Starbucks Finally Offers THIS Alternative To Poor Quality Milk!

If you are a food-quality fanatic like me, it is likely that you have been completely avoiding Starbucks. After all, their coffee, teas and food are not organic. Though up until this point Starbucks hasn't been overly concerned with providing their customers with high quality options, that may beginning to change. In fact, this month Starbucks is set to begin offering coconut milk nationwide! Here are a few details from an article entitled, "Starbucks Will Start Offering Coconut Milk Nationwide This Month" written by Emi Boscamp (MBG Editorial). Read the full article here. 

According to this article, the decision to offer a non-dairy alternative came with a little prompting...

“Providing a non-dairy alternative to dairy and soy is one of the most requested customer idea of all time on MyStarbucksIdea.com, generating more than 84,000 votes.”

In response to this request...

“Beginning February 17, the new option will kill a few birds with one stone: It's paleo-friendly, vegan-friendly, and lactose-free. The milk is made from single-origin coconuts from the Indonesian island of Sumatra.”

According to Christine Barone, the vice president of brewed espresso at Starbucks…

"Delivering the options our customers want is always the highlight of my day. We have a high bar for anything we pair with our high quality espresso and this coconut milk is smooth and perfectly complements the coffee. I personally love it in an iced vanilla latte. We are excited to hear back what further customer and partner customization coconut milk inspires."

My take on this:

After calling my local Starbucks, I discovered that they are using Sumatra Coconut Milk Blend. Although I love the fact that Starbucks is beginning to see the value in offering paleo-friendly solutions to their customers, I still have a few hesitations about recommending they become your "go-to" coffee stop. As I mentioned in the introduction, Starbucks coffee and teas are not organic. This means that your cup of joe or tea probably contains a healthy dose of pesticides. Second, though coconut milk is certainly more paleo-friendly than the low quality conventional dairy that Starbucks has been serving, it is still not organic. Finally, Sumatra Coconut Milk contains a number of questionable additives such as “natural flavors” and carageenan.

Legally, excitoxins such as glutamate can be included in foods list containing “natural flavors.” These additives are called excitoxins, because they literally overexcite your cells until they die or are damaged eventually causing nerve damage. This can set the stage for a stroke, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, obesity, migraines, fatigue and mental health issues. Carageenan has also been deemed a carcinogen (substance that causes cancer) that can result in serious inflammation and gastrointestinal stress and damage.

Although I want to acknowledge Starbuck’s progress, for these reasons I still suggest you look elsewhere for your daily latte fix. Perhaps we can continue to encourage Starbucks to offer organic coffees and milk substitutes without the risky additives.  Hopefully, one day they can receive my unwavering endorsement. In the meantime, make your own organic, bulletproof coffee or coconut milk at home.