Wow,

What an eyeopener!

I remember when I was a kid and my mother, in her fascination with the English lifestyle, would bake up scones. A little dry and not very exciting, but generally a nice little bready snack. I know what she put in them, and really you could have done much worse health wise. No suprises or hidden calories.

SO I got it in my head that scones are scones are scones and that they are pretty much low fat and low calorie..... But that is REALLY dependant on where you are eating said scone..... Oy!!

I was craving a little extra for breaky this morning, since I am trying to avoid my old staples of things like peanut butter (with up to 120 calories per tablespoon). In the past I would just grab a scone and coffee from Starbucks. And in the interest of keeping it light, I would have a cinnamon scone instead of a blueberry one.

But today, before making that impulse purchase, I decided to look it up.......

And Oh My GOD!!!!!! Are you frickin kidding me? I found this article from CNN (quite old but many other current sites confirm it) More than 500 calories and 20 grams of fat (2/3 your sturated fat for the day!) in one simple little innocent looking scone!!!!! Less than eating a big mac and chocolate sunday at McD's!!!!!!

Un-freakin believable!!!! Damn..... It all makes so much sense now. Here I was thinking I was making a healthy choice by choosing the innocent and harmless looking scone over the dreaded tablespoon of peanut butter...

And how many years have I been overweight......? Oh yeah, my whole damn life! Just goes to show you, a little research can go a long way. I am very thankfull I avoided that scone this morning and instead will eat the whole grain bread I brought from home and yes, I will put a tablespoon of peanut butter on it.

My only real question is how does Starbucks take something my mom used to make healthy and turn it into something WORSE than a big mac??

Another lesson learned the hard way....

sirant

lol i remember trying to eat the starbucks skinny muffins then gaining weight when i ate them, nightmare.

one of the main ingredients in a regular scone is heavy cream that's why they taste so good..

starbucks low fat muffins are just as bad as full fat muffin... sad... but at least now they post their nutrtional info - they didn't used to...

I had to search forever for nurtritional info here, and had to base my findings on australias offerings, not China's. I find it highly annoying you must enter a valid postal code in order to get online nutirional info, and even then they dont give it for Chinese Starbucks products.... I guess they figure China doesnt care about nutrition yet. Perhaps they are just hoping.... They are in pretty hot water over here already, having been caught on several occasions paying Chinese staff here less than the already low minimum wage. McD's too, but hey, thats no suprise..... Less than a dollar per hour, yet they charge the same high prices for their food and drinks as they do back home.... 20 local dollars just for a plain cup of coffee is terrible....

sirant

500 calories for a scone?? Wow! Before last July, I would eat about 3 of those a week.

It's amazing what happens once you really start examining ALL the food you eat. It's so easy to fool yourself. You think you're being "pure" by not eating at McDonalds, and you only eat "healthy" things like the scones at Starbucks.

Horrifying is a word that comes to mind when I think of it........ More calories and fat than a big mac!!!! I too would eat several of those "safe" snacks a week a few months ago..... My next question is what the heck is "Diet Green Tea?" and in fact I am going to start a new thread to ask exactly that....

sirant

If you know how scones are made it's pretty obvious they're not a great choice-the low fat muffins at starbucks are what always killed me... or the low fat coffee cake - yeah - lower fat than the regular product sure.. but not exactly good for you

There is nothing worse than seeing a food that you think is healthy and then turning it over to find it full of calories!!
Even stuff that looks healthy can sometimes be decieving. I used to buy packed sandwiches from the supermarket, chicken salad.. then i realised that they were like 450 calories because they had the smallest dab of mayonnaise on them.
I am really conscious about the amount of calories in things now and i just sit back and think is it really worth it .. i try to weigh it up with what exercise i would have to do to get rid of the calories eaten...

One chocolate biscuit is like 90 calories and it takes me around 20mins to burn that off (according to the treadmill counter) It's not worth it !! LOL

baked goods from coffee shops are the bain of the american waiste line. I used to work at a starbucks when I was in college and would eat a freakin bagle every morning during my shift...DOH! No wonder I gained the ol' college 15...+20...lol