Interesting Nutritional Discovery in My Hot Cocoa

Santa brought me a Keurig single cup coffee maker (on sale for $44 at Walmart but I got Futureshop to price match it because the buggers were always out of stock.) Would-be environmentalists have been critical of my acquisitions, but in truth, my purchase has  been a boon for the environment, and my belly.

My habit of the last two years has been to go to McDonald's or Tim Horton's (a popular Canadian doughnut chain) and get me a fix of extra large coffee with lots of cream and sugar (I'm still a bit of a virgin coffee drinker.) Being a fat-body, of course I added things to my order: A breakfast sandwich, usually. Then there's the gas. Those restaurants are relatively close but there's sometimes a fifteen minute wait in line, idling the mini-van. This habit cost me calories and carbon emissions (including flatulence after the meal.) What a waste of time, money and pollution!

Thankfully, and unexpectedly, my Keurig cured me of that bad habit (or at least downsized the habit, depending on how you look at it.) I found the perfect coffee K-cup for me (the Donut House K-cup), used some filtered water, bought some coffee cream and I'm set. Furthermore, I'm enjoying a single, normal sized cup to start my day and not the giant XL cups from the stores (and their wasteful containers.) (Yes, I'm aware that K-cups produce waste in their lined plastic little cups, but surly it's less than my trips to the store.)

My breakfast consists of more modest, higher fibre (and therefore more slowly digesting) breakfast fares at home. I'm saving a fortune. With gas, it must have been at least a $6/day habit. That's nasty. When the kids tagged along on the weekends for some doughnut holes, it got more expensive.

Having said that, my trips out for coffee constituted some quality James Time. Usually, I was alone and in the relative peace and quiet of my vehicle (no screaming kids within earshot.) But now my James Time is on the couch with my coffee.

My Cocoa Discovery

We keep some hot cocoa K-cups around for a treat (a lazy treat.) I was surprised that each cup of Green Mountain Hot Cocoa K-cups are only 60 calories. More surprisingly to me, they contain 3 grams of fibre per cup.

It's hard to find a non-fruit/vegetable that has that much fibre in a 60 calorie snack. Even harder to find one that does something to satisfy one's chocolate cravings. However, it's got 3.5 grams of fat and it's all saturated!

I couldn't find much info on the Net but the cocoa industry seems to be including part of the cocoa husk to up the fibre in their products and therefore make them more appealing to health-conscious consumers.