Portion distortion: Coffee

How does a medium-serve barista cuppa compare with a coffee you’d make at home?

Size definitely counts when it comes to takeaway coffee. Choose a medium takeaway coffee and you get around one-third more volume than making a cup at home. Large takeaway coffees come in at around 460ml per serve, one-and-a-half times your homemade coffee.

Choosing a flat white means the volume is mainly milk with a little froth. More milk is the reason the takeaway coffee, at 346kJ per 400ml serve, weighs in at nearly four times the kilojoules of the instant coffee. While trim milk is a good source of both protein and calcium, the amount of energy in a takeaway coffee means you might want to think twice about how many you drink each day.

Make your choices count if you choose a takeaway coffee. Consider ordering a small coffee and making a point of specifying trim milk.

Make it yourself

1 teaspoon instant coffee, 250ml water, 50ml trim milk
300ml: 88kJ, 2.3g protein, 0.1g saturated fat, 2.5g sugars, 73mg calcium

vs

Buy on the go

Medium trim flat white
400ml: 346kJ, 8.4g protein, 0.3g saturated fat, 11.3g sugars, calcium not stated

Did you know?

• If you don’t choose trim milk, the medium flat white has 678kJ and 5.2g saturated fat.
• These coffees contain only natural milk sugars. Each flat teaspoon of granulated sugar adds 83kJ.