When you pour milk or creamer in your coffee, it does a mesmerizing dance as the liquids swirl together. But this woman said there was something alarming about how her coffee and cream were mixing.
While a select group of people drinks their coffee black, preferring the intense taste, others like to add a bit of dairy (or nut milk) and sweetener to mellow out the flavor.
Creamers have become especially popular due to the creaminess they add to the drink and the array of infused flavors available across brands. With flavors like vanilla bean, amaretto, cinnamon vanilla, and frosted gingerbread, they make it feel like your home-brewed cup of joe has a dash of coffee shop fanciness.
But what happens when that homebrew goes wrong?
Did coffee make this woman sick?
In a viral video with more than 340,000 views, customer @lillbit_wis falsely accused (she admitted it) Walmart’s coffee of making her sick.
“Walmart French Roast, I been sick ever since I bought it. Watch when creamer hits the coffee & how it moves thru coffee,” she says.
In the video, she pours a dash of creamer into her coffee and is alarmed by how the liquids move as they meld together.
Commenters react
But most commenters were in agreement: That’s just how coffee and creamer behave, they said. And several added that it might be the creamer that’s off, not the coffee.
“Yeah that is the normal reaction that happens when cold oil hits hot water,” a top comment read.
“Please change your creamer its basically all oil it made me sick after a while too,” a person wrote.
“As an avid coffee drinker. I love watching the creamer float in the coffee. It’s completely normal to me,” another said.
What’s in coffee creamer
Given the name, you’d assume there’d be cream in creamer.
As it turns out, the commenters were right. Coffee-Mate, the creamer that seems to be used in the video, proudly lists its creamers as non-dairy.
Instead, the third ingredient on the list is vegetable oil, specifically soybean and/or canola oil.
Why does creamer move in coffee?
There’s a whole science behind it (and Vox gets into it here), but basically, creamer and coffee have different densities and temperatures, so when cold creamer goes into hot coffee, it creates convection currents as the liquids distribute and merge.
@lillbit_wis I been sick ever since i bought it. #ffyyyppppppppppppppppppp #walmart #fyp #coffeetok #coffeetiktok #frenchroast ♬ original sound – Little Bit
The real culprit is revealed
In a follow-up video, @lillbit_wis claims that despite her viral video, she never actually thought it was the coffee or creamer.
Instead, she says it was the new veggie capsules she started the day before she bought the new coffee brand. They made her sick the first time she took them, so she paused them for a few days, but when she started them again, she got sick again.
The capsules she takes contain moringa (a type of plant). While moringa is used to nourish the skin and hair, protect the liver, treat upset stomachs, and improve eye health, Medical News Today reported that there are not enough clinical studies to decisively say how effective it is for treating any of the above ailments.
The Daily Dot reached out to @lillbit_wis for comment via TikTok direct message and comment and to Walmart via email.
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