Question:
Each day, I enjoy an Avalanche Flat White 99% sugar-free sachet. It looks milky, and I add an extra teaspoon of coffee granules. Is this daily treat okay, or a bit wicked?
Answer:
The humble coffee sachet is for many not just a drink, but a comforting and flavourful daily ritual. But is it harmless or hiding something sinister? With researchers now linking variations in the sweetening of coffee to longevity, it’s a question worth considering.
Let’s start with the ingredients in Avalanche’s 99% Sugar Free Flat White. It contains natural sweeteners (erythritol, stevia), instant coffee, milk solids, glucose syrup, coconut oil, salt, a stabiliser (340), emulsifiers (433, 471), an anti-caking agent (551), and added colour (160a).
The result is a creamy, sweet-tasting coffee without added white sugar.
Each sachet contains around 155kJ energy, 1.1g protein, 1.4g saturated fat, 1.7g sugar, and 59mg sodium. The saturated fat comes from coconut oil and milk solids. While small amounts of coconut-derived fats are fine for flavour and texture, coconut oil is high in saturated fat and best enjoyed occasionally rather than daily. Though minimal here, it’s still worth noting.
The added emulsifiers, sodium and other additives create a creamy, mixable drink – but also turn what’s normally a simple brew into an ultra-processed product.
One of the sweeteners used instead of sugar – erythritol – has recently come under scrutiny. A 2023 observational study in Nature Medicine found people with higher levels of erythritol in their blood were more likely to experience major heart-related events, such as heart attacks and strokes.
Lab studies suggest erythritol may cause platelets – the cells that help blood clot – to become stickier and more likely to clump together, which could raise the risk of blood clots. A small clinical trial also showed drinking erythritol-sweetened beverages led to high blood levels of the sweetener for over two days – well above the range linked with increased clotting risk. So more research is needed to understand the long-term effects of having erythritol regularly in our diet.
To put this into perspective: the clinical trial involved people drinking a 300ml beverage with 30g of erythritol – far more than you’d find in a single coffee sachet. Still, other studies have questioned whether adding artificial sweeteners to coffee is helpful. A large observational study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2022, looked at how different types of coffee, specifically unsweetened, sugar-sweetened, or artificially sweetened, affected risk of death.
It found people who drank moderate amounts of unsweetened or sugar-sweetened coffee had a lower risk of dying during the study period. But the link between artificially sweetened coffee and death was less clear. Still, this study was observational, so while it can identify associations, it can’t prove that the different sweeteners caused different health outcomes. Plus, it didn’t specifically examine coffee sachets, which may contain different ingredients and sweeteners.
As for the added teaspoon of coffee granules? You’re boosting the flavour and caffeine content. Assuming you’re not also chugging energy drinks or espresso shots every day, your total caffeine intake is still likely within the safe zone of up to 400mg/day for most healthy adults.
So, is this drink “wicked”? While the label on the packet states the coffee is “guilt free”, the reality is all food should be guilt free, not just coffees with artificial sweeteners. Contemporary marketing messages push us to make moral judgments about food – the apple is good, the pie is bad – but food moralising like this is harmful because it creates shame around food choices.
Ultimately, nutrition isn’t just about grams of fat or teaspoons of sugar. It’s about the big picture: what you eat and drink most of the time, how it makes you feel, and whether it supports your overall health and wellbeing. If this sachet coffee is part of a broader pattern that includes real food hydration, and balance, then it’s just fine. However, if you’re replacing meals with multiple sachet coffees, relying on them for energy in place of sleep, or experiencing gut issues after drinking them, it might be worth reassessing. But for a once-a-day treat? Enjoy it without guilt, like all food.
Email your nutrition questions to listenerlife@aremedia.co.nz
