No More Trans Fats at Starbucks
January 4, 2007 by Lei
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
As of yesterday, pastries and other foods in half of American Starbucks stores will be free of that dreaded evil against heart health – trans fats. For example, Starbucks seasonal pumpkin muffins and gingerbread no longer have trans fats. At the Starbucks near my parents in California, the nutrition guide (pdf) for cakes and pastries has a long column of zeros under trans fat. BTW, check out the calories for doughnuts! An apple fritter has 490 calories with 200 calories from fat. That’s 41% of calories derived from fat!!
Not that it matters to me because I think practically all food in Starbucks tastes pretty bad. I like the coffee; my favorite is almond latte (280 calories, 80 from fat ::sigh::), but even almond flavoring has been phased out of Singapore the last time I checked. Thank goodness, I live in London!
After a disappointing visit yesterday, I wrote the following email.
Dear Starbucks UK,
I’m a regular customer of Starbucks and would love to go everyday except that I find the selection of pastries and other food absolutely dreadful. When I order a cinnamon roll, it’s never reheated and remains hard as a rock. The only muffins I find appealing and not too sweet are Rise and Shine and Lemon Poppyseed, neither of which was available this morning. I remember ages ago there was a carrot muffin I really enjoyed, but it’s no longer available.
How often are new food items introduced? I still go for the coffee but not more than once or twice a week since I’d like to get something eat at the same time.
Thank you for considering my email,
Hsien-Hsien Lei, PhD
Actually, after studying the nutritional guides, I think I’d best not go to Starbucks so frequently. In any case, I couldn’t find any trans fats info on the Starbucks UK cake and pastry nutritional guide (pdf), which should be listed on a label similar to this one from the FDA (although the UK probably has different laws governing food labeling). Here goes another email. I’ll report back on what they say.
FOXNews.com, January 2, 2007
Tags: trans fat, fats, trans fats, starbucks, uk, heart, heart disease, diseases, illness, health, coffee, food, pastry, nutrition
