BEWARE THE COFFEE CHILLER
Summer treats have high fat and calorie counts
The Vancouver Province, summer 2002

Summer's finally showing signs of surfacing in B.C. - and that means more and more of us will be slurpin' down a couple of pieces of liquid pizza on a regular basis.

Slurping down pizza? Actually, it's slushy coffee drinks in a cup that we're flocking to buy. But the calorie and fat content in many of these cool treats is right up there with fast food. "People think these are like cold lattes, just a cup of coffee" says dietitian Leslie Beck. "But they're not. I tell my clients to get a small serving and count it as your dessert for the week."

Cold coffee drinks were introduced during the mid-1990s by various coffee companies, but this summer sales are expected to soar, with almost every coffee, doughnut or muffin shop carrying its own brand. Simple iced coffee or espresso on ice without milk or sugar - like its hot counterpart - has no fat or calories. It's the slushy, sweet, cold drinks with cream that range in content from a couple of hundred calories and two or three grams of fat to more than 400 calories and 20 plus grams of fat.

A big new seller, and one of the cheaper buys in the latest thirst- quenching fad, is Tim Horton's Iced Cappuccino.
The large-sized, 18-ounce drink, which sells for $2.89, has 457 calories and 23 grams of fat. That's 51 more calories and eight grams of fat than two pepperoni pizza slices from Domino's Pizza. To picture what 23 grams of ingested fat looks like, imagine eating six teaspoons of fat.

Some of the drinks can be made as "Iow-fat" or "skinny," using skim or one-per-cent milk, which dramatically decreases the fat and calorie count. It also decreases the attractiveness to customers, and coffee-shop employees say they're nowhere near as popular as their calorie-laden cousins.

The base ingredients of the high-fat drinks are cream, sugar and espresso. Optional flavouring syrups can be added that pack another couple of hundred calories and fat.

Every store from the traditional yuppie coffee giants Starbucks and Second Cup to the small muffin chains are reporting sky-high sales across Canada, but none will provide figures. "It's certainly true," the manager of a popular downtown Vancouver Starbucks said of the trend to iced - coffee drinks when the sun's shining. Said a Second Cup executive: "We've always had a strong summer business, but this phenomenon with our iced-coffee portfolio began about five years ago, and is getting better every year."

Province News Services 2002

Coffee concoctions: The calorie and fat facts
Here's how five of the most popular cold coffee treats stack up on the calorie and fat counter: