Coffee in the U.S.: almost 40% more calories a day, mostly from creamer, study finds

It is not the coffee itself that has changed, but what goes into it. That is the finding of an analysis by Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy in Boston, published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and presented on Oct. 22, 2026. The researchers analyzed dietary data from about 30,000 adults in the nationally representative U.S. NHANES health survey from 2003 to 2018. The amount people drank stayed almost the same, at about 13 ounces, or just under 0.4 liters, a day.

Calories from coffee, however, rose from 43 to 60 a day – an increase of almost 40%. The biggest driver was not sugar but non-dairy creamer: its contribution grew from 7.71 to 18.5 kilocalories a day. In 2018, sugar and syrup supplied about 16 and dairy milk about 11 kilocalories. The researchers found no statistically significant change for milk, sugar and sweeteners. Non-dairy additions overall, by contrast, rose from 3.65 to 10.5 grams a day, and plant-based milk alternatives alone from 0.27 to 2.45 grams.

"Non-dairy creamers can be high in saturated fat, which is calorie dense," said lead author Yongyi Pan. Senior author Fang Fang Zhang stressed that coffee is often consumed with sugar and cream, and that the more is known about actual consumption, the better nutrition can be linked to health. The study relies on participants' self-reports of what they consumed in the previous 24 hours, which can introduce measurement error. The data also run only through 2018 and cover only the United States.