My wife and I love Starbucks. In fact, we consider the Barnes & Noble/Starbucks at Park Meadows our second home. Nevertheless, I realize Starbucks beverages are not as healthy as we all would like. So I picked up a Starbucks Nutrition Facts sheet a couple nights ago to find out how unhealthy their beverages really are.
Everybody looks for a different "key performance indicator" when they look at nutrition facts labels. I happen to be tuned in to sugar, so I looked for the two Starbucks beverages with the most sugar. Here they are.
Sugar Offender #1: Caramel Apple Cider
A tall (12 oz.) Caramel Apple Cider packs a whopping 53 grams of sugar and 340 calories! If you were to set this 12 oz. Caramel Apple Cider next to a regular 12 oz. can of Coca-Cola, the cider's sugar content would whallop the can of Coke by an astonishing 14 grams of sugar. (A can of Coca-Cola has 39 grams of sugar and "only" 140 calories.)
Sugar Offender #2: Strawberries & Creme Frappuccino
A venti (20 oz.) Strawberries & Creme Frappuccino is a monster next to the Caramel Apple Cider. This nefarious beverage sneaks in 123 grams of sugar and 780 calories in its frothy pinkness—the sugar-equivalent of drinking 3.15 cans of Coca-Cola. Another way of saying it: it takes 37.8 oz. of Coca-Cola to achieve the same sugar content of a 20 oz. Strawberries & Creme Frappuccino. Take that and slap it on your hips!
With all the different sizes, it can be difficult to see each of these three beverages on a level playing field. So let me boil it down to sugar density.
- Coca-Cola — 3.25 grams of sugar per oz.
- Caramel Apple Cider — 4.42 grams of sugar per oz.
- Strawberries & Creme Frappuccino — 6.15 grams of sugar per oz.
Everybody's blaming soft drinks for diabetes and obesity, but I see another player looming giant-like on the horizon....
You'll notice I linked to two different web sites so you could view some of the nutrition facts yourself. Probably the best site I found is DietFacts.com. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any source except my brochure that listed the sugar content of a venti Strawberries & Creme Frappuccino.
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