The best and worst hot drinks

Hot drinks on cold days go down easy, but the wrong choices can be hard to burn off.

Hot chocolate

Choose: to make your own hot chocolate by using skim milk, cocoa powder and sweetener 391kJ per cup
Ditch: instant full-cream hot chocolate 1291–1750kJ

Coffee

Choose: filter coffee with a dash of skim or low fat milk 128–174kJ, or a skinny cappuccino 365kJ
Ditch: latté and cappuccino sachets 1790–2000kJ

Nutritious hot drinks

Choose: non-caffeinated herbal teas (including Rooibos) 9kJ
Ditch: Horlicks, Milo 1478–1750kJ

Creamers

Choose: skim milk or low-fat milk 365–520 kJ per cup
Ditch: all creamers 1926–2200kJ per sachet

Consider these teatime tips from dietitian Pippa Simpson from Anne Till and Associates:

• Non-caffeinated herbal teas without sugar have very few kilojoules and counts towards to your daily water intake. Rooibos is even better as it has the added benefits of anti-oxidants.
• Always choose skim milk rather than full cream – it has almost double the kilojoules. Skim milk has 365kJ and full-cream milk has 643kJ per cup (250ml).
• Avoid adding sugar to sweeten a drink – it’s an extra 130kJ per spoon of sugar. If you have two sugars and a dash of full cream milk in your hot drink, you’ll be adding up to 450kJ!
• Using honey or brown sugar to sweeten your drink isn’t better than using white sugar. There may be minimally more nutrients in honey but the amount of sugar and kilojoules per teaspoon is very similar.
• Always read the labels of instant drinks such as Milo, hot chocolate, Horlicks, and cappuccino sachets. Don’t be mislead by the phrases, “sugar free” or “fat free”.
• By reducing the fat content of a product, the sugar content is usually increased and vice versa. When reading a label, the sugar and fat content, and the kilojoule value should be considered.
• For a products to be considered “low in sugar” it should be < 5g sugar per 100g, and for a product to be considered “low in fat”, it should be < 3g fat per 100g.