How to eat healthy (or relatively healthy) at Starbucks

by Jen (May 2, 2007)

Now that there’s a Starbucks on every corner, it’s so easy to stop there for a snack when you’re on the run. In the past, this unfortunately meant getting a drink loaded with empty calories (or else a plain coffee) and a muffin that was brimming over with crap and way more calories than you’d have thought.

Not so anymore, as I discovered this weekend when I found myself starving and there was nothing handy but a Starbucks.

I found a delicious fruit and cheese plate and an Izzy fruit and sparkling water drink. I’m not sure how many calories this was, but I do know fruit and cheese aren’t entirely empty calories. The cheeses were brie, pesto Jack and cheddar; the fruit was several apple slices, some grapes and an orange wedge. It also had some cranberry walnut bread, but I was full on the other stuff before I got to that. (I love pairing a nibble of brie with a bite of fruit, which is exactly what I did here). For the Izzy drink, I chose pomegranate (it had the lowest sugar, plus you’ve probably heard by now of the benefits of pomegranate juice).

Granted, this meal contained some sugar and a small amount of fat. If you’re borderline diabetic, it might not be for you, but most people can work off a little natural, non-refined sugar over the course of the day. This isn’t the only new healthy option at Starbucks - it varies from location to location but some of them are offering sandwich platters and other snack platters that more than round out the former "muffin-only" menu.

What if you just love Starbucks coffee? Are there healthy options there? Absolutely!

• Skip the whip! Whipped cream adds a lot of calories. Take the Cinnamon Dolce Creme, which is 470 calories, 24 grams of fat and 46 grams of sugar in Grande size with whipped cream: eliminate the whip and you save 110 calories, 9 grams of fat and 2 grams of sugar.
• Go skim. Choose nonfat milk in your drink and save another 100 calories, become fat-free and save one more gram of sugar (okay, these are high-sugar no matter what you do, but you can still vastly improve on the same drinks your love with very little adjustment on the part of your tastebuds)
• Go tall. Do you really need a giant bucket of coffee? Go with the tall size, and trim off another 70 calories and 9 grams of sugar.

Use Starbuck’s online calculator to figure out more options and beverage choices to suit your needs. And consider this: if you drink a Cinammon Dolce Creme 5 days a week, and you make the changes I outlined above, you will save yourself 280 calories a day, 24 grams of fat per day and 12 grams of sugar. Your recommended daily intake of fat is 65 grams overall, and refined sugar comes under your 300 grams of carbs per day (but is the worst form of carb calories). If you do this and make no other changes whatsoever in your lifestyle, think how much that could help with your weight, your blood pressure, your artery health and how you feel every day of your life.

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