Calories in ground coffee?

pursuitofoblivion
pursuitofoblivion Posts: 21 Member
in Food and Nutrition
This may be a stupid question.. Today I wanted coffee ice cream and had vanilla ice cream and ground coffee and so I put 2 tablespoons of ground coffee on top of my ice cream, it actually tasted pretty nice (despite how strange it may sound). However I make sure to log everything including condiments and spices and I am not quite sure how i should log the coffee being as i actually consumed all of the two tablespoons, when coffee brews the mass of it is left over in the filter. So how do i log this? How do i know how many calories my coffee has per tbsp? thanks

Replies

  • marciebrian
    marciebrian Posts: 853 Member
    as far as I know, none! the ice cream of course but the coffee is 0
  • pursuitofoblivion
    pursuitofoblivion Posts: 21 Member
    Well brewed coffee is 2 calories per 8 oz, but this was not brewed coffee so im assuming it would be more. because rather than hot water soaking over the grounds i ate all of the grounds..
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,120 Member
    Ask, and the Internets shall provide:

    Nutritional Data

    According to Cafe Valverde Coffee Roasters, 20 g of ground roasted coffee beans contain 60 calories, 1 g of protein, 1 g of carbohydrates, 2 g of fat, 8 g of fiber, 1.64 mg of iron and no cholesterol, saturated fat or sodium.

    http://www.livestrong.com/article/299835-coffee-bean-nutrition-facts/

    Presumably you have more of the coffee on hand, so you can see what your 2 tbsp of your grounds weigh (obviously the relative coarseness of the grounds will have an effect).

    (And yes, it does sound strange and not very appetizing to me, but I'm glad it satisfied your craving.)
  • Fishshtick
    Fishshtick Posts: 120 Member
    Interesting question. I suspect that you would not be far off just using the calories for the same number of cups of coffee made by 2 tablespoons of grounds. I say this because coffee has little fat or available protein, particularly after the roasting. What carbs are available to your body are likely to be the same soluble sugars that are efficiently steeped out of the grounds and into your drink and there are even very few of those. Most listings say black coffee has 2-3 calories per cup and I suspect that if it's caffeinated the small boost to your BMR probably even offsets those. Most of the bulk of a roasted coffee bean has been carbonized (basically charcoal) and while it makes your coffee a nice color you can't make metabolic use of it.

    Overall, I wouldn't worry that you could even eat enough coffee grounds in a day to account for more than the calorie error associated with measuring all your other foods. For example, licking your ice cream bowl clean versus leaving it a bit dirty would have probably accounted for much more calories than what you might log as a difference between brewed cups and actual coffee grounds. Still, good job being a stickler for logging.

    If others know that coffee grounds are somehow more caloric, I would be interested hearing about it.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,120 Member
    I have to ask: Was this an espresso grind? Because I think it's the texture that I'm having a hard time getting my imagination around. I don't even like drinking coffee that has grounds in it. I can imagine putting espresso powder (which is essentially dehydrated brewed espresso, I think), but grinds ....?
  • pursuitofoblivion
    pursuitofoblivion Posts: 21 Member
    It was this coffee:
    http://www.worldmarket.com/product/bourbon-flavored-ground-coffee.do?page=2&from=fn

    I have a unique sense of taste... so yeah, the entire concept may be unappealing to all others but i found it quite nice.


    I'm not sure if the cafevalverde reference in the livestrong article is a reliable source, and i am clueless, so if anyone else does have any other information to offer please don't hesitate, but thanks, if no one else responds i will go by this.
  • pursuitofoblivion
    pursuitofoblivion Posts: 21 Member
    Ok, I am going to go by the usda's nutrition data for instant coffee because it believe it will be the easiest to convert for my needs and the most accurate. thanks

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