You Are What You Drink?

With all the hype lately about obesity reaching epidemic proportions, the warnings to beware what you drink are just as important as those cautioning you to watch out for what you eat. It's just that when you don't chew it, whatever it is, it's so easy to forget it has significance to your waistline, too.
With that in mind, here's a few numbers for you that you might be glad you read, especially if you've been thinking in terms of chai teas as being "healthy". Make one for yourself at home, and it's likely to be a very different story, but imbibe one at Second Cup, for instance, and feel your arteries and your waistband groaning even as you swallow the last mouthful.
A medium Green Tea Latte will send 470 calories swirling down your gullet and 12 grams of saturated and trans fat combined to besiege your circulatory system. Both counts are almost the same as what you'd encounter in a McDonald's quarter pounder with cheese. If you've sworn off the latter in an effort to be kind to your own state of health, you might want to add the former to your no-no list.
Obviously, ordering your latte made with skim milk will do something for the calorie count, but you'll still be taking in some trans fat from the hydrogenated oil used in the green tea mix.
For an alternative, order a caffe latte - NOT a flavoured one with their 300 to 400 calories hiding in a medium - but a plain medium latte made with skim or at least 1% milk, and you'll be downing approximately 400 mg of calcium. Calcium is always good, so you can feel totally righteous drinking one of these.
If something cold might hit the spot a little better, ask for an Icy Fruit Smoothie, 'cause they're only going to give you about 160 calories to add to your day's total.
Something to keep in mind, eh?