Calories...do they just make this stuff up?

[Timsup2nothin]

So I go out to Starbucks this morning on a coffee mission, and the line is really long. Normally I would strike up a conversation with someone, but the people who came in right behind me were an actively conversing couple and everyone ahead of me was deep into texting. My other usual waiting mode activities weren't appealing, so I started studying the menu board.

First thing I noticed was that of my two usual drink choices, one is ten Calories more than the other. Now, when you are about to consume a quarter of your daily needs in your morning coffee ten more or less is not significant, but it was a point of interest and attracted my attention. I then noted that while the size I get had that 10 Calorie difference, in another size they were the same and in yet another size the difference was twenty Calories, but was reversed.

So now I'm puzzled and make a fair study of this menu board.

This isn't an aberration, this is all over the board.

Drink X is +20 C over drink Y in a small, -10 C in a medium, +10 C in a large.
Drink A is dead even with drink B in a small or medium, but +20 C in a large.
Etc, etc, etc.

None of these differences are really significant, but the failure to follow any logical progression seems very strange.

So, where are they coming up with these numbers? Is there some logical way that the same drink could compare differently in different sizes? Or are they just picking random numbers in a 'something like this' range and assigning them to the various drinks that are really all pretty much the same anyway just to have some variety on the menu board?

 

[classical_hero]

Starbucks is the first problem.

 

[El_Machinae]

So, they listed the same calories for drink B in both a small and a medium?

 

[dutchfire]

I can think what Tim is saying is like:
small Coca-Cola has more calories than small Pepsi (and same size).
Large Coca-Cola has less calories than large Pepsi.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

It could happen depending on ratios of different ingredients. Fats, such as cream, have more calories than, say, sugar, so if a drink has more fat in it the calories could go up more as the drink gets larger than a similar drink that has less fat.

 

[Wrymouth3]

So I go out to Starbucks this morning

 

[Timsup2nothin]

So, they listed the same calories for drink B in both a small and a medium?

No. Things like this:

I can think what Tim is saying is like:
small Coca-Cola has more calories than small Pepsi (and same size).
Large Coca-Cola has less calories than large Pepsi.

It could happen depending on ratios of different ingredients. Fats, such as cream, have more calories than, say, sugar, so if a drink has more fat in it the calories could go up more as the drink gets larger than a similar drink that has less fat.

I did sorta think about this as a possibility. A large drink has more squirts of syrup than a small, but has the same amount of whipped creme on top, so the ratio of syrup to whipped cream changes as the size changes. But at first thought it seemed like that should be consistent across different drinks. Like it would explain a variance in Calories per ounce between a small and a large, but not how different drinks compare differently in different sizes.

There was even one pair on the board where drink A was the lower Calorie choice over drink B in a small or a large, but notably the higher Calorie choice in a medium, which really seems to make no sense at all.

@CH and Wrymouth...Starbucks would not be my preference, but they put my nearby locally owned and much superior coffeehouse out of business.

 

[nc-1701]

The only way I can imagine are fixed or semi-fixed items in the process. So for an entirely made up example.

Say we are comparing a latte and a frappe, the frappe has whipped cream on top, but since the large only has a taller cup both sizes have the same amount of whipped cream. Thus the large has proportionally slightly less calorie increase because the amount of whipped cream doesn't increase.

Also the accuracy is probably not down to the calorie, I imagine any of the drinks could easily vary +/- 10-20 calories even for the same drink at the same size based on measuring error when they make it.

X-post with Tim: Didn't mean to cop of you

 

[Wrymouth3]

@CH and Wrymouth...Starbucks would not be my preference, but they put my nearby locally owned and much superior coffeehouse out of business.

Starbucks is one of those places (Along with Wawa, Chipotle) that I wouldn't volunteer to go to unless I had a gift card, simply because the exorbitant prices on not necessarily amazing tasting food. I see a lot of people nowadays buy that Keurig coffee machine with individual pods. Those things don't run too expensive and has been a good investment for me so far. I just go and buy the pods from Aldi and Trader Joe's.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The only way I can imagine are fixed or semi-fixed items in the process. So for an entirely made up example.

Say we are comparing a latte and a frappe, the frappe has whipped cream on top, but since the large only has a taller cup both sizes have the same amount of whipped cream. Thus the large has proportionally slightly less calorie increase because the amount of whipped cream doesn't increase.

Also the accuracy is probably not down to the calorie, I imagine any of the drinks could easily vary +/- 10-20 calories even for the same drink at the same size based on measuring error when they make it.

X-post with Tim: Didn't mean to cop of you

No problem. You prompt me to add...my observations were actually not across such gaps as latte v frappe. They were all done within the same sections, as in Cinnamon Dolce Latte v Mocha Latte or Caramel Frappe v Mocha Frappe.

My thought on the posted numbers would be that they are based on the recipe but your mileage may vary, but the strange variations made me wonder (briefly) if the posted numbers were somehow based on actual measured value in the cup. I discarded that as I don't even know if it would be possible to measure the actual Calorie content of a latte and I'm sure Starbucks isn't running some lab somewhere for the purpose. (?)

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Starbucks is one of those places (Along with Wawa, Chipotle) that I wouldn't volunteer to go to unless I had a gift card, simply because the exorbitant prices on not necessarily amazing tasting food. I see a lot of people nowadays buy that Keurig coffee machine with individual pods. Those things don't run too expensive and has been a good investment for me so far. I just go and buy the pods from Aldi and Trader Joe's.

When my girlfriend sends me for coffee, I go for coffee. I am a pretty simple guy.

 

[uppi]

My thought on the posted numbers would be that they are based on the recipe but your mileage may vary, but the strange variations made me wonder (briefly) if the posted numbers were somehow based on actual measured value in the cup. I discarded that as I don't even know if it would be possible to measure the actual Calorie content of a latte and I'm sure Starbucks isn't running some lab somewhere for the purpose. (?)

Food energy cannot be reliably measured, there is always some estimation involved. You would have to measure what energy is released when you burn it and subtract the energy that is released when you burn what is left over after your intestines are done with it. But it is hard to tell afterwards what once was coffee, so things get...messy. And then people are not equally efficient at extracting energy, which means precisely measuring it would be pointless, anyway.

In practice it is probably calculated from the recipe.

My guess for the source of the discrepancy are rounding errors. They have values for different ingredients, multiply them with the amount and then add them all together (and because they are American, they probably throw in a few unit conversions to strange units). If they do any kind of rounding before the final step, the errors add up and could lead to the difference you noticed.

In the end, it does not matter anyway, because the biggest error is probably due to the cup not being filled with the exact amount it is sold for.

 

[Zelig]

Starbucks is one of those places (Along with Wawa, Chipotle) that I wouldn't volunteer to go to unless I had a gift card, simply because the exorbitant prices on not necessarily amazing tasting food. I see a lot of people nowadays buy that Keurig coffee machine with individual pods. Those things don't run too expensive and has been a good investment for me so far. I just go and buy the pods from Aldi and Trader Joe's.

The pods are horribly wasteful though.

 

[Perfection]

It's probably because the directions for a drink don't actually scale exactly.

For example a 12oz drink may have 2 pumps of syrup, to make a 16oz drink the same way you would need 2+2/3 pumps of syrup. But you can't have 2/3 a pump in your directions because an employee cannot reliably produce it. So instead they just say the 16oz drink has 3 pumps.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

It may have to do with rounding and with rather large legally allowed margins of error.


I don't know about how it works for coffee, but when I was involved in packing some meals for charity about 6 weeks ago I was told that the FDA allows packages to contain as much as 10% more or less than the weights listed.

The FDA also allows truncating on nutritional labels even where it would make more sense to round up. A product label can say that it contains 0 of something when it actually contains very close to a gram of it. (Since packages can run a bit heavy, it could actually have something like 1.09999 grams and still be labelled as 0.) You cannot just multiply the information found on smaller packages to get the numbers found on the labels of larger packages, as some numbers would grow large enough that they could no longer be rounded down or truncated.

 

[Borachio]

That's scary. Especially as the list of substances that can kill you with less than a gram of themselves is quite a long one.

 

[Snerk]

..Normally I would strike up a conversation with someone..

I think it's safe to say that you out-level me in small talk. Now it's not that I never chat with strangers, but I'm still impressed that your normal behaviour when waiting in line at SB is starting conversations. I feel I lack good starter topics. Anyway, pardon the derail.

 

[Borachio]

Good starter topics with strangers consist solely of smiling and making innocuous remarks about the surroundings, in my experience.

 

[Snerk]

Good starter topics with strangers consist solely of smiling and making innocuous remarks about the surroundings, in my experience.

In theory sure, in practice I find it easier said than done (heh). Even though I'm not the least bit shy, I don't want to sound like a tard. "So, this floor sure is flat".
Add to that, I'm living in a culture that's not exactly known for our ability of chatting amongst strangers.

 

[Mise]

It may have to do with rounding and with rather large legally allowed margins of error.


I don't know about how it works for coffee, but when I was involved in packing some meals for charity about 6 weeks ago I was told that the FDA allows packages to contain as much as 10% more or less than the weights listed.

The FDA also allows truncating on nutritional labels even where it would make more sense to round up. A product label can say that it contains 0 of something when it actually contains very close to a gram of it. (Since packages can run a bit heavy, it could actually have something like 1.09999 grams and still be labelled as 0.) You cannot just multiply the information found on smaller packages to get the numbers found on the labels of larger packages, as some numbers would grow large enough that they could no longer be rounded down or truncated.

I always assume that 0g = 0.5g, Trace = basically nothing, Nil = exactly nothing. Is that fair to say?