Hawker News

We Asked Starbucks Why Their 'Sugar-Free' Drinks Have Sugar

gizmodo.com

46 pointsby Tomte32 comments

bob1029[11 comments hidden]
If you want to see what end game Starbucks looks like, Dunkin' Donuts is probably a good place to start. They're on the border of selling products with 200g of sugar in a single cup. Getting close to half a pound. We measure our cheese burgers in units like this. Maybe it's time to start measuring coffee this way too.
johnisgood[6 comments hidden]
200 g of sugar in a single cup? That is insane. US definitely has a sugar problem. :|
mft_[5 comments hidden]
Surely that’s approaching maximum saturation?
johnisgood[hidden]
Well, sugar is extremely soluble so 200 g is not particularly close to the saturation point of a large drink, I believe? Though saturation does not really matter for the health aspect anyway which I was having an issue with. 200 g is still 200 g, or roughly 800 kcal from sugar alone. It is wild. :D
thatcat[hidden]
It's temperature dependant
bob1029[hidden]
You can get something like 1 lb of sugar to dissolve into 10oz of water at room temperature.
fizzbuzzbarbazz[hidden]
"simple syrup" is still a solution.
saltytechsailor[2 comments hidden]
That is ALOT of sugar for one portion. Doesn't this kind of intake cause health problems sooner or later?
tartuffe78[hidden]
Obesity for one...

> 19 states had an obesity prevalence between 30% and less than 35%. > 21 states, Guam, and Puerto Rico had an obesity prevalence between 35% and less than 40%.

https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data-and-statistics/adult-obesit...

no-name-here[2 comments hidden]
> Dunkin' Donuts … products with 200g of sugar in a single cup

I just briefly scanned their 50 page-long nutrition PDF and I don't see one around 200g of sugar, even in the largest size - which product are you referring to?

https://www.dunkindonuts.com/nutrition/

lelandfe[hidden]
“Vanilla Bean Coolatta® - Large“ is 167g total sugar. “Caramel Swirl Frozen Chocolate - Large” is 165g. Add an extra pump of mocha and you’re there.
yourusername[5 comments hidden]
Next: Gluten free bread made of 100% wheat flour. Well of course there's naturally occuring gluten, but we didn't add it as a seperate ingredient.
herbst[3 comments hidden]
I mean there is gluten free wheat flour, which my body doesn't really respond to well either.
ButlerianJihad[2 comments hidden]
I disbelieve you. "Gluten-free" is a scientific term and also a marketing term, and the two terms do not mean the same thing.

For marketing and labeling purposes, if you are below a certain threshold, then your product is "free" of that ingredient. That is "gluten-free wheat".

Wheat is inherently glutinous. Without gluten it ceases to be wheat. You can ask the Catholic Church about this. We have examined the issue for 2,000 years and we are quite opinionated on what is, and is not, valid.

There is now a sub-industry where altar bread is made with very low gluten. This can be offered to celiacs and allergic people, as the Eucharist. However, some churches actually advertise as "gluten-free". This is a grave mistake on their part. There are truly "gluten-free" altar breads that are nothing but potato or rice. These can't be Eucharist. But "VLG" very-low-gluten can be marketed and sold commercially as "gluten-free". It engenders much confusion, a lot of mistakes, and a lot of hurt feelings, like the above post. Well, more than feelings apparently.

herbst[hidden]
I honestly have no idea and never even thought about the Christian aspect .. I maybe I shouldn't have used flour. there is "glutenfreie Weizen Stärke" which I guess translates to "gluten free wheat starch" which is not the same as flour
jerlam[hidden]
We also have "nitrite-free" ham and bacon that have nitrites: "No nitrates or nitrites added except for naturally occurring nitrites in celery powder."
helsinkiandrew[9 comments hidden]
TLDR: Starbucks are using the term "Sugar-Free" when they mean “no added sugar” although there's sugar naturally in the ingredients.

I'm not sure how anyone can argue that isn't clearly breaking FDA guidance of containing less than 0.5g of sugar:

https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidan...

goobatrooba[4 comments hidden]
It seems to go further. They must be intentionally adding ingredients that have a high sugar content, else they would never get to the 21g of sugar in a 21oz drink, as mentioned by the article.
fuzzfactor[hidden]
The demographic that seeks caffeine and those responding to sugar is not exactly the same, but there sure is lots of overlap.

Either way wouldn't the greatest satisfaction of a habit-forming desire come from those who are having a little metabolic shortage at the time for one reason or another?

Starbucks has always been completely dependent on habit-forming behavior in response to significantly powerful substances.

That's what dependency can do.

keoneflick[hidden]
> else they would never get to the 21g of sugar in a 21oz drink, as mentioned by the article.

My carton of regular milk says 11g or sugar per 240ml. So seems like simple milk could get there.

johnyzee[hidden]
If it's mostly milk (about 5% sugar in the form of lactose), it's up there. Their "protein milk" might well be even more concentrated. That might even be their hack to smuggle sugar into a 'no sugar added' drink.
Llamamoe[4 comments hidden]
This is basically standard practice worldwide for most "sugar free" products. Most common sources are dates, apple juice concentrate, honey in my experience.

Products actually using erythritol, mannitol, or xylitol instead are a rarity.

poulpy123[hidden]
At least in several countries in Europe, sugar free is when there is less than 0.5% of sugar and when there is no sugar added it's "ni sugar added"
freehorse[hidden]
Where is that the case? In eu at least that is commonly called like "contains naturally occuring sugars" and "no added sugar". "Sugar free" is more specific and should contain <0.5g sugars/100g or ml.

"Sugar free" usually implies that it uses sweeteners instead of sugar.

These are nutrition claims and they are regulated [0]

https://food.ec.europa.eu/food-safety/labelling-and-nutritio...

aitchnyu[hidden]
Thankfully, they cracked down on "no sugar added" products sweetened with evaporated cane juice.
Ekaros[hidden]
Also I question how can you have sugar-free caramel? Caramel is browned sugar so I would expect it to have sugar. Maybe in this too should terms like "caramel like flavour" be mandated...
mlhpdx[2 comments hidden]
I’m trying to visualize the argument made that this was okay. I can’t.
altairprime[hidden]
“People bought it in droves and whatever the fines, they’ll pale next to the profits” seems a legitimate enough justification? The cost of a diabetes death is only a few million dollars if they can cast enough doubt in a courtroom and a business has no capability for shame or humiliation. Starbucks the corporation has no moral or ethical duty unless one is enforced by their terms of incorporation, and one images Starbucks would rather die than see itself turned into a B-corp, so I doubt that’ll ever come to pass.

I’m confused why this type of thing is so reliably a surprise to us as a community. It’s the same ethical model that HN’s own industry operates under, so I’ve assumed we’d all be well familiar with it by now? Especially given how many of our salaries that exact same amorality has paid. I’m sure that’s exactly what’s happening at Starbucks, too: a bunch of people want to succeed and found a way to sweeten sugar free drinks with milk concentrate, which is a pretty genius move in a business context. I mean, this story could outright be an opening hook for a Better Off Ted episode for how cliché it is:

Veronica: “Ted, we need a smoothie that can be legally labeled sugar-free while tasting as sweet as tears of a crying young child after I’ve taken her ice cream and eaten it all up.”

Ted: “We can do that! Uh, was that a simile?”

Veronica: “No, it was vanilla.”

The business side of Better Off Ted was an accurate representation of the default state of a business’s ethics: Not Applicable. Fines and penalties for the rare case of being held accountable for impersonal malice towards customers are budgeted for in the same way that one budgets for bribes: have enough liquid assets to cover the immediate threats and delay any court proceedings long enough for the market to forget the risk while you reserve interest earned to pay it without disrupting operating profits. It externalizes ethical responsibilities onto the courts the same way Amazon externalizes packaging waste onto municipal waste streams worldwide, and outsourcing problems is Good Business 101.

I recognize one this probably seems morally bankrupt, but I’m not endorsing their behavior — I, a high-functioning sociopath, think that they’re a parasitic malignancy, and certainly I am well able to recognize sociopathy and amorality, given how often I see it in the mirror. Cancers such as theirs should be irradiated with changes to incorporation laws to be prosocial while their profits are permanently capped, with copyleft-style clauses to ensure that anyone who buys or operates their assets is then bound by those same requirements, They have done grievous harms to human labor and will clearly lie at the drop of a penny in their register, and should be used as a lesson to the other antisocial businesses on why they need to fake giving a shit through actions rather than just platitudes lest they be forced to wither to a husk of their former valuation while still operating technically profitably but in a way that’s utterly useless for financial engineering. But my opinion about how we ought to apply morality isn’t relevant here, helping others comprehend that we’re facing corporate sociopathy is — I’m only mentioning it to contrast the difference between “describe the sociopath” and “judge the sociopath” :)

b0rtb0rt[2 comments hidden]
added sugar actually is totally different than naturally occurring sugar though

i’m on a no (added) sugar diet most of the time, so the effects of sugar are very noticeable when i do have it. when i have stuff with added sugar, at first it seems gross and too much and then i mysteriously have cravings for more sugar. things like milk with naturally occurring sugar don’t have that effect

graemep[hidden]
It depends. Sugar in fruit is different as its is not absorbed quickly so does not cause sugar spikes. Sugar in fruit juice is just as bad as sugar in soft drinks.

Not adding sugar also greatly limits how much you have. Coke has well over double the sugar per 100ml as whole milk, and you can chug down a lot more of it in one go.

https://www.tesco.com/shop/en-GB/products/252207566

https://www.coca-cola.com/gb/en/brands/coca-cola-original-ta...

metalman[hidden]
The way the label 'law' (fuck me!, law) is written, you could sell sugar as no added sugar, and possibly then sugar free as it is bieng 'interpreted' , legaly interpreted that is. The way the law for bieng labeled 100% organic is written, explicitly states it can be only 95% , and every investigation reveals that almost nothing bieng sold as organic passes the tests. At one point a few years ago I did a very deap dive into 'ingredients', trying to understand what they were, where they came from, how they were bieng used, and what there phisological properties are, and a huge number of them have essentialy no information, just a # listing in an international data base, and after that you have to be chemist, or they will say 'dough conditioner', foaming agent, anti foaming agent,modified foaming agent, in any case I researched hundreds of ingredients and one thing became clear, that not one of these things was mentioned anywhere as ' HOLLY FUCK this stuff is awsome, it's so good for you , you wouldn't BELIEV how great it is', not one, 100% mumble mumble mumble. After that I invented the 'Food Diet', I still eat some packaged foods, but I am hair trigger on chucking the stuff that isn't quite right, but the bulk of what I get is localy grown and proccesed and luckily I live in rural farm country and can buy direct, and forage, hunt or fish or trap. I continue to dig down into the local markets for everything, and also home in on ethnic markets as they often are sourcing products they are proud of from there countrys of origin. If I want toilet bowl cleaner or light bulbs, I go to whichever big brand outfit is most convienient, or an industrial supply outfit, and I am here to tell you, thats also where YOUR 'food', is also comming from. same fucking vats too.lots of it rehabilitated from it's former label of 'byproduct' the bottom line here is that the management at starbucks is rightfully astonished that considering what else the public has turned a blind eye to, that THEY should be held accountable, and are in fact the agreaved party by bieng forced to deal with the systematic contradictions built into everything associated with business and money, and this in fact is what the courts will be weighing.
nephihaha[hidden]
Because artificial sweeteners taste vile.