Coffee is undeniably one of the most popular and beloved drinks around the world, and for many of us, it’s our single largest source of antioxidants. As coffee itself does have health benefits, sweetening it *too much* can turn something healthy into something harmful. Many of us coffee drinkers like to add a little kick of sweetness to our daily cup, since drinking it *completely black* isn’t everyone’s taste.
If you do sweeten your coffee daily, you not only have to do so in moderation (to avoid extra calories and other drawbacks) but also use a natural sweetener, since you probably know by now the lengthy list of dangerous effects a sugary diet can have on your health.
We asked health experts to recommend a natural, easy-to-find sweetener that you can add to your coffee without worrying about risks of obesity and diabetes that are directly linked to heavy sugar consumption.
Why Experts Recommend Stevia Over Sugar
Table sugar is ubiquitous— you can find it anywhere, and in anything. Many of us have a sweet tooth that we can still satisfy with stevia, a no-calorie, plant-based sweetener and sugar substitute that is made from the leaves of the stevia plant. Health and wellness expert, Dr. Rashmi Byakodi explains that stevia is often 100 to 300 times sweeter than table sugar, but it has no carbohydrates.
"It has been shown that both stevia and stevioside are safe when used as sweeteners," Byakodi says. "This is appropriate for diabetic and phenylketonuric patients, and also for obese individuals who wish to lose weight and to remove sucrose from their diet. They show no allergic reactions or toxicity." Byakodi also notes that stevia’s safety has been confirmed by recent studies, which demonstrated that steviol glycosides are not mutagenic, carcinogenic, or teratogenic, they do not cause toxicity.
Stevia in it's natural form, certified wellness coach Jacqueline Servantess notes, is a green herb that can be purchased dried and added to coffee, tea, and many other beverages and dishes. "It's literally zero calories and alternatively, can also be purchased in liquid extract form," says Servantess. "Once you have a quality stevia product, whether it's the literal dried herb or another product that processes it in a natural manner, you are pretty much set," she says. "You have a one hundred percent natural, zero calorie sweetener and you can feel that much better about cutting all those other things out of your healthy weight loss diet for once and for all."
Servantess of course, is referring to cutting sugar and sugary foods out of one's diet as much as possible, since they are associated with a myriad of health problems. When speaking about sweetening coffee with sugar daily, Servantess notes that "to make matters worse, sugar is addictive." And even worse again, she says "it is extremely connected with weight gain."
Overall, there are countless health problems associated with sugar, so removing it from your diet as much as possible will help you in the long run. If you are one of many who need sugar to sweeten their coffee every day, consider replacing it with a stevia sweetener, as these experts suggest (many popular kinds include grocery store-carrying brands like Truvia, NuNaturals, SweetLeaf, Stevia in the Raw, etc) and visit a dietitian, nutritionist or doctor for more information and healthy, non-sugar sweetener recommendations.
