Tall triple latte, skim milk, no syrup. Before I was forced to decaffeinate, that was my standing order at Sips Espresso. A recent study by researchers at the University of Scranton says that might just have been good for my health.

They discovered that coffee is the leading source of antioxidants–thought to fight cancer and provide other health benefits–for Americans, topping black tea, bananas, dry beans and corn.

Spokesman Joe A. Vinson, a chemistry professor at the University of Scranton, said he was researching tea, cocoa and other foods and decided to study coffee, too.

From AP via the Spokesman-Review:

His team analyzed the antioxidant content of more than 100 different food items, including vegetables, fruits, nuts, spices, oils and common beverages. Then it used U.S. Agriculture Department data on typical food-consumption patterns to calculate how much antioxidant each food contributes to a person’s diet.

The researchers concluded that the average adult consumes 1,299 milligrams of antioxidants daily from coffee. The closest competitor was tea at 294 milligrams. Rounding out the top five sources were bananas, 76 milligrams; dry beans, 72 milligrams; and corn, 48 milligrams. According to the Agriculture Department, the typical adult American drinks 1.64 cups of coffee daily.

That doesn’t mean that coffee is a substitute for fruits and vegetables, however. Vinson pointed out that they are better nutritionally than coffee.

No word on whether those antioxidants are present in decaf.