Coffee

One food that is a bit of an unclear area to me is coffee.  I know some people are major big time coffee addicts.  You know the type.  "Don't talk to me until I've had my coffee!"  I am NOT this time of person.  I have never drank very much coffee.  It never was a part of my daily life.  This may seem odd, since I usually gravitate towards addictive and destructive foods.  But, for some reason, I never really got that attached to coffee.  My dad drank it every morning and during the evenings.  But I never did.

The really strange thing is that I love the flavor of coffee.  I adore the smell of coffee.  From when I was a little kid, one of my favorite ice cream types was coffee.  Breyer's coffee ice cream was the epitome of ice cream perfection.  I got waylaid by Ben & Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch for a while, but eventually went back to Breyer's.  (Until Publix introduced their Barnie's coffee - which was just as good as Breyer's and much less money.)  My mom used to make me coffee chocolate chip cookies.  I ate chocolate covered coffee beans.  I got jamocha shakes at Arby's.  I like mocha truffles.  If you got me something coffee flavored, there was a very good chance that I would like it.

So my lack of addiction to coffee itself is a bit of mystery.  I have tried to figure this out over the years.  I know that I don't like the bitterness that comes with coffee.  I like the flavor, but the bitterness pushed me away.  The only way I could get rid of it was to load it full of milk and sugar.  And that could be why I like coffee flavored things so much - they used the essence of coffee but loaded it with sugar and cream and chocolate.  As I got older and discovered other kinds of coffee, I liked some of them.  Things like cappuccinos, lattes, and mochas were very good - largely due to their cream/sugar content.  But, since I hadn't developed the coffee habit early on, I didn't adopt it later.

Another big problem is the fact that I live in Florida.  It is freaking hot here.  All. The. Time.  I don't find it very pleasant to be sitting in 95 degree heat, suffering through 95% humidity, and then pour boiling hot coffee down my throat.  During the milder winter months, it is a pleasant thing.  I love being out in the evening in December with a hot chocolate or coffee drink.  But, we are talking about a very small percent of the time that this can be pulled off.  It is a niche product.

So, when it comes to my current weight efforts, coffee was a non-player.  Soda?  Oh hecks yeah.  That was a big deal.  But coffee didn't even come into play.  I had to give up coffee ice cream, but can usually find coffee frozen yogurt somewhere if the urge strikes me.

So, why even bother with this post?  Well, it is actually because I have been wondering about adding coffee to my life.  Here's my conflicting thoughts on that idea.  First of all, when I gave up soda, I lost caffeine.  I don't have any caffeine any more.  That is good, I feel.  There is not really a good reason to try to add caffeine into my life now that I have kicked it.  So that has kept me from drinking coffee.  BUT, at the same time, with Gabers going to preschool now, we have to leave earlier and there are times when I am just dead tired.  It would be nice to have a caffeine option on those bad days.  I don't want to get into caffeine hardcore again, because I don't think it is good to do that.  BUT, Heather has said there are no studies that show a little caffeine is bad.  A responsible level of coffee consumption is not harmful.

Second, one of the flavors of the season I love is pumpkin.  Starbucks' pumpkin spice drinks are awesome.  I usually would get the pumpkin cream frappuccino, but those are just glorified milkshakes.  I have tried to stay away from the pumpkin flavored stuff since they usually come packaged in pastries or sugar laden drinks.  BUT, there are some ways to get that flavor profile in a (relatively) harmless manner.  Is that wrong?

The other day, we were driving back from Orlando.  Well, I was driving.  The kids were in the back doing their thing and Heather was studying/napping in the front seat.  I was exhausted from the weekend - driving, sick kids, 2am breathing treatments.  So we stopped at a gas station in Gainesville and I decided to get a coffee.  They had pumpkin spice cappuccinos - so I got one.  It had the steamed milk in it, and I added three splenda.  The smell was heavenly.  And it tasted great - plus it had a little jolt to help me driving the rest of the way.  I had wrestled with my decision to get the drink for literally an hour and a half.  I felt guilty buying it.  For some reason, I just kept thinking I was doing something wrong.  But I analyzed what I actually had in the cup.  It was coffee, some flavoring, milk, and fake sugar.  Where exactly is the problem?  I didn't put whipped cream or caramel or sugar in it.

On Friday, we had a full roster of school activities for all three kids.  But there were gaps between our events.  We had a half hour in between dropping the kids off and Gabe's parade starting.  So we went to Starbucks.  I got a pumpkin spice latte.  I put three splenda in it - although they did unknowingly put whipped cream on it.  It was, again, really good.  I finally came to the place where I decided I wasn't going to feel guilty about drinking it.  It isn't something that I am going to drink all the time.  But it is something that I will drink occasionally, when the opportunity arises.  As the weather gets cooler here, it will be nice to be able to have that drink.  Plus, it gives me a chance to have the flavors of the winter that I really like - pumpkin, peppermint - without eating stuff I shouldn't have.  Now THAT'S a backwards concept for you.  A 36 year old man starting a coffee habit to get healthier.  Ha!