Peaches & Micellar Casein?

I love coffee. In an age where nothing is sacred in this world and everything is bad for you (like, seriously, everything) I beg of you – leave my coffee alone. I love walking into Latham Bakery with my official Latham Bakery insulated cup and having them fill it up to the brim. If you haven’t had their Maple Pecan coffee, who even are you? I can hear Melinda’s voice saying, “Room for cream?” The correct answer is always yes. I adore those original tile floors and the glass fronts on the bakery cabinets and the wooden tabletops. Mostly, I love the coffee. I’m no coffee snob, either. Sure, the top 5 coffee reviewers of 2023 all rank Death Wish as the best coffee on the market, with its double down on caffeine, its organic and fair-trade nature, and those almost burned chocolate tones lurking in the aftertaste. But I can drink any coffee. Give me the Starbies Cinnamon Dolce any day. I’ll drink that Black Rifle coffee my veteran son supports. Heck, I am 100% on board with the Great Value Cinnamon Vanilla blend Walmart sells. I will drink it black. I will drink it with a splash of organic whole milk, preferably raw. I will drink it with a little heavy cream drizzle. I will drink it from a drip, as a pour over, and even from, egad, a pod. I will drink it with a fox in socks on a box, Sam I Am. So, color me gob smacked when my husband and I almost broke into fisticuffs over, of all things, coffee creamer options.

“Do we have any coffee creamer?” he said early one Saturday morning. My reply, “You mean the heavy cream on the counter next to the coffeemaker?” “No,” he says, “real creamer.” I gather my senses and respond, “You mean the organic whole milk?” “No,” he says again, “like, actual creamer.” I took a deep breath. “You mean the lactose free whole milk, the raw milk, or the half ‘n half, or maybe the evaporated milk? It’s all in the fridge.” Admittedly, I was a little testy as I blurted out, “All the milks are in the fridge. You are familiar with that closet looking metal thing in the kitchen where the perishables live?” He eyeballed me carefully. A precoffee testy wife in the wild is not the animal one wants to wander in front of accidentally. We are akin to honey badgers until properly fed and caffeinated. He attempted an explanation. “I wanted that kind of creamer that comes in that container shaped like a bowling pin with a red lid on the top. You know, the ones with all the different flavors that I like.” I exceeded tornado siren decibel levels as I exclaimed, “COFFEMATE? YOU ARE ASKING FOR DISGUSTING COFFEMATE? WHAT DO YOU TAKE ME FOR, A BARBARIAN?”

Admittedly, I am not one for sugar coating things, literally. I’m not a fan of too many sweet consumables. I like my red wine to taste like the inside of oak barrel that birthed it into being. Give me the tannins. I like my chocolate dark and slightly bitter. And, there is no room in my world for coffee that has been touched by sugar. I am the minority in this sense. If sugarless coffee were a thing, the Frappuccino wouldn’t exist. There would be no pumpkin spice season. The Torre family would never have become bajillionaires selling Torani coffee syrup in 40 countries. But, it is who I am. My husband, on the other hand, likes to put sugar ON HIS FROSTED FLAKES. He dusts his grapes in sugar. He douses his strawberries in sugar. Last year, when we both committed to focusing on our health, he finally kicked his sugar addiction, for the most part. I turned the sugar bowl into a countertop container for my ridiculously overpriced salt. I threw out the cereal. I stopped buying his beloved ice cream. He no longer gets up at 3 am every night to eat a plate of blueberry waffles with copious amounts of syrup. I even monitor the labels on his BBQ sauce. This resulted in great things for him. He blinked twice and lost 10 lbs without breaking a sweat. I’ve been working out like a middle-aged banshee for a year and intermittent fasting like I plan on auditioning for Survivor. My scale needle moveth not. Life just isn’t fair. But, back to the grocery store.

My husband chose his creamer on the afternoon of that same early morn kitchen stand-off. He picked the Zero Sugar French Vanilla. To my credit, I said nothing. I stood in Kroger, emotionless and calm, watching that container mock me from the corner of the basket behind the overpriced eggs. There was no need to chastise my husband. I had a plan brewing. Once we were home, groceries carted inside and put away, I set to work while he took the dogs outside and tinkered in the back yard. The presentation began at 3pm. Collated documents were included. I had a 3-page, double-sided report on the ingredients list of his chosen creamer. It shocked even me. Turns out, there are unappetizing ingredients in the Coffemate creamer. There is corn syrup, which causes changes in liver fat and increases insulin sensitivity. There are seed oils, the linoleic acids of which are associated with heart disease, cancer, and dementia. There is micellar casein that contains the component casomophins, known to respond in the body as an opiate, just as addictive. Maltodextrin will bloat you, give you gas, and cause weight gain, if it doesn’t give you a rash first or cause lung issues. Mono & diglycerides have been linked to over 50,000 fatal heart attacks a year. Dipotassium phosphate will confuse you, constipate you, or cause you to vomit. Carrageenan is linked to colon cancer. Sucralose will ruin your insulin sensitivity. The methylene chloride in acesulfame potassium may cause depression, mental confusion, or cancer. And, oddly enough, THERE IS NO CREAM IN THE CREAMER.

Yes, I know. My bitter coffee, void of the joy of chemicals grouped together to taste like an Almond Joy or Italian Cream (do the Italians have better cream?) is likely pesticide laden or picked by a child in a country that believes in laboring minors. The eyeshadow I wore to buy the coffee was made from mineral elements likely mined by a marginalized person who exposed themselves to asbestos veins. The beeswax in the lip balm on my lips will be the downfall of both the bees and civilization. Still, shouldn’t creamer contain cream? Just some non-nutritive food-like items for thought.