Campaigners have issued a new warning about the high levels of sugar in drinks sold in high street coffee chains.
Self-study activity:
Watch this short news report and answer the questions below.
1 What are some of the health problems sugar consumption can bring about?
2 How many teaspoons of sugar does a can of coke have?
3 What does '3' refer to when the Starbucks hot mulled fruit drink is mentioned?
4 Why does the man interviewed drink black coffee?
5 What advice are we given at the end?
For many of us the day doesn't properly begin until we've had our morning fix of coffee. Now analysis has shown that what we're drinking isn't just milk and caffeine but worrying levels of sugar.
These are hot drinks and they're very calorific as a result of the sugar content and will contribute to tooth decay, weight gain, particularly when you're not usually associating those products with that much calories and sugar.
As an example, a can of coke has an average of 9 teaspoons of sugar but that's nothing compared to a Caffe Nero's Caramelatte with 13 teaspoons of sugar. A Costa chai latte has 20 teaspoons of sugar but the worst offender was a Starbucks hot mulled fruit drink with 25 teaspoons of sugar, which is over 3 times the recommended daily intake.
The drinks with the highest levels of sugar were found to be flavoured coffee such as mochas and lattes, with many people not realising how much hidden sugar they are drinking.
I'm diabetic so I can't have that.
There are definitely a lot of sugars, I know, in coffee generally. That's why I drink black coffee.
Well, I had a caramel machiatto, so there was plenty more than that in my drink that I chose for myself but it's not something that I frequently have, so it was something that was a treat.
It's a burnt caramel latte so it's probably got even more than that. Love it. Love sugar.
Costa and Starbucks say that they are committed to reducing sugar content, but the advice is to choose hot drinks with less sugar and make it an occasional treat.
