Starbucks Barista Tries To Fatten Up Olsen Twins
Taking it one step beyond “eat a sandwich,” Starbucks baristas tried to combat the Olsen twins’ skinniness by secretly substituting full-fat milk for nonfat in their lattes.
The Olsen’s rep responded to the latte lunacy saying, “This is ridiculous.” Yes, it is, but one fellow latte-lover close to the Olsens (who requested anonymity) said that she sympathizes with the twins — to an extent. “It’s also my worst nightmare — that and getting a huge diet fountain soda that is mistakenly regular Coke — but I can def(initely) taste the difference, so it’s their own fault if they fell victim.”
This reminds me of many things: being asked with a wink if I wanted Diet Coke when I ordered regular, my boss being very suspicious of a glass of Diet RC Cola (which really does taste like regular), and Napoleon Dynamite (“I see you’re drinking 1%. Is that ’cause you think you’re fat? ‘Cause you’re not. You could be drinking whole if you wanted to”). What do you think?
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Celebrities, Food, Olsen Twins, Tidbit
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Oh noes, they’re gonna die by teh fats now that their lips have touched fattening milk!!! @_@
Seriously, big. fucking. deal. Heck, said lattes probably tasted better with full milk instead of skim milk…
And if your worse nightmare is to accidently swallow full-fat or full-sugar food or drink instead of the “diet” version, then your priorities in life are definitely not mine. *sigh*
This reminds me of how I drink skim milk (because whole milk tastes like cheese to me and I find it gross) and take my coffee with just cream (because I don’t like sweetness in my coffee). And most people assume it’s because I’m “being good”.
Anyway, that said – I don’t think anyone should be modifying someone’s food like that.
I can taste the difference b/w regular and diet soda. Not so much skim milk added to another beverage. Skim milk alone, I can taste the difference.
But then I drink “candy coffee” when i go to the local cafe.
I think this is the same kind of bullsh*t we fatties get from folks who think they have the right to police what we eat (as Mo points out, the “are you sure you don’t want a *diet* Coke syndrome”). The Olsens’ rep is correct, it’s freakin’ ridiculous. If I order a latte with whole milk, that’s what I want, and I don’t want some concern-troll barista to make some kind of ridonkulous switcharoo on me to help “combat” my fatness. And if the Olsen twins, who yeah, make choices I certainly don’t agree with all the time, want skim in theirs, then the same applies to them.
Yes, I too think the “oh noez I drank the BAD MILK/SODA” thing is utterly ridiculous also, and I happen to believe that full-fat milk is about three bajillion times better for a person nutritionally than skim. But the way to assist folks is through education, not through making their choices for them or doctoring their food without their knowledge. That’s not cute, or indicative of some kind of legitimate concern on behalf of baristas, it’s fucking rude, invasive, and creepy.
Eff that barista. Sure it’s possible (though I certainly do not know) that the Olsen twins have eating disorders, though I tend to believe you cannot tell this by looking at a person anymore than you can tell if I have high blood pressure by looking at my fat ass, but who’s freakin’ right is it to make judgments about what’s best for a person they don’t know just from looking at their body??
God. That’s what we all need – anonymous restaurant and coffeeshop employees waging “war” against our bodies.
:(
do not mess w/other people’s food. purposely messing up an order should get you in big trouble. bragging about it afterwards should get you fired. It is not for baristas or anyone to judge who is too skinny.
Do I think the Olsen twins need to put on about a good 20 or 30 pounds? Yeah.
Do I think anybody – especially somebody whose job it is to GIVE YOU WHAT YOU ASKED FOR – has the right to do something like that? HELL NO.
It’s fat hate in reverse. And while I wish those two would wake up and realize that hey – they’ll still be the same people regardless of what they weigh – I don’t think ANYBODY has the right to make that decision for them.
This isn’t just incredibly sizist (“Oh, look at them, they CLEARLY don’t know what’s good for them, so I’ll imposte my own values upon them forcibly”) it’s also sexist. (“Poor little thing, she probably has anorexia or some other lady’s problem, so I’ll just intervene on her delicate little behalf…)
FUCK THAT. Jesus Christ, they’re adults, and paying customers. Why would you treat them different just because they’re skinny/famous/women?
I hate the world sometimes.
Ha Ha Check out the link:
http://gaygamer.net/images/olsen-twins-large-gotmilk-1.jpg
Yep, I agree that it’s just as bad as if someone decided to give me a diet food instead of a regular food. They should have received what they ordered, end of story.
One of the twins (Mary Kate I think) did go to a treatment center for anorexia and while she is pretty thin, she has put on some weight. While I don’t doubt they’d look better with meat on their bones, you just don’t mess with people’s food and drink, and I don’t care what size you are. If a 90 lb. person wants skim milk in their latte and a 300 lb person wants whole milk in theirs or vice-versa, you fix it how they order it.
Not cool. Give people what they order.
Your judgment does not come into it, unless they ask for it.
It was wrong of the barrista to change their orders like that.
That said, I have a really, really hard time caring. Probably because really, no one was hurt, the twins can go back their non-fat coffee drinks (I’m *sure* they didn’t gain any weight from this or have any healthy complications?), the barrista is probably looking for a new job as we speak and I don’t think anyone intended any harm (and yeah, intentions sway me most of the time). Though it was still disrespectful.
Yeah, I’d be ticked if someone slipped non-fat into my drinks or something. Just because I know what I like, THAT’S WHY I FREAKING ORDERED IT.
Although once, I had a male barista at Starbucks ask me if I wanted non-fat in something and I snorted and said, “NO.” He grinned. Then he was all, “….do you want whipped cream?” And I said, “YES PLEASE.” I thought he was going to jump across the counter and kiss me. He was stoked. I think his response was something along the lines of, “Now THAT is what I’m talking about!”
1: People working in the food service industry are there to fill orders, not to police people’s eating or drinking habits.
2: The Olsen twins have no taste buds if they didn’t notice the difference…but this does not excuse the barista for deliberately giving them something they didn’t order.
3: Baristas, waiters and waitresses who pull this bull on ANYONE should be looking for new jobs, but if they pull it on famous people and then are stupid enough to brag about it, they not only will be out job hunting, they will be hunting for a long, long time. There’s nothing like driving off the custom of people who have a lot of money to make a boss hate you and warn other bosses not to take the chance on hiring you.
Now, I’d like my full-fat mocha with whipped cream, please.
This is actually somewhat disturbing. I’m so sick of people thinking that the tiniest little thing is going to make them fat. And I’m sick of the Olsen twins and their scary thinness. I mean, how many girls look up to them? How many of us collected their videos and watched them on Full House?
Something I do relate to pretty well, though, is that feeling of being judged when you order regular, not diet, pop, or when you order desserts at restaurants, etc. I mean, what’s up with that? Don’t judge me! I am enjoying my life, enjoying my food, and no one should be able to look at me and think I shouldn’t be doing that.
Grrr. Let’s ban non-fat milk. That eliminate the whole issue…
“Let’s ban non-fat milk. That eliminate the whole issue”
Wouldn’t that be doing the exact same thing you were just complaining about? And you know, if they banned full-fat, wouldn’t you be crying that they were policing you?
I’ve been drinking skim milk since I was a kid. If I was suddenly forced to switch – which would be similar to “being judged when you order regular, not diet, pop, or when you order desserts at restaurants, etc” – would be disgusting for me because I’d suddenly have to drink the opposite of what I’m used to.
Blech.
SO not cool. It’s nobody’s business what anyone else eats or drinks. Nobody has the right to do what that barista did and it’s just as bad as if they’d seen a fat person and swapped whole milk for skimmed. I’d be pissed off if I were the twins.
Not to mention the tangential rant of FFS DRINKING WHOLE MILK DOES NOT MAKE YOU GAIN WEIGHT.
What everyone else said about, no matter what size I am, not screwing with my food.
Who are these baristas taking their cues from, the fundie pharmacists who are refusing to give out the Plan B pill?
“…my worst nightmare…”
I know things like this are said colloquially, but still… if full-fat milk / full sugar soda is your “worst nightmare”, you should spend every fucking minute of every day down on your knees, thanking whatever deity you believe in for the exquisitely vacuous paradise that your life must be.
This is outrageous! Perhaps that barista never thought that perhaps some people can’t tolerate full-fat milk. I know that I can’t, but I can tolerate a small amount of skim milk. Full fat milk will have me doubled over in pain and in the bathroom within 15 minutes. Soy isn’t an option for me because I have Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.
I avoid eating in public (really I avoid being in public) as much as possible because of the rude comments or sideways glances I get for my weight. The accusations of strangers that I’m anorexic or that I need to eat something or being called a skinny bitch.
It’s amazing that these same people never seem to notice that I wear two medicalerts. They never accuse me of having intractable epilepsy that is managed (as best my neurologist can) with medications that make everything taste putrid, kill my appetite and makes sustaining any type of “healthy” weight nigh impossible.
Do any of these people take into consideration how much it hurts to be approached at my table and to be told to “eat something! What kind of role model are you for your daughter?!” While I’m sitting there with an Ensure and four bottles of medications and if I tried to eat I’d get sick. There’s nothing I’d love more than to eat something without it tasting vile, but that’s the side-effect of the one medication that worked the best.
Judgments suck.
While I agree that the whole “worst nightmare” rhetoric is incredibly shallow, it’s still completely out of line for anyone to take it upon themselves to alter your order for any reason. I’m vegan, and this kind of stuff is what makes me wary of eating out; just because someone else thinks that “a little milk/butter/eggs/lard/whatever” won’t do you any harm doesn’t mean that you should suffer (even figuratively) for their opinion. Putting the question of food allergies aside–and I have been known to play the “lactose intolerant” card on occasion, since people are more likely to be concerned with a lawsuit than with my personal ethics–the fact that someone specifies skim milk obliges the server to give them skim milk: end of story. This whole thread raises the question of how we would react to this scenario if it had been a fat customer ordering cream and being given skim milk because the barrista thought it was funny, or even “good” for them?
Ugh! If somebody did that to me, I’d probably have to puke … because whole milk actually makes me nauseous. I totally agree with the person who said it tastes like cheese, except it rather tastes like cream to me. What the hell.
As a vegetarian whose had others try to “slip” her meat before, I would be very angry if someone deliberately and arbitrarily gave me something I did not ask for.
This offends me. not only does food have nothing to do with fat, but their efforts to fatten the twins would have no effect since HAES clearly states that the Olsen Twins have natural setpoints around 98 pounds.
Haha, not too transparent Annie. Insert rolley-eyes.
I agree with Rachel. Though I’d make a really bad barista because the whole skim this and skim that shit just annoys me and I’d be rolling my eyes at the customers probably. Yes here’s your SKIM crap. And your SKINNY thingie. So there’s two people who shouldn’t be baristas – me and the one who did it. And no one else because Starbucks kinda sucks and we’re all overcaffeinated anyway.
When I was a barista, I would talk to people about their milk choices. For example, whole milk makes better foam, period… if you require soy or nonfat, then you probably want a latte and not a cappuccino. This is partly to cover my ass if the cappuccino sucks – and it will, with weakass foam – and partly because a lot of people actually don’t know the difference between drinks with italian names (Starbucks is partly responsible for mucking this up).
But that was a conversation. And it was always about quality, not about calories, which is of course none of my business.
However, rice milk will foam up in almost supernatural ways! It’s quite tasty as well. If you can’t have milk or soy.
People have a lot of reasons for ordering what they order.
For example, I always order diet sodas because I’m diabetic, even though I have no interest in losing weight.
You just don’t screw around with what people order.
Tanglethis, err, what? Low fat foams *better*, according to my local baristas. I prefer skim milk in coffee, and my occasional cappucinos always foam just fine.
I suppose it’s better than wanking off in it….?
This is as bad as when I would order a regular Coke and then be brought a diet soda when out alone, or when Tony and I went out, he would order diet, I would order regular and always get the diet set in front of me.
Now, I’m diabetic so I have to drink diet but, it still makes me mad that waiters would assume that the fat woman would have to have meant to order a diet soda.
This makes me really upset — I worry about this all the time. Every time my latte tastes different I worry that I got the wrong milk or syrup. Now I’m REALLY going to worry.
you don’t fuck with the food of people with well publicised eating disorders, it’s outrageously arrogant and stupid, and dangerous. People really and truly need to let other people make their own decisions about what they eat, full stop. A friend told me she was brought up being told that it was rude to discuss what other people were eating, I’m going to teach my kids that one too.
argh! and double-argh!
h.x
THAT’S her worst nightmare? Wow. Someone needs to get out more.
There is also a distinct possibility that it’s all a load of eyewash. OK magazine? A tabloid rag. “Britney’s fake weight loss” ring any bells?
I’m appalled at this barista. He should be fired. As a former barista myself, I feel like he is degrading the profession by doing something like that.
Sure, the whole world seems to think the Olsens need to gain weight, but that is not the business of anyone but themselves and those closest to them.
On another note, as a barista I used to wonder what people of ALL sizes and shapes would think if they knew how much sugar and how many calories were in that venti frappuccino. Would they still order it one, two, or three times a day if they knew? Was it my place to warn them? I didn’t… but then who should? No one? I don’t know. I’m just glad I don’t have to think about it anymore.
Rice milk. Mmmmmmmmmmm.
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I’ll just echo what’s already been said. You don’t know the reason a person orders a food prepared a specific kind of way. Maybe they can’t tolerate the ingredient they’re asking you to omit. Maybe they are on a special plan that required the ingredient “you don’t think” they should have. Maybe this was their little treat during an especially hard week. Maybe… you don’t know.
I remember when i worked in fast food, when a customer said they wanted a Pepsi and (we were a Coke shop) and sold them a coke and my manager nearly had a cow. Seems the Pepsi people were suing — and winning, at establishments that served Coke withouth telling people, “This ins’t Pepsi, it’s Coke.” As far as i was concerned, cola is cola, BFD. But enough people cared about the difference. Really, that’s where that old “No Pepsi, Coke…” comes from. But if a multinatioanal corporation can get millions in damages from a swap like that, then major food substitutions should be subject to a major level of shame as well.
I just don’t think they listen. Both my sister-in-law and I are pretty thin, and every time we order regular anything we get asked if we didn’t mean diet. And get looks of total shock when we say, no, we don’t mean diet. Because, y’know, you just can’t be thin if you drink regular soda.
Baristas – and any other servers in the food service industry for that matter – should NOT EVER change a customer’s order on their own, nor should they be standing around discussing the orders unless the customer has questions or concerns. You are there to take the food/beverage orders and process them, not judge or question people’s choices.
I always found that skim created more foam with bigger bubbles, but whole milk’s foam stuck around longer and was, well, creamier.
Annie, HAES only suggests that the Olsen twins have a setpoint of 98 pounds if the Olsen twins are practicing HAES. Actors often have additional pressures to stay below their set-points, as well as the resources necessary to do so. Even if it means they’re hungry. As an ex-anorexic, I can say it’s possible to stay below set point, but I was not healthy.
The baristas should be fired! It is not their job to police the twins. If I was the boss I would fire them in an instant!
It will be that barista’s worst nightmare when he gives whole milk to someone who ordered soy because dairy sends them to the ER in anaphylactic shock or gives a diet soda to someone ordering regular who has the same problem with aspartame. I know people that have those exact problems, there are probably people that could have as deadly a reaction to fat or soy, also.
Many years ago at one drive in I had to send my Coke back on 2 separate occasions because they brought me Pepsi and I could tell the difference. (Pepsi gave me a tummy ache and tasted sweeter and less acidic.)
Some diabetics carry test tape (the kind you pee on) to detect unwanted sugar in their drinks, it occurs to me that people that want sugar, or don’t want aspartame, could test their drinks also to make sure there is sugar in them. I just drink water, they can’t usually mess that up.
Exactly, Arwen. I was taught that you want small, nearly invisible bubbles to get a thick voluminous foam, and whole is definitely better for that. But that was my cafe’s aesthetic, and people do have their own tastes.
Lisa-Marie, I never feel questioned or judged in a nice restaurant when the server recommends a food-wine pairing or cautions me about unusual flavors in a dish or whathaveyou, and none of the clients in my old cafe gave me a funny look when I asked them polite questions regarding their beverage choices. I think in a good place, the server/barista/bartender is understood to be more than a service robot, and can be a source of information.
But as I said earlier… these conversations are always about a quality food experience, and not about food moralism. That’s where I’m in agreement with everyone about how wrong the barista in this story was and how sad the “latte lover”‘s outlook on food is… neither person was thinking about enjoyment, really. : (
I don’t like the taste of whole milk, and I’d be peeved if I ordered skim and got whole.
Worst nightmare? No. Just mildly peeved. But if you order something that’s available, that’s what you should get, and if it’s not available, you should be asked if you want to substitute, not be given it blind.
I thought the comment on food allergies was particularly valid. My husband’s allergic to nuts… you don’t want to make assumptions about the reasons for someone’s food choices. Really you don’t.
I have severe food allergies and I would require ER visit or possibly a casket if someone took it upon themselves to police my food order (adding something I asked be removed). It’s one of the reasons I am very careful about where I dine out and would never go to starbucks. They have so many things I’m allergic to and such sloppy workstations (I’m sorry rinsing a pitcher for five seconds does not get the cooties out) that I don’t know why anyone goes there.
I am so not interested in getting into the skim v. full fat debate; it’s stupid. People should be free to enjoy food the way they wish and others should mind their own business.
This somewhat reminds me of an entry I saw once in the “bad service” LJ community. It seems a barista thought his customer was too fat, and he was trying his best to refuse to give her the full-fat eggnog drink she wanted. She (rightfully) threw a fit, and I hope the little snot got fired.
That barista should be fired. I have a intolerance to butter(not lactose-milk fat is a problem for my digestive system-i metabolise non-animal fat just fine-go figure) so all i can drink is skim milk-full fat can send me to hospital if i drink a full cup so what he/she did was potentially dangerous.