Coffee enhancement - heavy whipping cream vs half and half

(Brian) #41

Thanks, all.

I am switching out to half n half for coffee. But I’m also using a little herbal tea and cutting down on the quantity of coffee I’m drinking. I still like it with lots of cream but less coffee means less cream, or in the case of the new way of drinking it, less half n half.

I do use salt in the coffee already. And I like that.

So we’re going to see how life progresses. Coffee could go away. Or not. Not really sure yet. Or it might become more of an occasional thing than an everyday thing. Don’t know. The HWC and half n half use have both been reduced since the opening post so at least there is movement in the right direction.

Thanks for the input!

(Jane) #42

:rofl:

(Empress of the Unexpected) #43

If I ever muster the courage - I am going to start checking my blood glucose without coffee. When I went for my recent blood test, my FBG was 87, an all time low. There is a thread on here about coffee raising BG. It seems like when I test with coffee it is in the 90’s and stays elevated all day. I only drink one cup, more than one gets me wired. It’s just cold here now in the mornings so I like the warmth of coffee. The tannins in tea give me an instant stomachache. So I will probably do one week coffee, one week none. There is a utube thing about coffee spiking blood sugar as well.

(Brian) #44

Head slapping moment this evening.

Decided to try using a little butter and the stick blender to froth up some coffee. I’ve had bits of butter in my coffee before but this is the first time I tried the stick blender to froth it. Without the frothing, previous bits of butter were just “oil slick” and didn’t do much for me. It was pretty good! I liked it better than I thought I would. But I did decide that a tsp of half n half added just a little something to it. This might work. I need to try it a few more times.

The actual size of the coffee mug is a little less than 2 cups and I used a little less than a tbsp of butter and about a tsp of half n half. I did feel like I still needed a bit 'o stevia, which I have been using all along. And I thought that maybe I might brew the coffee a bit weaker. But it’s probably the closest I’ve had it to “black” and enjoying it.

Anyway, so maybe there’s hope for me yet. :slight_smile:

(cheryl) #45

@Bellyman I was exactly the same way, I wanted a little coffee with my cream … I have since started making my coffee a bit weaker, and I drink way too much of it still , but i have gotten the coffee to cream ration down to less than an 1/8 cup of cream to my 2 cup sized mug … I am trying to continually wean the cream back but I do love creamy coffee

(charlie3) #46

My lunch box drink at work is 24 oz of iced coffee and stevia with 1/4 cup of heavy cream–ambrosia. I just tried half and half and it was like adding dish water. I went back to heavy cream. The 175 calories are no problem for me. If there is some other reason to not use heavy cream what might that be?

(cheryl) #47

@charlie3 YUM that sounds like my kind of beverage

(Jeff Henderson) #48

I come up with 207 calories not 175 not that’s a big difference but I just wanted to let you know. I love a good ice americano with alittle heavy cream

(Brian) #49

Small update, in case anyone’s interested…

I’m chuggin’ along with my little bit of butter in blended (immersion blender) into the black coffee. I still like a little stevia (both vanilla and chocolate flavored drops) to go with and maybe a couple of teaspoons of HWC or half n half, usually the later.

My wife really likes it and so do I. The part of the grocery bill for the heavy whipping cream and the half n half have dropped dramatically. I like that part 'cause they can be a bit pricey. I still use a little of both but that’s more likely to be whipping up some cream for the occasional keto treat, which is probably about as much as I’d have used for just one coffee mug.

Just to give you an idea of how much butter, it’s about 2 TBSP in about 1.5 liters of coffee, less butter when there’s less coffee… just in case you want to know.

:slight_smile:

(Lori) #50

I made both Keto Kahlua and Keto Baileys. Google them! They’re great!

(Lori) #51

I make my own Keto Kahlua and Keto Baileys. Google for the recipes. They are awesome!

(Samantha ) #52

Straight coconut cream from the can is also a great option!

#53

Resurrecting this post for my question because I still don’t understand.

So I have been using only HWC for 2 years because so many times I read others warning about 1/2&1/2 and stating it’s much worse than HWC. But lately I’m trying to reduce my “added” fat and HWC adds a lot.

I bought my first quart of 1/2 & 1/2 since I started Keto (Prairie Farms - made with local milk & cream no artificial growth hormones) and was shocked at the drastic difference in nutritional labels. From what I see 1/2 & 1/2 has much better numbers so why all the aversion??

My HWC based its label on 1T. My 1/2 & 1/2 is based on 2T. So I will show you the difference based on 2T and 3T because the larger volume you use the greater the stark differences and when using larger amounts like Cups when making cream soups it will be a huge difference, (hoping my columns line up):

HWC.— 2T ———- 3T
Cals —100 ———-150
Fat —7g ———- 10.5g
Protein 0 ? (0 for 1T so assuming maybe 1 in 2-3T?)
Carbs —2g -———-3g

1/2&1/2—2T———-3T
Cals——35———-52.5
Fat——- 3g———- 4.5g
Protein—1g———-1.5g
Carbs—1g——-—1.5g

So clearly 1/2 & 1/2 has less carbs too! Not more like I keep reading. Why isn’t this approved for Keto? 1/2 & 1/2 is just as creamy of a flavor to me for most things. Some things I still would want an ultra rich creaminess of HWC but for coffee and tea and creamed soups it sure looks like the wiser choice is 1/2 & 1/2.

I do not have lactose intolerance so I didn’t think I had to worry about lactose. Is there something else about lactose that makes it bad to have? Or is it just in large amounts?

Can I replace my HWC with half & half?

Please help me understand the fuss over using it.

(Bob M) #54

It’s probably not enough to be concerned about (these are 100g values)

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#55

And that doesn’t even match the labels on the brands I buy. Mine at 100g show carbs are lower with half and half. And if I account for weasily rounding down then they both become equal. Half and half is not higher carb in mine. I wonder if the USDA database is mistaken? Either that or my labels are inaccurate. Like I said though, if I round up and assume the listed carbs on my half & half are truly .5g more per T, it still then comes out to be equal to HWC, not more. Possibly the USDA uses a higher sugar half & half for its reporting??

(Bob M) #56

Half and half is 1/2 cream and 1/2 milk. This is 100g of milk:

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About double the carbs in cream, Take 4.52/2 + 2.79/2 = 3.66 g carbs/100 g. Still higher than cream.

But I have no idea how these things are actually created. I think modern milk processing takes all the cream out so you get skim milk + cream. They then recreate something like half-and-half by adding back cream. It’s not really 1/2 milk + 1/2 cream, the way it used to be. I think each manufacturer is doing something different.What you get on your labels may be completely different than what I can get.

And of course, in the US, we have calorie/carb counts for cream based on tablespoons.

#57

I don’t think you need to care about what is approved for keto. I merely did keto, kept my carbs low enough. I ate whatever I wanted that fit as I should :wink: I already hadn’t the worst items but I couldn’t care less about stupid rules that excluded perfectly fine food.

We don’t have half and half here so I just vaguely guess what is that but if it that is just dairy, it’s fine in my books.

I need to eat as little fat as I can (and then a bit less) so yep, I worked on my whipping cream (the fattiest such thing here, it’s 30% fat. WHY countries with stupidly low-fat dairy items have fattier stuff? unfair… but I do love this cream and it’s whippable so I am fine) consumption…
I have 2 choices. Whipping cream and milk. Well theoretically there is “cooking cream” (10 and 20% fat) and “coffee cream” (8-10%) but as they are less fatty, I obviously need more… Not as much more as it’s less fatty as the protein part is there, right…? But I hate low-fat stuff and anyway, I want my whip my cream.
So it’s milk vs cream. Well, they are different. I use whatever I like (and whatever I have opened at the moment). Milk has a tiny possible risk as it’s easy to drink a liter of it… But I only did that 1-2 times, now I am super behaved. Usually. Not today but I don’t care and it was only 3dl anyway. As I drink milk as pure milk, it’s a lovely thing to have. If I just use it for my dozen coffees, it’s a very small amount.
BUT… I need more milk than cream. Cream is richer, nicer, similarly sweet and less carby. And in the way I use it, the fat content is small. Not small enough for me, you say as I already overeat fat without cream? Indeed, that is one reason I try to avoiding drinking coffee at least until 3pm. I have some results already. Not today.
But this is me, normally. If I have some very lean protein source (rare but happens) and I manage to avoid the other fatty dairy items and added fat, I easily can afford some nice creamy coffees. I don’t NEED coffee so I can do the avoidance until 3pm (and as it does nothing to my awakeness, it’s no problem if I drink it for dinner at 6pm. I can’t really drink it later unless it’s black, I try to take my fasting window seriously. coffee is bad for fast if one is me, it’s triggering eating and it IS eating as I prefer it non-black). I like both milk and cream but I gladly drink milk alone - whipped cream has some allure though. So we should look at all our own individual facts and risks to figure out what is better. Sometimes I prefer milky coffees and sometimes I prefer creamy ones… One can just try it out to see what happens. Lately if I have milk, I have about 2dl a day. If I have cream (but no whipped cream), it’s 40-50ml. Calories are similar but carbs shoot up if I have milk (and there is always the risk I will just drink the whole thing or half of it. I don’t “accidentally” do it but who knows, maybe it seems a good idea for some reason…). So I can say cream is a better idea for me - BUT my SO can’t help with eating that while I can tell him to use up 8dl milk and I usually don’t have another box while I always have cream… It’s complex. But I go with cream, normally. I use milk when I fancy milk (or my SO fancies milky puddings) and if I am really wild and hedonistic, I just open both and use whatever I want. But that’s too much, I don’t do that often.

I never tried cream AND milk in my coffee in a way where I was conscious enough about it (it happened sometimes but I had no idea about the ratio and the result. it happens when I run out of one or have a creamy coffee but suddenly realize I rather want it milky)… So IDK how much I liked that…

Thanks for the resurrection, now I could write this down, it was an important thing I wondered about lately… I had milky and creamy phases…

That says about nothing to me. I want my per 100g data and in great detail for the carbs. I frequently see “0.5g” or “<0.5g” for 100g here and I approve. 1% sugar is pretty much for certain items (like my processed meat. I use little but I need to know it’s not sweet, I hate sweet meat. even if it has lots of paprika, it shouldn’t be so carby).

(Jane) #58

I keep both HWC and H&H in my fridge and they both say 1 g carb for 1 Tbl

I plugged both into Chronometer and put in 4 Tbl, because this is what I might typically consume in a day since I drink a lot of coffee.

HWC - 1.6 g
H&H - 2.6 g

Not a huge difference so whatever fits your macros is all good.

(Bob M) #59

I’m all for moving to 100g. “Servings” in the US are all over the place. Try to compare chocolate sometime, where different manufacturers use different serving sizes.

Though it might be better if we just got rid of the labels, especially since ours does things like lists the saturated fat but not MUFA or PUFA, and warns you when you’re eating “too much” fat.

#60

I don’t care about the first (I am totally behind the idea of labels containing infos that many people would consider useful. I am just lucky not caring about those) and would ignore the other if my labels would say anything like that :slight_smile: Or anything about servings. That’s for candies and stuff and those are laughable so I never did anything with that info. I wonder why people use those pointless things… There is no such thing as a portion, just in an individual setting…
My best foods don’t even have labels or if they have, that contains no macros or servings or anything like that. And I have NO idea about those sometimes. At least my “scrap/sausage meat” says it’s supposedly 30/70. It surely varies… But at least I know the carb content is negligible. Too bad I don’t care about then when it’s meat, I want the fat info… Oh well, it can’t be helped and it’s not a big deal anyway. I just like to know things but life isn’t that simple, I get it. I rather eat a proper part of an animal with a mystery macro than something that’s ensured to be at very fixed numbers. It works for dairy but not for meat slabs. It doesn’t work for eggs but the average is good enough.