Healthy Recipe: Chilled Mocha Cafe au Lait

By Rachel F. Johnson

    Starting each day with coffee has been a ritual in my family for as long as I can remember. Each morning, my brothers and sisters and I were given warm bottles full of a sweet, sugary mixture of coffee and milk. Now, as we’ve gotten older, most of our taste buds have sophisticated and we enjoy plain black coffee; however, one thing that I don’t think my taste buds will ever get used to is the taste of cold black coffee! And, when us Louisianans wake up to summer temperatures of 95+, we probably don’t want to sit down to a steaming hot cup of Joe.  Still, I don’t want all of the added “empty” sugar and fat calories in most coffee shops’ iced specialties and I don’t like the “empty” feel of my wallet each time I pay for them! For this reason, I make my own a “healthified” and inexpensive iced coffee at home!

Ingredients:
1 cup Refrigerated Coffee
3-5 Ice Cubes
½ cup Skim Milk
1 Tbsp. Cane Syrup
1 Tbsp. Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
2 Tbsp. Whipped Cream

    Brew coffee as you typically would. I usually brew a pot right before I go to bed and simply place the freshly brewed coffee in the refrigerator to cool down overnight. The next morning, pour 1 cup cold coffee in a blender. Drop in 3-5 ice cubes – the more ice cubes you add, the more frothy it will become! Pour in the ½ cup skim milk, 1 Tbsp. cane syrup and 1 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder. Put the top on the blender and blend until all ingredients are combined! Pour into a glass and top with 2 Tbsp. of whipped cream, if desired. Place a straw in your homemade gourmet coffee and enjoy!

    As an added bonus, by using cane syrup instead of refined white sugar, we’re getting 6% of our daily value of Iron and 4% of our daily value of Calcium from the 1 Tbsp. of cane syrup alone! For this reason, I almost always choose to use syrups as sweeteners instead of white sugar because even though syrups do contain added sugar calories, they also provide a small source of nutrients, which white sugar does not. Hence the reason white sugar calories are known as “empty” calories.

    This entire 16 oz. drink contains only 142 Calories, 3 g of fat (1.5 g saturated fat & 0 g trans-fat), 15 mg cholesterol, 1 g fiber, 22 g sugar (12 g from milk, 15 g from syrup), 145 mg sodium, 415 mg potassium and 9 g of protein!

    Compare to leading coffee shops 16 oz. nutrition facts: 400 Calories, 15 g of fat (9 g saturated fat & 0 g trans-fat), 50 mg cholesterol, <1 g fiber, 60 g sugar, 230 mg sodium, potassium unknown and 5 g of protein.