off disease. Did you know that coffee ranks 11th among products with the most antioxidants?

Although coffee ranks 11th, it is the most realistic form of intake of large amounts of these valuable antioxidants.

Various Norwegian and Finnish studies have already shown that people who drink coffee get 64% of their antioxidants from this magical drink.

This puts coffee a few places higher in the ranking of good sources of antioxidants.

Source: Healthline.com

Side effects of drinking (too much) coffee

For some, of course, it can't be finished, I'm secretly one of them. But there are certainly realistic side effects of drinking too much coffee. Some of these side effects are listed below.

People who drink more than six cups of coffee a day are exposed to an increased risk of:

• Diarrhea
• Insomnia
• Headache
• Heart rhythm disorders
• Nausea and vomiting
• Nervousness
• tinnitus
• Stomach cramps

Source: Shirlow MJ, Mathers CD. A study of caffeine consumption and symptoms; indigestion, palpitations, tremor, headache and insomnia .