There are hundreds or even thousands of brands of coffee candy. To the degree that you might prefer coffee candy to a cup of coffee, the question we have is this. Is there enough coffee with beneficial health effects in coffee candy to balance the amount of pure sugar and other additives. In other words, is coffee candy good or bad for you?
What Ingredients Are in Coffee Candy?
A well know coffee candy brand is Kopico. Kopico contains extract from actual coffee beans as well as soy lecithin, butter, vegetable oil, glucose syrup, sugar. caramel coloring, and salt. The fact that a coffee candy like Kopico starts with real coffee gives it great coffee flavor. The rest of the ingredients are sort of like drinking a cup of coffee with several tablespoons of sugar added.
Is Having Coffee with Your Sugar a Bad Thing?
People who love sweet coffee drinks are usually more interested in the sweets than the coffee. The same can be true for folks who consume a lot of coffee candy. As a rule, doctors recommend that calories from sugar should be no more than ten percent of one’s diet. Sugar in excess of this guideline can lead to obesity, dental problems, heart disease, and type II diabetes. When the amount of coffee with its beneficial health effects dwindles and the amount of sugar goes up it can be bad for your health over the long term and troublesome in the short term.
What is Rebound Hypoglycemia?
A common physiological response to consuming too much sugar in your diet is irritability as well as sweating, confusion, and dizziness. These symptoms generally occur with in an hour or so of consuming an excessive amount of carbohydrates and are referred to as rebound hypoglycemia. What happens in this situation is that the person’s blood sugar rises in response to a big load of sugar or starch. The person’s body then produces a bolus of insulin to reduce the sugar level. The body is primed to do this because over the span of time that humans have existed this sort of sugar elevation has always come with a big meal that is not mostly sugar but rather protein and fat such as from a successful hunt. Sadly, in the modern era when pure sugar is so plentiful we have situations where the blood sugar rises briefly due to sugar and not for a longer time period. Because the body is primed to take care of a longer spike in blood sugar the insulin produced handles the high blood sugar and then proceeds to drive the blood sugar to uncomfortably low levels causes the above symptoms. Sadly people learn to consume more sugar to “treat” their symptoms which causes the same symptoms again and again. This is the main effect in the short term of too much sugar as with coffee candy. The long term problem that stems from this is that the person is always eating sugar or coffee candy and causing the long term health problems.