When non-dairy creamers were introduced either in the late 1950s or early 1960s, people didn't know that one of the ingredients isn't good for you at all. The use of non-dairy creamers peaked in the 1980s, but there are people who have always used one form of milk or another instead of buying into the non-dairy creamer routine.
The bad ingredient I'm talking about is partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (or fat).
Dairy Creamers
I was born in 1960 and grew up watching the older folks drink coffee with a dairy creamer of one kind or another. I don't even remember a non-dairy creamer being used before we lived in Hawaii in the mid-1970s.
Evaporated milk from a can is what I remember the most. It's not really cream. It's just milk with a lot of the water removed and thus it still has to be refrigerated after opening. Sugar is added as a sweetener when evaporated milk is used. Condensed milk, also called "sweetened condensed milk", already has sugar added to it. It's basically evaporated milk plus sugar and it has to be refrigerated after opening as well.
Some people think that regular whole milk is thick enough to serve the purpose. I know that the UHT milk works well because that's what I use on rare occasions. Since I learned of the trans-fat issue surrounding partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, I've been drinking coffee black with a little added sugar.
Non-Dairy Creamers
One of the first makers of non-dairy coffee creamers was the Nestlé Corporation, with Coffee-Mate in 1961. A whole bunch of other companies jumped on the bandwagon and I can't even begin to name names.
I suppose people who are lactose-intolerant are left with a choice of either black coffee or coffee with a non-dairy creamer. Fortunately, Nestlé has come out recently with non-dairy creamers that are lower in fat and some that contain absolutely no partially hydrogenated vegetable oil at all.
The trick is to read the label. Some brands of non-dairy creamer will say "no trans-fat" when in reality they have just little enough to legally say none. The Nestlé Corporation has no reason to skew this information since they're marketing health-conscious products as much as possible.
Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils and Trans-Fats
I'm no chemist and I only know what I've learned through various sources. The process of hydrogenating vegetable oil produces trans-fats. Trans-fats have been linked to heart disease as well as the increased size of people's midsections (the big, fat belly syndrome).
Non-dairy creamers are used in tea as well as coffee, so the benefits of drinking tea are outweighed by the trans-fat that non-dairy creamers introduce. You need to do your research and read the labels when you decide to buy a non-dairy creamer product. It's your health you should be worried about, not about whether it tastes better with a dairy creamer or not.
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please tell which nestle creamers have no partially hydrogenated veg oil?? I have not found one yet. If you are talking about trans fats, wrong again. it may say zero grams trans fat per serving but that is because by law, if it is under .5 grams, they can round to zero. It is actually .46 grams per serving(which they list as a TABLESPOON–who puts just a T in their coffee?). So, please, do tell me about there creamers with NO partially hydrogenated oils.
I'm not a chemist and I haven't tested the Nestle creamers, so I can't argue the point. All I can say is that they label them as 0 and that's the only thing I can go by. I don't use any creamers at all 99 percent of the time and when I do, I use dairy milk, not the fake stuff.
I recently saw a commercial about "non-dairy" creamers being bad for you. The point of putting creme or milk into your coffee is to let it taste better and we've always used these in our drinks. Now, how can "non-dairy" be a dairy substitute for your coffee? These come in the form of powder or liquid. Is it just safe to just use milk and not the new flavored creamers that are out there?
-Steph
Actually people add coffee cream/whitener for that purpose primarily, to whiten coffee and reduce staining of teeth, as well as changing the texture/opacity of the coffee to a richer, creamier one.
Coffee creamer is dairy, the powdered substance regarded as non-dairy is just a whitener, not a non-dairy creamer. That is the purpose; that is the primary terminology used to categorize this substance. Whitener. Holy, Steph. Stop making people with my name look retarded.
Smart Steph.
Why are there sites like this that folksily talk around an issue without giving any usable information??
I'm searching the internet precisely because I don't trust the label data to be complete. I just want to know how much is actually in there – verifiably – whether it's 0.00 or .49999 grams per tablespoon – not what Nestle (which has a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits) decided to print on the label.
The conclusion I draw from this site is that you are either intentionally disguising misinformation, or hopelessly confused. If I'm wrong, please correct me.
The answer to your conclusion is neither. I'm asking questions just like you.
The serving size is actually a TEASPOON, not a TABLESPOON.
Can you tell me if coffeemate is made with natural sugar or do you folks use sugar substitutes? I have a horrible reaction to any sugar substitute and so I have to check and double check to be sure that there are no sugar subs in anything I ingest. Thanks so much for any info you can give me on this. The reason I ask about this in particular is I see that it says on the list of nutrition facts it has listed "sugars". Please let me know if the plural for sugars means you guys use some sugar and some sugar substitutes to sweeten this product? Thanks so much for your help.
I can't answer that question. If it doesn't specifically say "sugar", I wouldn't trust it to be free of any sugar substitutes.
Coffee Mate makes a great smoke bomb. think about that next time3 you reach for it !!
Watch myth busters, coffee mate in it's powder form is explosive… try almond milk
its the physical state as powder that makes it "explosive". any powder fine enough will do, not just creamers.