Starbucks Aims Healthier
You guys know the drill by now, right? Ex-barista, Starbucks addict, blah blah. So I’m always interested in the latest news from the Bux.
Last week, they launched a menu of new, healthier breakfast options: lower in fat, higher in fiber, lower in calories. And it’s about time. Because seriously, it was impossible to find anything even semi-reasonable to eat at Starbucks. When I worked there, I used to keep an eye on nutrition info, and oh boy.
Jeff Pettit says he likes Starbucks’ food — but not the high calorie count of some items. “I won’t touch the doughnuts or scones,” he says, noting he checked online and found one scone was close to 500 calories.
Starbucks has heard from lots of customers like these. On its mystarbucksidea.com website, better-for-you food is a top request, says Sarah Osmer, director of health and wellness.
So these days, healthier options are available, although it’s still impossible to find anything that isn’t horribly overpriced. (The yogurt and granola is good, if a little borderline, calorie-wise, but isn’t it like four bucks? Yikes.) Nonetheless, there have been desperate hours when Starbucks is all there is, and I’m glad they now have the low-calorie oatmeal and the protein pack and so forth, even if my standard breakfast these days is a Grape Nuts/Bran Buds mixture (thumbs up, by the way). Weetabix was excited too, and tried the oatmeal this week:
On its own, the oatmeal has almost zero flavor, which is pretty much your stereotypical oatmeal, right there. I used all of the brown sugar packet and about half of the dried fruit and it was pretty palatable. I wouldn’t call it Perfect Oatmeal, but its neither the best nor the worst oatmeal I’ve ever eaten in my life. Is it worth $2.45? Well, it’s better for you than an Egg McMuffin, which is about the same price, so you make the call.
There are also a ton of comments at Starbucks Gossip, as per usual. So, have you tried the new, healthier menu? Do you care that it exists? What do you think?
According to USA Today, “This sounds groundbreaking. If it works, it will influence the whole industry.” I for one would love to see healthier fast food options out there, and if this becomes a trend? Sounds good to me. Not because OBESITY CRISIS OMG, obviously, but because I think people should have information and choices—and lots of different options when their supply of Grape Nuts runs out. Is this an oppressive worldview? I hope not.
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Advocacy, Cold Hard Cash, Food, Health, Personal
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The healthiest thing would be to offer a lot more fresh fruit, but everyone knows a banana is just a banana, whether you’re at Starbucks or the supermarket, and therefore Starbucks can’t do much with it to inspire brand loyalty. That’s really the problem here, I think. These companies are still more interested in selling what’s good for them than what’s good for us.
I’m looking forward to trying the oatmeal . . . I will say that the spinach, egg, roasted tomato breakfast wrap is very good. 240 calories.
I’m a huge fan of having heatlhier options, at Starbucks and other places. Personally, I have a weird tummy. Sometimes I can eat anything, the greasier the yummier, but other times I get nauseous for no reason. I think I might be insulin resistant, and the nausea fits with that theory. All that to say, sometimes when I’m at work and I’m nauseous, the only options are the fast food restaurants that are close by. If they had something more neutral (less greasy) like the fruit and apple salad McDonald’s used to have, I would love that!
I can’t help but appreciate a little irony at the idea of paying more money for fewer calories.
I buy cereal and milk at the nearby walgreens, it costs about 5 bucks a week.
I eat about 8 points for breakfast, so OMG 500 CALORIES is not as shocking to me as it might be to someone else, but I agree that more options is a good thing at Starbucks. Their pastries are so boring, blah, and mostly way-too-sugary that I usually don’t even find them appealing enough to be “tempted” by. And that’s saying a lot coming from me. I’ve gotten their reduced fat coffee cakes before (I liked the cherry lemon one OK) but they’re small and tooth-achingly sweet. The breakfast wraps, sandwiches, etc. sound more appetizing and maybe more balanced. Oatmeal does too, but I have a hard time ordering fast-food instant-type oatmeal; it sort of crosses the line into “stuff I really should be making at home because it takes 2 minutes.” (Now diner oatmeal, all thick from the pot and full of raisins and served with whole milk and brown sugar–that’s a different story. Yum.)
Now what I do really like is their chocolate-banana Vivanno drink. It tastes great and has some fruit, milk, and protein and doesn’t seem to contain lots of weird artificial stuff. At $4.00 I can’t justify it too often (I try to recreate it at home, but mine is never as good), but it makes a good breakfast IMO.
Note: I realize it may not be a great idea to eat 500 “empty” calories regardless of whether you usually eat a lot or a little for breakfast, but as a treat I don’t think it’s such a heinous amount. It’s just that their stuff up until now has not really been good enough to warrant getting it as a “treat” IMO.
I also like the idea of healthier fast food options, as long as they taste good. I haven’t tried any of the new options yet (they ARE pretty pricey).
There are times, when I’m exhausted from work and running around and taking care of the kids, that I wish I could go to a drive-through and get something healthy and tasty. (Let’s face it, the fast food salads just don’t cut it ,lol!)
… Wait. They have entire sites dedicated to gossip that pertains solely to Starbucks? *boggle*
I’m a current Starbucks employee and, while I think the “healthier options” is a good idea, I can’t help but laugh at the very concept of Starbucks carrying health food. When the hell did that become the modus operandi for Starbucks? I thought we sold coffee. This kind of stretching, I believe, is exactly why so many people feel the company is going down the crapper, pardon my French.
However, I digress. That oatmeal is decent enough for instant oatmeal and, as others have said, the spinach and feta wrap is pretty good.
Shinobi, hee :)
At the same time, a lot of what influences price is things like shelf stability, handling ease, bulk pricing, and supply/demand. Fresh fruit at a deli is usually expensive because it requires special handling to keep from bruising and will go bad if not sold quickly. Hostess is darn near indestructible, so it won’t go bad no matter how long it takes to sell….
I am a huge fan of the Vivanno…..orange, mango, banana. MMM. Fiber and protein….healthy.
i work at starbucks right now, too. i’ve been eating the oatmeal prepared as follows:
*half the recommended amount of water
*tiniest of splashes of steamed milk (whatever happens to be hot and left over)
*the nuts
*one pump of cinnamon dolce syrup
yum.
but uh. the rest of the stuff… meh. not so great, although the caramel toffee almond bar is awesome when i’m pms’ing.
and none of us have been able to stop laughing about the “justin’s nut butter” that goes with the multigrain roll, which is surprisingly yummy considering it was frozen and then thawed. i especially can’t help but giggle at justin’s nut butter because my husband’s name is justin. ha. he sold his nut butter to the ‘bux.
/pointless
There are SO FEW healthy options for a quick, fast-food breakfast out there that I may “swallow” (HA!) my distaste over Starbucks’ high prices and burned coffee and actually give it another try. Thanks for the post.
Starbucks isn’t the only coffee chain getting in on the action. Dunkin’ Donuts also has a new healthy menu, consisting of egg white flatbread sandwiches and multi-grain bagels. They’ve also been pushing their lite lattes and getting iced coffee and hot coffee with Splenda and skim milk.
The closest Starbucks to me is almost a half-hour away, so I don’t frequent them as much as Dunkin’ Donuts, which is less than a mile from my house, and cheaper too. But I’m really not a fan of overpriced breakfast items. Just give me a piece of fruit, a granola bar, and water or juice, and I’m happy.
I’m not begrudging Starbucks’ decision. They know the demand is there for healthier quick-fix snacks, and there’s money to be made there. Those that can afford it will buy it. Personally, lower-fat, lower-calorie breakfast items taste better than a lot of other healthier food out there.
Less calories doesn’t equal healthier.
Goodness, the sooner that idea dies, the happier I’ll be. It’s ridiculously, mind bogglingly stupid. Calories are NECESSARY to LIVE. If something has a lot of fiber and a lot of nutrients, is that cancelled by the amount of calories it has? Of course not.
This culture’s fear of calories makes as much sense as our fear of fat.
I think the fruit and walnut salad at McDonald’s is good, myself. It’s fruit, yogurt and candied walnuts. They don’t give you a huge amount of nuts.
Is Starbucks still going to call out that it’s a “skinny” order, to make customers feel good about themselves for living up to the arbitrary ideal image?
Wow. Starbucks is a big deal to a lot of people isn’t it? I find that kind of strange myself. In Australia, starbucks has just made a quite different announcement: They’re scaleing back there operation to just two stores nation wide. One in Sydney and one in Melbourne. That’s right, Starbucks LOST something.
I brought a coffee there once. Worst Latte I’ve ever had. Never went back.
Mo, I don’t think your attitude is at all oppressive. And I am firmly in the camp of those who believe that different options are good – whether that means adding more fiber and freshness to a heavily greasy or sugared menu – or even the other way around! I like having healthy options when I go places, more fresh fruit, and, as a T1, less refined sugar or grease – and as an unabashed Starbucks patron, I’m happy to hear of the revisions.
However, I’m also with KarenElhyam above – I know that this is not what you intended (or I don’t believe it is, feel free to correct), but the one thing about the post I did balk at a bit was some perceived confusion between healthy and calories. I don’t believe the two have much, if anything, to do with one another. It can be hard to talk about healthier options without mixing it up with our cultural associations that healthy = less calories and nothing else. But I wanted to point it out and see if that was what you intended to convey or not.