How healthy is your daily latte?

If you’ve joined the fad for soya, almond, oat or coconut milk, you should look away now!

WHAT’S IN A TYPICAL SEMI-SKIMMED LATTE

MEDIUM SIZE, 330ml Calories 135 Saturated fat 2.8g Sugars 12g Protein 10g THE default dairy latte is a semiskimmed one at all major coffee shops, with the typical size (a tall at Starbucks, or a medio at Costa) being about 330 to 360ml.

This provides around 10g of protein – similar to half a small chicken breast, and enough to help control hunger for a few hours.

Just one latte counts as one of the two dairy portions we are recommended to eat daily and provides roughly 40 per cent of the recommended daily dose of bone-building calcium.

In a dairy latte, there is 95 per cent of our daily Vitamin B12 requirement, a vitamin that isn’t naturally in plant foods such as almonds and coconuts and helps fight tiredness and fatigue.

One dairy latte also provides more than half the daily requirement of iodine, which is vital for regulating metabolism. And remember, natural milk sugars do NOT count towards your limit of 30g per day.

... AND HOW THE MILK ALTERNATIVES COMPARE

SOY MILK LATTE TALL 355ml, £2.85 Calories 119 Saturated fat 0.2g Sugars 8.2g Protein 8.7g OPTING for soy milk over semi-skimmed cow’s milk means that you are consuming 8.2g or two teaspoons of ‘free’ sugar per latte – that’s more than a quarter of the recommended limit of unhealthy sugars linked with tooth decay and obesity.

It won’t save you many calories either: only 24. On the plus side, it is fortified with B-vitamins, calcium and iodine, making it equivalent to cow’s milk in these nutrients. It also has added Vitamin D, essential for absorbing calcium and for strong bones. ALMOND MILK LATTE TALL 355ml, £3.25 Calories 74 Saturated fat 0.3g Sugars 6.6g Protein 2.1g WHILE this is the skinniest of all Starbucks’ lattes, it contains only a fifth of the protein in cow’s milk, meaning it’s unlikely to be appetite-curbing. An extra one-and-a-half teaspoons of added sugar come courtesy of Starbucks’ sweetened almond milk, equating to over a fifth of your daily free sugars recommendation. It’s fortified with calcium, but not iodine or B12 – crucial for optimum brain function and digestion – which vegans can struggle to obtain. OAT MILK LATTE TALL 355ml, £3.25 Calories 212 Saturated fat 4.3g Sugars 17.8g Protein 3.4g ONE to avoid if you’re weight-watching, it contains an extra 69 calories and more saturated fat than semi-skimmed choices, probably due to the extra fats such as rapeseed oil.

Contributing to the calorie increase is a whopping 17.8g of sugar provided by the oat milk – half of what you find in a can of Coke – which makes up 59 per cent of your daily free sugars total.

The lack of added calcium and Vitamin B12 means that cow’s milk is far superior.

On the plus side, there’s an impressive 5.3g of fibre in the oat milk, more than a sixth of the recommended daily intake of 30g, including beta glucan – a type of fibre that helps to lower cholesterol. COCONUT MILK LATTE TALL 355ml, £3.25 Calories 119 Saturated fat 7.2g Sugars 8.2g Protein 1.3g THE coconut milk option is less calorific but provides almost 90 per cent less protein than the dairy version, increasing hunger pangs. It is also devoid of the calcium and B12 in cow’s milk, and is 5g higher in saturated fat, linked with high cholesterol and heart disease.

This is typical of many coconut extracts, such as oil and cream, as they have a higher percentage of saturated fat than butter and lard.

This latte delivers more than a third of the daily 20g recommended daily limit of saturated fat and a quarter of your daily limit of free sugars.

CAFFÈ NERO

SOY MILK LATTE GRANDE 330ml, £2.65 Calories 122 Saturated fat 0.7g Sugars 7g Protein 9g AS WITH all soy lattes across the big chains, this contains soy milk that’s sweetened – with concentrated apple extract in this case – providing nearly a quarter of your total daily limit of free sugars. That more than offsets the benefits of the small 13 calorie saving. This one is at least fortified with calcium, though. COCONUT MILK LATTE GRANDE 330ml, £3.05 Calories 97 Saturated fat 0.5g Sugars 8g Protein 4.7g COCONUT milk varies greatly in the amount of saturated fat it contains, depending on how much actual coconut there is in it: the more coconut, the higher the sat fat.

This contains a surprisingly low 0.5g – more than 90 per cent less than the Starbucks version. But the low saturated fat is outweighed by the excess ‘free’ sugar; two teaspoons per drink and almost a third of your 30g a day limit. OAT MILK LATTE GRANDE 330ml, £3.05 Calories 134 Saturated fat 0.5g Sugars 10.9g Protein 1.5g THIS isn’t sweetened, but still contains as much sugar as two marshmallow sweets. It comes naturally from the oats, but is still classified as ‘free’ sugar.

For the same number of calories as a dairy milk drink,