Depending on the coffee you are brewing, y cup of Java can be somewhat acidic. What we typically do in this case is add milk or cream to our coffee. Is this practice good, bad, or does it not even matter?

How Is Adding Milk to Your Coffee a Good Thing?

Folks who experience gastritis and heartburn from drinking coffee have less of a problem with milk in their coffee because it reduces acidity. It does not reduce caffeine, which also stimulates acid secretion. Thus, milk in coffee is a good thing for folks who get heartburn and gastritis from drinking coffee. Adding milk also adds natural sweetness to your cup of coffee and adds texture as well. If you use a flavored creamer this also adds new tastes to your coffee experience.

How Is Adding Milk to Your Coffee a Potentially Bad Thing?

The coffee constituent that makes it acidic is chlorogenic acid, an antioxidant. Antioxidants are generally responsible for all of positive health effects of drinking coffee such as a reduction in the incidence of type II diabetes and various types of cancer. We do not know of any research in this regard but, theoretically, you could be reducing the beneficial health effects of coffee by adding milk or cream. One way to get the benefits of adding cream or milk to your coffee and not reduce chlorogenic acids is to use soy milk! Soy milk also does a good job of adding texture and reducing acidity without potentially reducing the positive health effects of your cup of coffee.

When Does Your Cup of Coffee Cease to Be a Cup of Coffee and Become a Flavored Drink?

If you visit popular coffee shops like your local Starbucks, you will see folks enjoying drinks like a blond vanilla latte. Add to this the number of ice cream drinks with coffee added and you have a new issue to contend with. Yes, you will still see less acidity and lower levels of chlorogenic acids but now add risk associated with lot of dairy fat in your diet such as a higher cholesterol or even a reversal of the usual risk reduction for type II diabetes. We are not aware of any long term research studies looking at different outcomes from dinking plain coffee versus coffee drinks heavy in creams and ice cream. However, there is a lot of research showing negative health outcomes from a diet heavy in fatty foods! From a purely health related standpoint a plain cup of coffee or coffee with a touch soy milk would seem to be a good idea. Routine consumption of drinks heavy in ice cream and sugars is totally different matter and should be seriously considered if you are interested in preserving the health benefits of coffee.

Coffee Has Its Own Flavor

Coffee is in many ways similar to wine. It retains unique flavors based on the soil where it was grown as well as the fact that you are probably drinking a high quality Arabica variety. When you start adding too much to your coffee for whatever reason you are often disguising the natural taste of your fine Colombian coffee!