Creamer Is Evil! But I Found A Solution!

The title says it all.

I love coffee.

I love French Vanilla Creamer in my coffee.

French Vanilla Creamer, according to My Fitness Pal, is NOT a lovable addition to my coffee.

So last week, I was grocery shopping at Jewel.  I had just spent a little while talking to Coach Brandy about milk and how it too is evil, and she suggested milk alternatives.  I hate soy milk.  It's just nasty.  So I'm looking through the cooler and I what do I see but an almond milk coconut milk blend by Blue Diamond Almonds called Almond Breeze.

I was like "I like almonds.  I like coconut.  Let's try this!"

So I bought it.  It was $3.59 for 64 ounces (half gallon).  Not too terrible.

I tried it.  I love it.

It tastes great with the Chocolate Shakeology.  But, more importantly, it tastes great in my coffee too.  So, I can now have guilt-free coffee to break up the water, fruit juice, and V8 monotony.

This makes me a happy camper.

What makes me even happier is the nutritional information.  Now, apparently they have an unsweetened version, however, I tend to think that might be kinda gross, though I haven't tried it.  It isn't very thick, but it has a really great flavor to it.  Think ... Malibu Rum.  Kind of.

I have not yet tried it in any cereal-type application, so I can't tell you how it tastes in that regard, but it's great straight from the container too.  Yes, I drink milk straight from the carton.  I bought it, I can drink it however I want too.  But it does give my coffee that creaminess I was after, so it's alright in my book.

Now, let's take a look at "normal" milk.  I'm comparing it with 2% because I absolutely refuse to buy Skim Milk.  To me it tastes like watered down milk, and useless to boot.  You might as well be drinking that powdered milk that you can buy & mix with water.  Actually, since I've tried that too, the powdered milk tastes better than skim milk.

Here's a handy table I made to compare the two:

	Almond/Coconut Blend	2% Milk
Calories	60	130
Calories From Fat	25	45
Total Fat	3g	5g
Saturated Fat	1g	3g
Cholesterol	0mg	20mg
Sodium	125mg	130mg
Potassium	180mg	400mg
Total Carbohydrates	7g	12g
Dietary Fiber	1g	0g
Sugars	6g	12g
Protein	1g	8g
Vitamin A	10%	10%
Calcium	45%	30
Vitamin D	25%	25%
Phosphorus	2%	0%
Vitamin C	0%	4%
Iron	4%	0%
Vitamin E	50%	0%
Magnesium	4%	0%

So now I remember why I hate making tables in HTML.  This is as good as it's going to get, because I'm giving myself a headache.

As you can see from the gigantic table above, both offer some good and some not-so-good things, however overall, the blend is better.  And yes, this table was better than the pictures I took with my camera phone.  Sorry it's ginormous, and I'll try to figure out why it's adding extra line breaks where none should be at.

The whole point of this?  Guilt-Free Coffee!!!!  And no disapproving sounds from Brandy or huge calorie numbers when I plug in my 2 mugs of daily coffee (which tends to be one mug now-a-days ... /sadface).  So, give Almond Breeze by Blue Diamond Almonds a try if you haven't yet.  It's worth it for taste alone.  :)

If you tried a different brand, combination, or solo version of either the almond milk or coconut milk, I'd love to hear them!  I'm always up for trying new things.