Starbucks

I thought it would be fitting for my first nutrition post to be about Starbucks. For the record, I don't think anything at Starbucks, drinking wise, is nutritionally sound but I am just like anyone else and look forward to Pumpkin Spiced Lattes come September and Eggnog lattes, gosh when do you they make their appearance? Next week? HOWEVER, you can be festive and be all up in the Pumpkin Spiced craze without all the unnecessary sugar. Forget about fat, that really isn't the issue, it's sugar. Without getting too detailed....according to the American Heart Association women should not consume more than 6 teaspoons, or 24 grams of sugar per day. Okay cool, what does that mean? 

I'll have a 12 oz. latte instead of a grande, I'll do nonfat milk instead of whole, I'll EVEN do no whip cream on my pumpkin spiced latte. Fine. Now I'm sure that's much better. Nope, it's not. It's terrible. That pumpkin spiced syrup they put in there, in a 12 oz, nonfat, no whip latte will put you at 37 grams of sugar! 37! Holy balls. That's what I say about that. Here's one of our issues as a society but I think we are slowly getting away from this....we focus all on calories. If you look up the calories in that exact same drink I'm talking about it's 200 calories. That shouldn't sound good for a drink but it doesn't sound horrible for an occasional drink. Or at least I don't think so. But if you look at the sugar amount, it's horrible. 

So, now that I've busted your bubble and ruined your holiday season I have some good news. What could you have as an alternative? You could go extreme and say don't get one at all and go home and make a pumpkin smoothie in your blender (which isn't that hard and I'll tell you how later) but I won't. I'll stick to Starbucks and give you the next best alternative. Try this next time you want a pumpkin treat: 

Whatever size you want Americano with 1/2 the amount of syrup with cold soy or cold cream on top. There. Still can't get away from sugar all together but at least you can cut that amount of 37 grams in half. If you are going back home to drink your beverage or going to work try stashing a little pumpkin pie spice container with you that you can find in the spice section of the grocery store and shake a little of that on top. 

Happy Fall! Now bring on the eggnog lattes! :)