The Java Stream API provides an expressive and efficient way to perform basic operations such as summing a list of numbers, similar to the traditional loop-based approach or using the collect function with a reducing collector like `Collectors.summingInt()`. The stream API's `mapToInt()` function can also be used in combination with the `sum()` method to achieve this. Another option is to use the `reduce()` function, which takes a starting point and applies a BiFunction lambda expression to each element in the list. While there are multiple ways to solve this problem, the stream API's approach is often considered the most expressive and pure solution in Java.