Dunkin fanatic.
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Of course not, but 'on the go' isn't really much of a thing here to start with. I guess the difference is that people sit down and eat and drink, as a meal, and not something inbetween.
@yirara - just wondering .. where is “here”?
Randomly … This morning I drank a black cold brew (caffè freddo) while walking down the Appia Antica on the outskirts of Rome. Admittedly I’m an American living part time in Rome.. but none of my Italian family gave me side eye 😒 lol (probably because my 89 year old Zia made it for me)
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Non-American here, thus please excuse my question: Why? It's just candy with (possibly) some caffeine. If I want something sweet I buy candy, and if I want coffee I cook it (Syrian with cardamom, without anything added). I to be honest also don't understand why to buy coffee. And then? Drink it while driving to work? Go there, stand about and drink, drive home?
/confused rant
Partly the evolution of coffee culture in the US as well as being a generational thing. I've traveled quite a bit and in much of the world I've traveled, coffee is a social thing and something where you sit and enjoy and relax. In the US I'd say it's more a productivity thing and a fuel thing...and just personal opinion, but I think a lot of the sweet desert like coffees came about to mask the low quality coffee beans (and bad roasts) that a lot of these big chain coffee shops use.
I brew my own coffee at home and drink it black. I will usually have 2 cups or so in the morning on my back patio before I start getting ready for work. I go out on occasion...usually if I'm traveling or if we just decide to go out for coffee and pastries or something on a Sunday morning but I prefer more traditional coffee shops and usually get a cappuccino...sometimes a latte. I don't think I've ever picked up a coffee to go on my way to work in my entire life.1 -
I’m old enough to remember those fancy instant (shudder) “international coffees” - late 1970s, from Maxwell House, maybe? One of my college roommates introduced us to them, and oh, my! We thought we were so sophisticated. She went on to start a very popular real coffee shop chain in a major US city; wish we had stayed in touch.
In my 20s, I drank 5-6 cups of home brewed coffee a day, with half-and-half. I eventually quit about a year after quitting smoking, tapering off first by going to regular milk, then skim, then nothing so it finally seemed pointless to keep drinking it. Now I have a very occasional decaf, always black. Whole beans only. I never used sweetener.
I’ve had coffee at Starbucks and found it the worst coffee I’ve ever had. It tasted burnt. Am I missing something? Is it the sweeteners that make it tolerable?1 -
history_grrrl wrote: »I’m old enough to remember those fancy instant (shudder) “international coffees” - late 1970s, from Maxwell House, maybe? One of my college roommates introduced us to them, and oh, my! We thought we were so sophisticated. She went on to start a very popular real coffee shop chain in a major US city; wish we had stayed in touch.
In my 20s, I drank 5-6 cups of home brewed coffee a day, with half-and-half. I eventually quit about a year after quitting smoking, tapering off first by going to regular milk, then skim, then nothing so it finally seemed pointless to keep drinking it. Now I have a very occasional decaf, always black. Whole beans only. I never used sweetener.
I’ve had coffee at Starbucks and found it the worst coffee I’ve ever had. It tasted burnt. Am I missing something? Is it the sweeteners that make it tolerable?
I do remember that: An early example of liquid-candy coffee. Basically instant coffee and powdered creamer plus weird flavors, I think.
I still don't understand why people like flavored creamers (like Coffee Mate, International Delight, and that sort of thing). No diss to you if you like them, but I don't understand them. To me, they taste like a similarly-scented room freshener. (I don't like those in my rooms, let alone as a food.)
Starbucks: It's very dark roast. Not everyone likes dark roast. Some people do. Not me, though I'll drink it when it's the best option. In some locations, the McDonald's McCafe coffees taste more burnt to me, like burnt-out stale from being in a hot location too long, even though not dark roast.
My drink: Hot skim latte, as large as possible, no flavor. Tastes nice to me, like the foam texture, and 16g or so of nice protein, which is good for me as an ovo-lacto vegetarian.
Worth the money? Any of us with any discretionary income tend to have some budget indulgences. I drive a 2009 car, live in a 1950s hovel . . . I can afford the coffee (plus silly amounts of craft supplies), and my retirement fund is fine, thankyouverymuch.
I get coffee shop latte lately 4 days a week, occasionally more, since we usually go out for coffee after morning rowing, and have a nice chat-fest. It enhances my quality of life.
At home, good whole beans home-ground, with hot skim milk or even frothed skim milk if I'm feeling ambitious in the AM. There's a good local coffee roaster only a couple of miles or so from here. (I get lattes there occasionally, too, in addition to beans.)
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Non-American here, thus please excuse my question: Why? It's just candy with (possibly) some caffeine. If I want something sweet I buy candy, and if I want coffee I cook it (Syrian with cardamom, without anything added). I to be honest also don't understand why to buy coffee. And then? Drink it while driving to work? Go there, stand about and drink, drive home?
/confused rant
When I had an office to go to, I didn't drive. I took public transportation. And you were subject to arrest if you consumed food or drink on the subway, or even in the station. (Never heard of it actually happening to anybody who stopped or threw it away when asked, but it did happen.)
So it was either drink really bad coffee with powdered "creamer" (which was a big impetus in my switching to black coffee) in the office, or get a decent coffee from a shop downstairs from my office. So I often bought a cup and took it up to the office.
Also, I would often end up working somewhere that wasn't my home or my office (even when I had an office), because my job requires me to go to lots of places. When the time and distance meant I had to find a place to work, the only options were often a coffee shop or very casual cafe (not something with table service) where they would let you camp out for a long time as long as you bought something. Cheapest option was usually a cup of coffee.
I generally drink it black. If it's too hot, too weak, or I need some calories, I'll put some milk or cream in it. Never sugar because to my taste buds mixing coffee's lovely bitter notes with sugar is ghastly and vile.
There's a TV commercial in the U.S. that started running recently for an old-school brand of coffee beans/ground coffee that shows people ordering things like "double sweet caramel peppermint soy lattes with sprinkles" in a Starbucks-like store, and the tag line, over the finished drink, is "That's not coffee."0 -
history_grrrl wrote: »I’m old enough to remember those fancy instant (shudder) “international coffees” - late 1970s, from Maxwell House, maybe? One of my college roommates introduced us to them, and oh, my! We thought we were so sophisticated. She went on to start a very popular real coffee shop chain in a major US city; wish we had stayed in touch.
In my 20s, I drank 5-6 cups of home brewed coffee a day, with half-and-half. I eventually quit about a year after quitting smoking, tapering off first by going to regular milk, then skim, then nothing so it finally seemed pointless to keep drinking it. Now I have a very occasional decaf, always black. Whole beans only. I never used sweetener.
I’ve had coffee at Starbucks and found it the worst coffee I’ve ever had. It tasted burnt. Am I missing something? Is it the sweeteners that make it tolerable?
I agree with you about the brewed coffee at Starbucks, which I do not understand, because I can make a decent pour-over or French press cup at home using Starbucks beans, so it's not the roast. And given the amount of business they do, it's hard to believe the coffee is sitting on a burner long enough to go bad. So it seems like they've found a way to burn the coffee when they're brewing it.
Anyway, at Starbucks I order espresso-based drinks (mostly Americanos, sometimes lattes or cappuccinos, occasionally a straight espresso or flat white). Much, much better than the regular coffee.1 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »There's a TV commercial in the U.S. that started running recently for an old-school brand of coffee beans/ground coffee that shows people ordering things like "double sweet caramel peppermint soy lattes with sprinkles" in a Starbucks-like store, and the tag line, over the finished drink, is "That's not coffee."
Oh gosh, that advert knows me!
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It’s funny; I’m a serious dessert person but have never been able to tolerate sweetener in coffee; tastes sickly sweet to me.
Still miss NYC, where I discovered the joys of cappuccino at little Italian pastry shops (or anywhere, really) and then cafe con leche in my heavily Dominican neighbourhood. Ahhh.0 -
I too love ice coffee and have used premier protein shake as my creamer , they have caramel flavor!! I usually use half in my coffee and drink other half at breakfast and I get a lot of protein in for the morning! Quick and easy!2
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history_grrrl wrote: »I’m old enough to remember those fancy instant (shudder) “international coffees” - late 1970s, from Maxwell House, maybe? One of my college roommates introduced us to them, and oh, my! We thought we were so sophisticated. She went on to start a very popular real coffee shop chain in a major US city; wish we had stayed in touch.
In my 20s, I drank 5-6 cups of home brewed coffee a day, with half-and-half. I eventually quit about a year after quitting smoking, tapering off first by going to regular milk, then skim, then nothing so it finally seemed pointless to keep drinking it. Now I have a very occasional decaf, always black. Whole beans only. I never used sweetener.
I’ve had coffee at Starbucks and found it the worst coffee I’ve ever had. It tasted burnt. Am I missing something? Is it the sweeteners that make it tolerable?
Some attribute that to dark roast, and while not my favorite, a good dark roast doesn't taste burnt, but overly bitter for my preferences. Starbucks actually roasts their beans at a higher temperature than most roasters in order to produce a large number of coffee beans in a short amount of time...literally burning their beans. Even to make a dark roast, most roasters would do that slow and low for a longer period of time than say a medium roast, where the temperature isn't high enough to actually burn the beans.
And yes, I am of the opinion that a lot of these desert type coffee drinks came about as a way to mask the burnt beans. A good bean and good roast really shouldn't need anything, though I do use a bit of milk or half and half when I drink a dark roast to temper the bitterness. For me, a cappuccino or latte is just a special treat.2 -
Unpopular (?) opinion: In the US**, everything edible/drinkable will eventually evolve into candy. Sweet coffee is only one example.
Apples and grapes (among other fruits) are bred to be sweeter and sweeter. Granola and granola bars started out as more grain-centric, then started to add chocolate chips, marshmallow, frosting (on the bars), caramel, etc., until they became candy bars with some grain. Many protein bars are similar. I think some food products (Jello, for one) are more sugar-y than they were in my youth. Dinner salads increasingly have dried fruit and sugared nuts. Salad dressings are sweeter than they used to be (the fruity vinaigrettes and that sort of thing). Muffins used to be more of a quick-bread-like thing, some of them not even sweet at all; now they're super-sweet to start, plus have more sweet add-ins of many types.
I could go on and on, but I won't. Friends I have who've come here from other countries, even other developed-world countries, remark on how freakin' sweet everything is. We turn everything we can into candy.
** Yes, I'm USA-ian. Lived here for 67 years so far.
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Unpopular (?) opinion: In the US**, everything edible/drinkable will eventually evolve into candy. Sweet coffee is only one example.
Apples and grapes (among other fruits) are bred to be sweeter and sweeter. Granola and granola bars started out as more grain-centric, then started to add chocolate chips, marshmallow, frosting (on the bars), caramel, etc., until they became candy bars with some grain. Many protein bars are similar. I think some food products (Jello, for one) are more sugar-y than they were in my youth. Dinner salads increasingly have dried fruit and sugared nuts. Salad dressings are sweeter than they used to be (the fruity vinaigrettes and that sort of thing). Muffins used to be more of a quick-bread-like thing, some of them not even sweet at all; now they're super-sweet to start, plus have more sweet add-ins of many types.
I could go on and on, but I won't. Friends I have who've come here from other countries, even other developed-world countries, remark on how freakin' sweet everything is. We turn everything we can into candy.
** Yes, I'm USA-ian. Lived here for 67 years so far.
BBQ sauce is sweeter, for sure.
Even cheeses taste sweeter (while managing to taste less cheesy). Toothpaste, too. I saw coconut flavored (!!!!!!) toothpaste at Lidl yesterday. Right next to the charcoal toothpaste. Tried some of that in Europe. Couldn’t get beyond “black”. Ick factor huge on that one.
Guilty of liking sweet anything. Love me a pork tenderloin basted in marmalade, Dijon mustard, and herbs de provence. Any meat with a sweet sauce is aok with me. 😬0 -
Unpopular (?) opinion: In the US**, everything edible/drinkable will eventually evolve into candy. Sweet coffee is only one example.
Apples and grapes (among other fruits) are bred to be sweeter and sweeter. Granola and granola bars started out as more grain-centric, then started to add chocolate chips, marshmallow, frosting (on the bars), caramel, etc., until they became candy bars with some grain. Many protein bars are similar. I think some food products (Jello, for one) are more sugar-y than they were in my youth. Dinner salads increasingly have dried fruit and sugared nuts. Salad dressings are sweeter than they used to be (the fruity vinaigrettes and that sort of thing). Muffins used to be more of a quick-bread-like thing, some of them not even sweet at all; now they're super-sweet to start, plus have more sweet add-ins of many types.
I could go on and on, but I won't. Friends I have who've come here from other countries, even other developed-world countries, remark on how freakin' sweet everything is. We turn everything we can into candy.
** Yes, I'm USA-ian. Lived here for 67 years so far.
Oh yes, bought a loaf of bread at a supermarket in Boston on a business trip once because I was so fed up with the food (I was more picky then). And to my horror realized the wholegrain bread was ... sweet!
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Unpopular (?) opinion: In the US**, everything edible/drinkable will eventually evolve into candy. Sweet coffee is only one example.
Apples and grapes (among other fruits) are bred to be sweeter and sweeter. Granola and granola bars started out as more grain-centric, then started to add chocolate chips, marshmallow, frosting (on the bars), caramel, etc., until they became candy bars with some grain. Many protein bars are similar. I think some food products (Jello, for one) are more sugar-y than they were in my youth. Dinner salads increasingly have dried fruit and sugared nuts. Salad dressings are sweeter than they used to be (the fruity vinaigrettes and that sort of thing). Muffins used to be more of a quick-bread-like thing, some of them not even sweet at all; now they're super-sweet to start, plus have more sweet add-ins of many types.
I could go on and on, but I won't. Friends I have who've come here from other countries, even other developed-world countries, remark on how freakin' sweet everything is. We turn everything we can into candy.
** Yes, I'm USA-ian. Lived here for 67 years so far.
Oh yes, bought a loaf of bread at a supermarket in Boston on a business trip once because I was so fed up with the food (I was more picky then). And to my horror realized the wholegrain bread was ... sweet!
Lol we just did that for a week in Dubrovnik, after two really expensive and awful meals. We’d buy a loaf at the teensy little supermarket and a chunk of cheese. The loaves were WAY better than we expected, and not as sweet as we’re used to. We actually ate pretty well off bread and cheese for a few days. And ice cream. Can’t go twenty feet there without bumping in to a gelato or ice cream stand.0 -
springlering62 wrote: »Unpopular (?) opinion: In the US**, everything edible/drinkable will eventually evolve into candy. Sweet coffee is only one example.
Apples and grapes (among other fruits) are bred to be sweeter and sweeter. Granola and granola bars started out as more grain-centric, then started to add chocolate chips, marshmallow, frosting (on the bars), caramel, etc., until they became candy bars with some grain. Many protein bars are similar. I think some food products (Jello, for one) are more sugar-y than they were in my youth. Dinner salads increasingly have dried fruit and sugared nuts. Salad dressings are sweeter than they used to be (the fruity vinaigrettes and that sort of thing). Muffins used to be more of a quick-bread-like thing, some of them not even sweet at all; now they're super-sweet to start, plus have more sweet add-ins of many types.
I could go on and on, but I won't. Friends I have who've come here from other countries, even other developed-world countries, remark on how freakin' sweet everything is. We turn everything we can into candy.
** Yes, I'm USA-ian. Lived here for 67 years so far.
BBQ sauce is sweeter, for sure.
Even cheeses taste sweeter (while managing to taste less cheesy). Toothpaste, too. I saw coconut flavored (!!!!!!) toothpaste at Lidl yesterday. Right next to the charcoal toothpaste. Tried some of that in Europe. Couldn’t get beyond “black”. Ick factor huge on that one.
Guilty of liking sweet anything. Love me a pork tenderloin basted in marmalade, Dijon mustard, and herbs de provence. Any meat with a sweet sauce is aok with me. 😬
That's odd...sugar is not added to cheeses and cheese making processing around the world aren't particularly different. Are you talking about processed cheeses like Velveeta or Kraft singles or "American Cheese"? I don't really consider those things to actually be cheese but rather a cheese like product.
I'd say the biggest difference between the US and some other countries where cheese is concerned is that pasteurization of whatever milk being used is required where other countries do make some cheeses using unpasteurized...like Roquefort from France (which is friggin' awesome)...though blue cheese using the same penicillium roqueforti is pretty dang good too.2 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »springlering62 wrote: »Unpopular (?) opinion: In the US**, everything edible/drinkable will eventually evolve into candy. Sweet coffee is only one example.
Apples and grapes (among other fruits) are bred to be sweeter and sweeter. Granola and granola bars started out as more grain-centric, then started to add chocolate chips, marshmallow, frosting (on the bars), caramel, etc., until they became candy bars with some grain. Many protein bars are similar. I think some food products (Jello, for one) are more sugar-y than they were in my youth. Dinner salads increasingly have dried fruit and sugared nuts. Salad dressings are sweeter than they used to be (the fruity vinaigrettes and that sort of thing). Muffins used to be more of a quick-bread-like thing, some of them not even sweet at all; now they're super-sweet to start, plus have more sweet add-ins of many types.
I could go on and on, but I won't. Friends I have who've come here from other countries, even other developed-world countries, remark on how freakin' sweet everything is. We turn everything we can into candy.
** Yes, I'm USA-ian. Lived here for 67 years so far.
BBQ sauce is sweeter, for sure.
Even cheeses taste sweeter (while managing to taste less cheesy). Toothpaste, too. I saw coconut flavored (!!!!!!) toothpaste at Lidl yesterday. Right next to the charcoal toothpaste. Tried some of that in Europe. Couldn’t get beyond “black”. Ick factor huge on that one.
Guilty of liking sweet anything. Love me a pork tenderloin basted in marmalade, Dijon mustard, and herbs de provence. Any meat with a sweet sauce is aok with me. 😬
That's odd...sugar is not added to cheeses and cheese making processing around the world aren't particularly different. Are you talking about processed cheeses like Velveeta or Kraft singles or "American Cheese"? I don't really consider those things to actually be cheese but rather a cheese like product.
I'd say the biggest difference between the US and some other countries where cheese is concerned is that pasteurization of whatever milk being used is required where other countries do make some cheeses using unpasteurized...like Roquefort from France (which is friggin' awesome)...though blue cheese using the same penicillium roqueforti is pretty dang good too.
I thought the same about sweeter cheese. I'd assume cows could be bred to increase lactose content in milk.
Getting curious, I did a little web-searching to see if there were any signs of such breeding. I didn't find anything in a short search. There was an article in the Journal of Dairy Science (2019)** suggesting that lactose wasn't really explicitly measured/pursued in dairy breeding at this point.
** https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0022-0302(19)30424-2
This suggests that milk yields weakly correlate with lactose percentage, so maybe breeding for yield (which is a thing) may've increased lactose? But the article also says that most of the lactose ends up in the whey post-cheesemaking, not in the cheese. (This is just a quick read: I was curious but not committed.
)
Sweeter milk does seem like something that would happen here, though.
P.S. Yes, this was a really nerdy post. 0 -
history_grrrl wrote: »I’m old enough to remember those fancy instant (shudder) “international coffees” - late 1970s, from Maxwell House, maybe? One of my college roommates introduced us to them, and oh, my! We thought we were so sophisticated. She went on to start a very popular real coffee shop chain in a major US city; wish we had stayed in touch.
In my 20s, I drank 5-6 cups of home brewed coffee a day, with half-and-half. I eventually quit about a year after quitting smoking, tapering off first by going to regular milk, then skim, then nothing so it finally seemed pointless to keep drinking it. Now I have a very occasional decaf, always black. Whole beans only. I never used sweetener.
I’ve had coffee at Starbucks and found it the worst coffee I’ve ever had. It tasted burnt. Am I missing something?4-5 Is it the sweeteners that make it tolerable?
One more vote. Why?
And why can't I find jerky that doesn't list some kind of sugar as the second ingredient. Sweet is not my thing, but some things just are NOT supposed to be sweet.
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Maybe it’s because I mostly buy cheap part skim shredded cheeses. Absolutely no taste. I can’t see spending more on something we seldom use.
Cheese quality isn’t any good. Cheeses don’t taste like cheese any more. Daisy Cottage cheese is so processed, it’s in vile little uniform pellets. Babybel tastes like wax lips.
Tillamook is OK. Haven’t had that Vermont brand cheese in a while. Shelburne? It used to be good but not available here.
Cheese just isn’t worth the calories these days.
The supermarket cheeses we had in Croatia were OK.
*ducks and runs from the cheese appreciation crew*0 -
Corina1143 wrote: »history_grrrl wrote: »I’m old enough to remember those fancy instant (shudder) “international coffees” - late 1970s, from Maxwell House, maybe? One of my college roommates introduced us to them, and oh, my! We thought we were so sophisticated. She went on to start a very popular real coffee shop chain in a major US city; wish we had stayed in touch.
In my 20s, I drank 5-6 cups of home brewed coffee a day, with half-and-half. I eventually quit about a year after quitting smoking, tapering off first by going to regular milk, then skim, then nothing so it finally seemed pointless to keep drinking it. Now I have a very occasional decaf, always black. Whole beans only. I never used sweetener.
I’ve had coffee at Starbucks and found it the worst coffee I’ve ever had. It tasted burnt. Am I missing something?4-5 Is it the sweeteners that make it tolerable?
One more vote. Why?
And why can't I find jerky that doesn't list some kind of sugar as the second ingredient. Sweet is not my thing, but some things just are NOT supposed to be sweet.
I make my own beef jerky mostly, but when I buy, I buy from local companies here in NM. The only time I've ever seen sugar on the nutritional label is if it's BBQ or Teriyaki or something along those lines...which makes sense since those sauces have sugar and are supposed to have a sweetness. But jerky here locally tends to be traditional carne seca (very thin and brittle) I've never had a mass commercially produced jerky that was worth a *kitten*, sugar or not.
That said, many rubs for beef, particularly if it's to be smoked or grilled have brown sugar along with all of the other herbs and spices...you will also find this with many rubs and sauces for meat or poultry throughout the Americas, particularly Central America and the Caribbean which go back centuries for curing and making meat edible. Much of that goes back to the slave trade and slaves being given what was considered the worst possible cuts of meat and needing ways to tenderize it.
As a jerky maker by hobby, jerky is typically made with a pretty tough cut of very lean beef (I usually use top round roast) and sugar would definitely help with tenderization before dehydrating as it is a natural tenderizer...so it doesn't surprise me at all that sugar would be used in commercially mass produced jerky (though it isn't typically all that much). I generally rely on a bit of vinegar and soy sauce to do that job, though I do usually make a batch of teriyaki beef jerky about once per month and one of the main ingredients in the teriyaki sauce is sugar.1 -
springlering62 wrote: »Maybe it’s because I mostly buy cheap part skim shredded cheeses. Absolutely no taste. I can’t see spending more on something we seldom use.
Cheese quality isn’t any good. Cheeses don’t taste like cheese any more. Daisy Cottage cheese is so processed, it’s in vile little uniform pellets. Babybel tastes like wax lips.
Tillamook is OK. Haven’t had that Vermont brand cheese in a while. Shelburne? It used to be good but not available here.
Cheese just isn’t worth the calories these days.
The supermarket cheeses we had in Croatia were OK.
*ducks and runs from the cheese appreciation crew*
If I’m going to spend calories on cheese .. it has to be fabulous. These are my 2 NY cheese shops.
I think the quality makes the difference.
Since we are in the coffee thread — I’ll say it pairs well with black coffee.
hold the sugar.
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springlering62 wrote: »Maybe it’s because I mostly buy cheap part skim shredded cheeses. Absolutely no taste. I can’t see spending more on something we seldom use.
Cheese quality isn’t any good. Cheeses don’t taste like cheese any more. Daisy Cottage cheese is so processed, it’s in vile little uniform pellets. Babybel tastes like wax lips.
Tillamook is OK. Haven’t had that Vermont brand cheese in a while. Shelburne? It used to be good but not available here.
Cheese just isn’t worth the calories these days.
The supermarket cheeses we had in Croatia were OK.
*ducks and runs from the cheese appreciation crew*
The cheeses you mention aren't mostly the cheeses I eat. I do like Babybel light, but - horrors in some people's eyes - I roll one in coarse sea salt before eating. (I adore salt almost as much as you're attracted to sweetness.)
We have a great cheese store (photos in the cheese appreciation thread**), and a wonderful local farmstead creamery with some excellent artisan cheeses. There are some pedestrian light cheeses that taste OK to me, that I use in cooking (Cabot Lite50 Cheddar, Jarlsberg Lite). Right now, for eating I'm working on some Cambozola Black Label and an extra-old gouda. The latter two taste very much like cheese to me. Ditto for decent Parmesan, which is available in many places here. I'm sorry you live in a cheese desert.
@SafariGalNYC, I spy a Cypress Grove cheese in your top photo. I hope it's Humboldt Fog. I looooove Humboldt Fog. (Not their only tasty cheese, though.)
** https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10854349/cheese-admiration-and-celebration#latest , where this whole digression would be much more on topic. Apologies, OP.1 -
springlering62 wrote: »Unpopular (?) opinion: In the US**, everything edible/drinkable will eventually evolve into candy. Sweet coffee is only one example.
Apples and grapes (among other fruits) are bred to be sweeter and sweeter. Granola and granola bars started out as more grain-centric, then started to add chocolate chips, marshmallow, frosting (on the bars), caramel, etc., until they became candy bars with some grain. Many protein bars are similar. I think some food products (Jello, for one) are more sugar-y than they were in my youth. Dinner salads increasingly have dried fruit and sugared nuts. Salad dressings are sweeter than they used to be (the fruity vinaigrettes and that sort of thing). Muffins used to be more of a quick-bread-like thing, some of them not even sweet at all; now they're super-sweet to start, plus have more sweet add-ins of many types.
I could go on and on, but I won't. Friends I have who've come here from other countries, even other developed-world countries, remark on how freakin' sweet everything is. We turn everything we can into candy.
** Yes, I'm USA-ian. Lived here for 67 years so far.
Oh yes, bought a loaf of bread at a supermarket in Boston on a business trip once because I was so fed up with the food (I was more picky then). And to my horror realized the wholegrain bread was ... sweet!
Lol we just did that for a week in Dubrovnik, after two really expensive and awful meals. We’d buy a loaf at the teensy little supermarket and a chunk of cheese. The loaves were WAY better than we expected, and not as sweet as we’re used to. We actually ate pretty well off bread and cheese for a few days. And ice cream. Can’t go twenty feet there without bumping in to a gelato or ice cream stand.
Oh yes! I spent my summer vacation in Croatia. Always had some fresh white bread at home, some local salami, mature cow or goats cheese and mortalla. And a very heavy red wine. The better life
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The cheeses you mention aren't mostly the cheeses I eat. I do like Babybel light, but - horrors in some people's eyes - I roll one in coarse sea salt before eating. (I adore salt almost as much as you're attracted to sweetness.)
We have a great cheese store (photos in the cheese appreciation thread**), and a wonderful local farmstead creamery with some excellent artisan cheeses. There are some pedestrian light cheeses that taste OK to me, that I use in cooking (Cabot Lite50 Cheddar, Jarlsberg Lite). Right now, for eating I'm working on some Cambozola Black Label and an extra-old gouda. The latter two taste very much like cheese to me. Ditto for decent Parmesan, which is available in many places here. I'm sorry you live in a cheese desert.
I love very mature Gouda, but it needs to be really, really good. Like most mature one is quick-aged and has a slightly sweet taste to it. Old Amsterdam is total *kitten* (maybe this should go into the cheese thread) but there are a few good ones. Unlikely to get anywhere as there are just two dairies producing it, but boeren goudse oplegkaas is wonderful, and really aged naturally. Btw, any gouda which contains many small holes is also a low quality product.
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cwolfman13 wrote: »Corina1143 wrote: »history_grrrl wrote: »I’m old enough to remember those fancy instant (shudder) “international coffees” - late 1970s, from Maxwell House, maybe? One of my college roommates introduced us to them, and oh, my! We thought we were so sophisticated. She went on to start a very popular real coffee shop chain in a major US city; wish we had stayed in touch.
In my 20s, I drank 5-6 cups of home brewed coffee a day, with half-and-half. I eventually quit about a year after quitting smoking, tapering off first by going to regular milk, then skim, then nothing so it finally seemed pointless to keep drinking it. Now I have a very occasional decaf, always black. Whole beans only. I never used sweetener.
I’ve had coffee at Starbucks and found it the worst coffee I’ve ever had. It tasted burnt. Am I missing something?4-5 Is it the sweeteners that make it tolerable?
One more vote. Why?
And why can't I find jerky that doesn't list some kind of sugar as the second ingredient. Sweet is not my thing, but some things just are NOT supposed to be sweet.
I make my own beef jerky mostly, but when I buy, I buy from local companies here in NM. The only time I've ever seen sugar on the nutritional label is if it's BBQ or Teriyaki or something along those lines...which makes sense since those sauces have sugar and are supposed to have a sweetness. But jerky here locally tends to be traditional carne seca (very thin and brittle) I've never had a mass commercially produced jerky that was worth a *kitten*, sugar or not.
That said, many rubs for beef, particularly if it's to be smoked or grilled have brown sugar along with all of the other herbs and spices...you will also find this with many rubs and sauces for meat or poultry throughout the Americas, particularly Central America and the Caribbean which go back centuries for curing and making meat edible. Much of that goes back to the slave trade and slaves being given what was considered the worst possible cuts of meat and needing ways to tenderize it.
As a jerky maker by hobby, jerky is typically made with a pretty tough cut of very lean beef (I usually use top round roast) and sugar would definitely help with tenderization before dehydrating as it is a natural tenderizer...so it doesn't surprise me at all that sugar would be used in commercially mass produced jerky (though it isn't typically all that much). I generally rely on a bit of vinegar and soy sauce to do that job, though I do usually make a batch of teriyaki beef jerky about once per month and one of the main ingredients in the teriyaki sauce is sugar.
I’ve had good results using pineapple juice as a light sweetener/tenderizer.
I need to get back to making my own jerky. Don’t like any of the commercial stuff these days, but keep it on hand as a quick protein boost.
The Presto dehydrator was a *kitten* to clean. The Ninja Foodi did a fab job, dehydrated within three or four hours, best texture ever, and was much easier to clean. The new Ninja electric smoker grill we got is supposed to do even large batches. That thing is the absolute bomb for grilling steaks and smoking large chunks of meat, so really ought to try it for jerky.0 -
Corina1143 wrote: »history_grrrl wrote: »I’m old enough to remember those fancy instant (shudder) “international coffees” - late 1970s, from Maxwell House, maybe? One of my college roommates introduced us to them, and oh, my! We thought we were so sophisticated. She went on to start a very popular real coffee shop chain in a major US city; wish we had stayed in touch.
In my 20s, I drank 5-6 cups of home brewed coffee a day, with half-and-half. I eventually quit about a year after quitting smoking, tapering off first by going to regular milk, then skim, then nothing so it finally seemed pointless to keep drinking it. Now I have a very occasional decaf, always black. Whole beans only. I never used sweetener.
I’ve had coffee at Starbucks and found it the worst coffee I’ve ever had. It tasted burnt. Am I missing something?4-5 Is it the sweeteners that make it tolerable?
One more vote. Why?
And why can't I find jerky that doesn't list some kind of sugar as the second ingredient. Sweet is not my thing, but some things just are NOT supposed to be sweet.
@Corina1143 look for a "keto" jerky. I haven't had any myself, but have seen it on Amazon.
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Argh, sorry.. spelling mistake. Gouda without holes is rubbish, holes are good.0
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i hate dunkin drinks but my go to coffee in general is cold brew, no sugar oat milk, 2 pumps sugar free raspberry syrup and a swirl of sugar free canned whip. i make it at home so i can flavor it however i like with less or no sugar options. when i do go to the store i just get regular oat milk and the sugar free vanilla syrup they have. i do spring for a cold foam, though, usually the sweet cream cold foam.0
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healthyrachel1979 wrote: »Hey all!
My go to is a large caramel swirl iced coffee with cream and sugar. Well finally looked at the nutritional numbers and holy moly…
What are your dunkin preferably (or Starbucks) favorite low calorie/yummy tasting drink!
Tia!
AT HOME OPTION:
MAKE IT AND PUT IT A COFFEE THERMOS TO GO
Coffee, CarbMaster Milk, Sugar Free Caramel Syrup.
CarbMaster Milk is 60 calories for 8 ounces. You will not put 8 ounces in your coffee. Plus, this milk keeps forever, is lactose free, and has protein. It comes in plain or vanilla.
DaVinchi's Sugar Free Caramel Syrup is 90 calories for 2 TABLESPOONS. Most would not use more than 1 tablespoon--=at the very most.
Black Coffee has 2 calories for 8 ounces
So, 8 ounces of coffee, 4 ounces of CarbMaster milk (plain or vanilla), and 1 TABLESPOON of Sugar free Caramel syrup. CALORIES: 72
Starbucks uses 2% milk in their coffee. The CarbMaster is full fat...but is lower calories. I don't know how milky you like your coffee but I did a 2 to 1 ratio from coffee to milk. And to me that is enough caramel syrup to make my teeth hurt.
You could mix it up, put it one of the good coffee thermos cups--and you could have this all day.0 -
For drive thru--try the iced coffees. They are a less less calorific.
Grande Iced Caramel Macchiato (Starbucks) (roughly 130 calories)
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For Dunkin Drive thru, get a bottle of sugar-free caramel syrup to keep in the car. It keeps for a 2 years and the bottle is small.
Order a Cold Brew Coffee With Skim/2% Milk through drive-thru. When you get it in the car, hit it with a shot of the sugar-free caramel syrup. You can use up to 1 TABLESPOON for 45 calories.
COLD BREW WITH SKIM MILK OPTIONS- Dunkin'Cold Brew Latte w/ Skim Milk 1 large (32 fl oz) Nutrition Facts 130 calories
- Dunkin'Cold Brew Latte w/ Skim Milk 1 medium (24 fl oz) Nutrition Facts 100 calories
- Dunkin'Cold Brew Latte w/ Skim Milk (16 ounces) 1 small Nutrition Facts 60 calories
So if you add your own syrup, you could get a medium COLD BREW LATTE with SKIM Milk and add your own SUgar Free Caramel sugar for about 145 calories. You could reduce that to about 100 calories if you get a small (16 ounces). And I am assuming you use the whole tablespoon of syrup. Use less and you can get the calories again.
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