back to article Starbucks mocha clocked at 628 calories

Those among you looking to control your calorie intake would do well to think twice before wrapping your laughing gear round some high street coffees. Consumer group Which? has found that one Starbucks mocha contained no less than 628 calories, or "nearly a third of the recommended daily amount for women and a quarter of that …

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  1. Michael Baines

    Hot chocolate contains calories?

    Astonishing.

  2. Alistair
    Unhappy

    Zero coffee

    Wouldn't be too bad if Starbucks actually contained or at least tasted of coffee, which I can assure fellow El Reg readers it doesn't.

  3. Tawakalna
    Thumb Up

    coffee? - southern ponces...

    Up in't north like, where us is, us dustna ponce abite wi'coffee or owt layke that, tis fer southern nancies; us wakes up int mornin to a pint mug o mashed tea with 6 big sugars un arf a paynt o gold top.

  4. DavCrav

    Or tea...

    I drink black tea with no sugar. I think I do better than 628 calories.

    But seriously, that's a ridiculous amount to be in any drink. Although people are responsible for their own weight gain/loss, irresponsible companies like Starbucks making things like this are really not helping with our obesity crisis.

  5. Cameron Colley

    Which states that high caloris foodstuffs are high in calories shocker!

    Wow! Who'd have thought that something that tastes like it's high in lipids and carbohydrates contains a lot of calories?

    My advice would be for people to stop consuming calories altogether -- they're obviously bad for you. Salt should be removed from the diet also, if over 6g of it shrivels your insides and kills you then it's probably best not to consume any at all.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    cal or kcal

    Maybe you mean kilocalories because even alcohol has 7 kcal per gram which makes your 0.7 kcal per mocha sound ridiculous.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Ironically...

    I'm drinking the very same one while reading the article. Hasn't put me off in the slightest.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    chocolate and whipped cream in hi-cal shocker!

    Are "which?" now working for the department of the bleeding obvious?

  9. Dunstan Vavasour
    Happy

    Never mind the calories, what about the caffeine

    From TFA: "Alternatively, you could always take your coffee black and without sugar, which of course delivers "practically zero calories and fat". "

    And, black without sugar, it still delivers the full caffeine load.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Yoinks.

    Drink with chocolate cream and milk (and probably sprinkles) in high calorie shock.

    Who will save us.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No 'small' in sight

    I can't remember where I read it, but someone once said that who would've thought the day would come when we would buy coffee in pints which cost more than beer?

    A 'tall' in Starbucks is what most people call a large cofee - how many times have you seen (particular older, for some reason) say "But I asked for a small cofee!" "This is the smallest we do, madam"

  12. Simon Cresswell
    Go

    Champagne it is then..

    ..as it's only about 540 a bottle.

    Doubleskinnymochalattéchinofrappéneverseenacoffebean or a nice bottle of The Widow?

  13. Dave Bell
    Heart

    To Everything There Is A Seasoning

    And to every porpoise a thyme under Heaven.

    Mind you, I wouldn't be alive if I was as careless about calories, but it's one less place for those of us who do have to pay attention to our diets.

  14. Steve
    Thumb Down

    @Michael

    Mocha isn't a hot chocolate.

  15. Philip Nicholls Silver badge

    Be the first to comment on this article

    Why?

  16. Simon Day

    Or just make it yourself...

    I have my white chocolate caramel mocha - I order the same sauces starbucks use and we have an espresso machine in the office (which unlike starbucks is set at the right temperature to make a good espresso)

    Oh and it costs me about 75p a cup instead of £4.

    I have them for dessert - oh and I'm currently loosing weight.

    When will people realise calories are not a bad thing - nor is fat. What you eat, what you do and when is a far more complex issue than just a couple of numbers

  17. An ominous cow herd
    Coat

    Another one from....

    The Departement of the Bleedin' Obvious (TM)

    Or as Homer would put it, "mmmm...chocolate...."

    MC

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    re: cal or kcal

    Food calories are always kilocalories, on account of a calorie being an utterly useless unit in the situation.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You might laugh, but..

    I reckon there are quite a lot of people out there who don't realise a drink can contain significant calories. When I was a student living in halls there was a girl who was very overweight, ate a regular amount (in public anyway), and drank several litres of coke a day. She was genuinely shocked when someone pointed out that a litre of coke had around the same number of calories as a big mac. I've also encountered people who didn't realise nuts are very high in calories - which makes me wonder how many people actually bother to look at the nutritional information on product labels.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    @Cameron Colley...

    "stop consuming calories altogether"

    I truly hope I don't sound pedantic, but fear I'm about to fail...

    I'm not sure but I think calories (certainly Kilocalories) are the measure of the energy available in any particular food/drink stuff, of course, the secret is to use the energy you intake i.e. exercise in whatever form takes your fancy, before it gets turned into fat stores by your body. The same goes for salt; it's as essential to your body as most other stuff in its own little way.

    /anal retentive rant

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not bad

    That's actually fewer calories than I thought. I'd have clocked a Starbucks Mocha at a 1000 calories at least with all that cream and crap on top. So is there a Starbucks calorie ready-reckoner available now? Maybe I should create a widget...

  22. Risky

    Triple Grande Dry Cap please

    Definitely DepOBO work there. If I don't want calories it will be black - if it's first thin gin the morning I'll have all the fuel that's going!

  23. Tim Spence

    RE: @Cameron Colley...

    You failed. I think most of us El Reg readers understand that what goes in, has to come out somehow. And if it doesn't, you become a fat bastard.

  24. Edward Rose

    @Steve

    Nope, it's a particular coffee bean. Still in most places it seems that mocha refers to a mix of hot chocolate, chocolate, and just enough coffee to upset anyone who doesn't like coffee. Infact there is probably more chocolate in 'mocha' than there is in hot chocolate in some of these places.

    More importantly, why do places like costa seem to make sure the water they use is super heated? Ruins the coffee.

    Black, no sugar. Who the hell wants to ruin a drink with cow lactation anyway?

  25. Tom
    Stop

    Starbucks coffee costs more than petrol...

    ...even when petrol is £1.509 a litre (Tesco's in Swansea this morning) it is still cheaper than the brown over priced sludge servered by Starbucks/Costa etc.

    In the words of Blackadder, "I'll have a cup of warm water with brown grit in it, unless you have started serving coffee!"

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: You might laugh, but..

    Other than the general smugness of replies along the lines of "one for the Dept of the Bleedin' Obvious" it clearly isn't bleedin' obvious at all. Ever seen the average Brit? The one with the massive beer-belly and bingo-wings? The one who can't walk up stairs without gasping for air? People aren't actually consuming that much more food if measured by volume, I mean we haven't grown an extra stomach even though some might look like they have.

    What's happened is we gorge ourselves on very high energy food that most people (obviously not the geniuses who read The Reg...) don't even realise how bad it is for them. Most people won't realise that a drink from Starbucks is potentially heart-attack material. I've seen it myself in Starbucks when people will have a coffee instead of some cake or biscuits because they think the drink is less fattening when really it makes no odds; all fast food is based on the premise of lacing it with sugar and fat and before you know it Joe Punter is hooked. I believe even McDonald's produced a "salad" that was more fattening than their burgers.

    As a diabetic my food choices are hopelessly limited: anything labelled as "natural," "low-fat" or "healthy" is guaranteed to be laced with sugar; most supermarket foods are supremely bad for us. Since I was diagnosed with the disease I've learnt that the government gives the food industry a free hand to play Russian roulette with peoples lives by allowing them to mislabel and lie and sell us the most appalling shit. Government initiatives about obesity are pure window-dressing.

    In fairness Starbucks never say that they serve low-fat drinks rather they do it by implication, I mean there's no fat in a coffee, is there? It's much easier to let people think something is healthy rather than persuade them it is.

  27. Chris Collins

    How do you take yours?

    Surely the best way to avoid the calories but still enjoy the caffeine is to stuff it up your arse, as has become the fashion. Improves the taste of Starbucks. Mocca and lattes are for wimps. Espressos with two sugars only.

  28. Gianni Straniero
    Boffin

    Measurement

    Did Which? stick the mocha on a pin, set fire to it with a bunsen burner, and hold it under a test tube full of iced water? I would've liked to see that.

  29. Brutus
    Coat

    Re: Triple Grande Dry Cap please

    'if it's first thin gin the morning I'll have all the fuel that's going'

    If you're drinking gin in the morning (thin or otherwise), I don't think that you really need to worry about your coffee's calorific content- you have far more pressing problems :-)

    Mine'sh the raggedy overcoat wish the Tennantsh Shuper in the pocket. Fight ya, I'll fight ya!

  30. Jamie Davis
    Alert

    Nuts = Calories? (@Anonymous Coward)

    I could be wrong, no doubt someone here will correct me but...

    Nuts are a bit of an unknown quantity in calorific/nutritional terms. I believe that the way the calorific value of food is determined is by essentially "burning" it in controlled conditions and measuring the heat given off. Nuts burn just lovely, they are covered in natural oil and made from dense cellulose based tissue. So the calorie rating is very high.

    However...

    The human body doesn't have the enzymes to break down the body of most nuts (there may be exceptions). The cellulytic enzymes required to do it, simply don't exist in us. Even those animals that can digest it have a hard time... Cows have multiple "stomachs" and chew it to pulp, rabbits eat their own pellets to give them another go round etc.

    While the oil on a nut is undoubtedly full of calories and would make us fat if we ate enough nuts, it isn't the whole story. The actual absorbed calories are alot lower. Is there a way to get the calorie rating of what we can actually absorb?

    As always, I humbly leave myself open to correction (abuse).

  31. Ben Lancaster
    Paris Hilton

    Calories? Pah! shake them out

    In my last job I managed to convince a couple of sales girls that if you break apart "high calorie" food, give it a shake, then the calories fall out. Biscuits and crisps were the case in point. They kept it up for three days until one of them was eating crisps and a bus stop (and using my lo-cal method) when someone asked why she was doing it, and quickly pointed out her stupidity.

    I've also attempted to convince people that Yorkshire Tea is grown on the yorkshire dales. At time of writing I'm yet to find anyone stupid enough.

  32. Paul
    Happy

    @Anonymous Coward

    RE:@Cameron Colley...

    Erm, I think he was making a joke...

  33. Kane
    Joke

    I have been waiting for this moment for ages....

    ....So, two Mochas walk into a bar, and the barman turns around and shouts (in Al Murray voice) "Oy! We don't serve coffee in here! Out!"

    Bdum Tsh!

  34. Mark

    What happened to "A coffee, please"

    AND GETTING A COFFEE!!!

    It's like it is with shampoo: once upon a time you'd ask for shampoo. "Normal, greasy or dry" was about as complex as it got. Now, you need an electric car in boots to get from one end of the shampoo counter to the other.

    Same with coffee: "I'll have a coffee" "What sort" "???"

    Jeez, I feel old.

  35. Richard Hibbert
    Joke

    And likewise, been waiting to use this one for years...

    Which? once again providing us with blatantly obvious, nigh-on useless information...

    Thanks a latte!

    /coat

  36. Chris Long
    Unhappy

    @ Lisa Parrat

    "Food calories are always kilocalories, on account of a calorie being an utterly useless unit in the situation."

    True, but it should be written with an uppercase C; 1 Calorie = 1000 calories. The mocha in question has 628 Calories, or possibly 628 kilocalories, but definitely not 628 calories. But then, it's one of those cases where, when sufficiently large numbers of people all get something wrong in the same way, then it stops being wrong. See also "begging the question".

    Re: people being too thick to realise that a massive coffee full of whipped cream and chocolate might be high in calories - maybe they are, but the solution isn't to berate Starbucks for supplying a demand, the solution is to educate people. Anyone who's got to adulthood without getting a clue is probably a lost cause, but we should at least give the next generation a decent education. The current government approach is all about treating symptoms and pretending there isn't an underlying disease - if people eat too much fat, ban junk food advertising or put 'traffic lights' on packaging; if kids drink too much alcohol, make alcohol more expensive; if kids start knifing each other at school, put in metal detectors, etc.

    And relax..... /rant.

  37. Dan
    Paris Hilton

    @ What happened to "A coffee, please"

    To be fair you were probably narrow minded before you got old.

    Paris 'cos she'll try anything.

  38. Richard

    @ Ben Lancaster

    "I've also attempted to convince people that Yorkshire Tea is grown on the yorkshire dales. At time of writing I'm yet to find anyone stupid enough."

    It's already happening (well, Harrogate anyway):

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6277794.stm

    A tea company in the northern English county of Yorkshire has sought help from India in its plans to develop one of the UK's first tea gardens.

    Taylors of Harrogate turned to experts from the state of Assam in its efforts to grow tea in "God's own county".

    They gave advice to UK staff on what kind of soil the tea bushes would thrive in and also on how best to care for them in an unfavourable climate.

    And so on. I prefer a nice cup of Twinings tea myself to most coffees.

  39. Sacha TF Padovani
    Unhappy

    You really have a sad sad life

    if you're stuck with that crap they call coffee. As an Italian resident, I have my daily dose of "caffe'", that's it, you justa walk in a bar, and ask for a coffee. None of that "it has a ridiculously long name so it must be good" business. Oh, and I don't have sugar, either. AND it only costs 0.80 €. I've had a (proper) espresso in London for nearly FOUR times that. Nuts.

  40. Twm Davies

    If you drink a cup of castor oil (~100% fat)

    That's about 2000Cals. So 600Cals from a adult milkshake is quite an achievement.

    I know which one tastes more like coffee.

  41. Dave
    Stop

    El Reg units converter update required?

    Respectfully suggest the 'fast buck' (FB) as a shortform ElReg unit for 'dietary calorific intake'

    Any readers accidentally inferring or interpreting FB as any perjorative term (e.g. 'fat bast**ds) for the excess consumers thereof is, of course, forgiven

  42. Jen
    Stop

    seriously? seriously!

    This is like posting a article about the amazing amount of fat thats in a Wendy's triple stack with extra mayo (which never matters if thats what you want to eat). Starbucks is not a health food store- it has a drive through window and serves an addictive substance, their nutritional information is on their website just like most other chains. The responsibility for knowing what it is you're putting in your body belongs to the person, not the corporation. What's next- surgeon general's warnings on the extravagant calorie/fat content items because the public chooses not to be aware otherwise??

  43. Cameron Colley

    RE: Nuts = Calories? (@Anonymous Coward)

    I have always understood that to be the case too, however, that doesn't stop the "watch your calories" brigade from deeming them evil.

    On a similar note, I'm sure I have read an article where the author suggests that eating chips cooked in vegetable oil is more healthy than eating jacket potatoes -- due to the way that the carbohydrates in the potato are absorbed (I think the presence of [unsaturated] oil on the chips means it's more likely to be excreted and less likely to be turned to fat).

    In short -- just counting calories [Calories, Kcalories] is a moronic way to live your life. If you want to be fit and healthy eat a balanced diet and get exercise -- otherwise just sit back and enjoy your body's decline.

    Oh, yes, my first post was a little tongue in cheek, apologies for those who don't read subtext.

  44. ImaGnuber

    Relax

    You can spend your life eating tree bark if you think that'll make you live longer but the end result is the same - everyone dies. May as well have fun along the way.

    "If life hands you lemons - have a tequila"

    (full disclosure: not even close to being fat)

  45. Nexox Enigma

    @AC

    """"A 'tall' in Starbucks is what most people call a large cofee - how many times have you seen (particular older, for some reason) say "But I asked for a small cofee!" "This is the smallest we do, madam""""

    Actually a tall is a very tiny amount of coffee. When I say 'large' I typically mean 20 oz, which lines up with their largest cup. A tall contains what may only be described as a trivial amount of 'coffee' at Starbucks.

    I love that they claim to get the top 2% of beans. Which they then over-roast so that they keep their flavor longer during shipping and storage. So all of their coffee tastes burned, no matter what. I've had 4 hour old brew from a 7-11 in the middle of nowhere (we have a lot of those in this country) which was better than anything Starbucks serves.

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Calories are better than 'portions'

    Has anyone worked out the governmental busybody 'science' behind the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables?

    According to the nanny state if I eat a banana, a handful of strawberries and wash it down with a glass of fresh orange juice I have consumed five portions. However, if I put the same three quantities into a blender and whizz it into a delicious smoothie it is transmogulated into a single portion.

    Is this an example of the GillianMcKeithisation of science?

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Nothing wrong with a Starbucks

    BTW nuts are like 50% oil

    Anyone recommending a low calorie diet is so 2006, now all you do is exercise every day for 60 minutes.

    Try running a mile after eating a macdonalds even after waiting a couple of hours, lifting weights with a hangover, playing frisbee after a starbucks sugar injection. Your energy just collapses , digestion stops and continuing requires huge amounts of willpower.

    Next day a slow burning carb breakfast and a normal white coffee, you can run easy, lunch of pasta or chicken and weight lifting is enjoyable, couple of beers at night is fine. You can even carry on smoking if you want to , nothing better than a smoke after a hard day.

    The hour or so a day of exercise lets you test yourself and the feedback is rapid, soon most people try not smoking just for a week and can drop all their running times, cut back on drinking. By the end they can diet or "cut" for a month and reveal muscles if they want to.

    Best of all they are healthy and metabolism is raised by resting muscle mass and active exercise so they can actually eat more and maintain the same weight, or lose fat rapidly by cutting for a month.

    This is how those ideal images of men are created, they bulk up and exercise hard with resistance training for 8 months, couple of months before the shoot they crash diet and the fat loss reveals the muscle underneath.

    Aplogies for length

    .

  48. Rich
    Thumb Down

    @Cameron Colley

    Aren't you supposed to be dead?

    I seem to recall at the end of the novel there were dark hints that you had cancer.

    And I'm fairly sure that even if not documented, along with the whisky, coke and speed a grande mocha latte would have passed your lips on a regular basis.

    Regards to Yvonne!

  49. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    What is "Go Large" in Italian?

    Ugh!

  50. A J Stiles

    @Nexox Enigma

    "Actually a tall is a very tiny amount of coffee. When I say 'large' I typically mean 20 oz, which lines up with their largest cup."

    20oz? Fluid ounces hang around in groups of twenty so often, there's a word for that: it's called a pint. Or it used to be, at any rate. We call it 568ml. nowadays.

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