Starbucks has 3x the sugar of a whole Coke in some drinks • Hacker News Board

Re: Starbucks has 3x the sugar of a whole Coke in some drinks

#21

Post by VLM » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 4:48 PM UTC

What impresses me is decades ago a lot of food chemistry work went into figuring out weird tastes to mask the taste of caffeine and so on. So that's why Mt Dew and energy drinks taste the way they do, to cover up the bad flavors, make it drinkable.

More recently there must be a lot of research going into how to pack 25 spoons of corn syrup into a drink and still make it drinkable, or even taste good. It is impressive purely from a food science / chemistry standpoint, no matter how unhealthy it may be.

Re: Starbucks has 3x the sugar of a whole Coke in some drinks

#22

Post by dogma1138 » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 4:50 PM UTC

merraksh wrote: post #15

dogma1138 wrote: post #8

What a clickbate... It's probably important to note that it's not only "flavored" drinks, milk has quite a bit of sugar in it naturally, the "special" milk which is used by some coffee places has about 9% fat and 2-3% carbohydrates which makes it worse than coke on it's own, normal whole/semi-skimmed/skimmed(skimmed usually have higher amounts of sugar to make it not taste like well the water it is) milk has about 5g…

I'm not sure where the click-bait is. The title of the article is consistent with the content, i.e., many beverages at Starbucks have a lot of sugar content. Whether that comes from adding sugar or adding ingredients which are naturally sweet is not the point of the article. > It's probably important to note that it's not only "flavored" drinks, milk has quite a bit of sugar in it naturally, True, but is milk the sol…

>I'm not sure where the click-bait is. The title of the article is consistent with the content, i.e., many beverages at Starbucks have a lot of sugar content. Whether that comes from adding sugar or adding ingredients which are naturally sweet is not the point of the article.

A glass of milk has more sugar than it than a can of coke, and more fat also.

>the "special" milk which is used by some coffee places has about 9% fat and 2-3% carbohydrates which makes it worse than coke on it's own,

Not necessarily different breeds of cow have different amount of butterfat and sugar in their milk, the milk that you get in the store has for the most part been sifted for quite a bit of the goodies in order to make cream, cheese and other dairy products you are almost sold leftovers especially if you say buy skimmed milk.

>Confirms the point above. No it doesn't skimmed milk will either have less sugar removed from it than whole milk, or the cow breeds that will be used are those which produce sweeter milk naturally

>Perhaps not for the same volume. Many fast food chains sell sodas in cups that are 2-3 times the volume of a 33cl can.

The article compared it to a can of coke which is 33cl not to some bucket you can buy at your local big belly burger joint.

>Again, consistent with the article's point. The numbers are there, and they seem to be higher than the recommended daily amount of sugar intake.

The article point was look Starbucks is worse than soda so you might as well drink coke instead.

I don't think any one thought that drinking a liter of milk is "healthy" or a good way to blow about half your caloric budget, if they did they need to be educated about nutrition in general not thought to stay away from Starbucks the local artisan latte that is served in what else would be considered soup mugs is just as bad at the end of the day doesn't matter if it has 2 teaspoons less of sugar than Starbucks. Want to know what has even more sugar? that "sugar free" smoothie or freshly squeezed juice as it has over 2 times the amount of sugar as most soda per unit of volume as easily 4-5 times more sugar per serving. Heck a decent sized apple or an orange have more sugar than a can of coke should we stop eating apples?

Re: Starbucks has 3x the sugar of a whole Coke in some drinks

#23

Post by baldfat » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 4:51 PM UTC

DarkTree wrote: post #2

I'm not surprised some Starbucks drinks have a ton of sugar, but the 3 cans of Coke worth definitely puts it into perspective. I grew up drinking my coffee with sugar and cream, but eventually stopped using sugar, and then ultimately drinking it black. If you can wean off adding compliments to your coffee, you will most likely acquire a taste for the bitterness of coffee. Once you begin loving the true taste of coffe…

I put a ton of sugar in my tea, but tea is so diverse I enjoy all the different kinds. I think I am now down to only one teaspoon per 8 oz.

Re: Starbucks has 3x the sugar of a whole Coke in some drinks

#24

Post by steanne » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 4:53 PM UTC

Why is this a surprise? They have nutrition information for all their products on their website. Not news.

Re: Starbucks has 3x the sugar of a whole Coke in some drinks

#25

Post by hissworks » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 4:56 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #16

DarkTree wrote: post #2

I'm not surprised some Starbucks drinks have a ton of sugar, but the 3 cans of Coke worth definitely puts it into perspective. I grew up drinking my coffee with sugar and cream, but eventually stopped using sugar, and then ultimately drinking it black. If you can wean off adding compliments to your coffee, you will most likely acquire a taste for the bitterness of coffee. Once you begin loving the true taste of coffe…

My body rejects processed foods nowadays, I'm somehow forced to eat raw everything. It's funny how so many tastes there are. Now I now there's enjoyable tastes outside the usual junk food. But, I miss the feel of carb + sugar + fat, it really does push all your brains button :)

How do avocados fare as a substitute?

Re: Starbucks has 3x the sugar of a whole Coke in some drinks

#26

Post by maxerickson » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 4:56 PM UTC

dogma1138 wrote: post #22

merraksh wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure where the click-bait is. The title of the article is consistent with the content, i.e., many beverages at Starbucks have a lot of sugar content. Whether that comes from adding sugar or adding ingredients which are naturally sweet is not the point of the article. > It's probably important to note that it's not only "flavored" drinks, milk has quite a bit of sugar in it naturally, True, but is milk the sol…

>I'm not sure where the click-bait is. The title of the article is consistent with the content, i.e., many beverages at Starbucks have a lot of sugar content. Whether that comes from adding sugar or adding ingredients which are naturally sweet is not the point of the article. A glass of milk has more sugar than it than a can of coke, and more fat also. >the "special" milk which is used by some coffee places has about…

A glass of milk has more sugar than it than a can of coke, and more fat also.

Could you please go look this up? When I check at https://www.google.com/search?q=milk+nutrition I get a small glass of milk having ~1/3 the sugar of a can of coke.

An equal volume of that milk would have ~1/2 the sugar of a can of coke.

Of course the lack of fat in Coke makes that part true, any milk fat will be more than the fat in the soda.

Re: Starbucks has 3x the sugar of a whole Coke in some drinks

#27

Post by switch007 » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 4:58 PM UTC

S_A_P wrote: post #5

I don't know how you could drink some of those Starbucks "coffee" drinks and think they were anything other than milkshakes. There are also some misconceptions around the caffeine content of these coffee drinks. Most espresso is around 30-50mg caffeine per shot, so a 20oz frappacino will have 60-100 mg caffeine vs a 20 oz coffee which will have ~350-400 mg caffeine.

According to Starbucks [1], their espresso 'solo' is 75 mg per shot and a 20 oz brewed coffee has 410 mg (not sure how because 410/75 = 5.46 shots)

[1] https://news.starbucks.com/uploads/documents/nutrition.pdf

Re: Starbucks has 3x the sugar of a whole Coke in some drinks

#28

Post by TarpitCarnivore » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 5:01 PM UTC

DarkTree wrote: post #2

I'm not surprised some Starbucks drinks have a ton of sugar, but the 3 cans of Coke worth definitely puts it into perspective. I grew up drinking my coffee with sugar and cream, but eventually stopped using sugar, and then ultimately drinking it black. If you can wean off adding compliments to your coffee, you will most likely acquire a taste for the bitterness of coffee. Once you begin loving the true taste of coffe…

The amount of sugar you were putting in your coffee is probably not close to comparable to that in these drinks.

> Once you begin loving the true taste of coffee

The "true" taste of coffee is how you prefer to drink coffee. Don't forget that a lot of people like to drink milk based drinks (latte, cap, macciato, etc) which are technically not showing the "true" taste of the coffee being used. Yet for someone reason no one thumbs their nose at them.

Re: Starbucks has 3x the sugar of a whole Coke in some drinks

#29

Post by dogma1138 » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 5:09 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #26

dogma1138 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm not sure where the click-bait is. The title of the article is consistent with the content, i.e., many beverages at Starbucks have a lot of sugar content. Whether that comes from adding sugar or adding ingredients which are naturally sweet is not the point of the article. A glass of milk has more sugar than it than a can of coke, and more fat also. >the "special" milk which is used by some coffee places has about…

A glass of milk has more sugar than it than a can of coke, and more fat also. Could you please go look this up? When I check at https://www.google.com/search?q=milk+nutrition I get a small glass of milk having ~1/3 the sugar of a can of coke. An equal volume of that milk would have ~1/2 the sugar of a can of coke. Of course the lack of fat in Coke makes that part true, any milk fat will be more than the fat in the so…

Could you? I said before that milk has slightly over half the amount of sugar than coke, the serving size differs a classical milk that people drink 450-600ml.

Re: Starbucks has 3x the sugar of a whole Coke in some drinks

#30

Post by JustSomeNobody » Wed, Feb 17, 2016, 5:09 PM UTC

> Starbucks said it has committed to reduce added sugar in its "indulgent drinks" by 25% by the end of 2020.

IOW, not really. But come on, these drinks are non-necessary items. Who cares? And besides, who looks at something with whipped cream and doesn't imagine it being sugar and calorie laden?