Starbucks Protein Drinks

Q: Have any of you folks tried the new Starbucks protein drinks?  Do they live up to the hype? 

A:  Good question.  The short answer mostly no, they don’t seem to live up to the hype.  However, the Sugar Free Vanilla Protein Matcha gets a solid “maybe” vote.

Some quick math shows that the number of calories added varies a lot depending on the drink… so the quick math shows it’s too complicated to do quick math because each drink is quite different and each drink has multiple options.   

In general, from their nutrition facts, it looks like it costs 200 calories to add 20 grams of protein, and these are drinks that are already rich in calories.  20 grams of protein is only 80 calories.  This means the remaining 120 calories is some combo of fat and sugar that most people don’t need any more of.

However, the one I mentioned above is OK – 36 grams of protein for 240 calories, but that’s the best option I could find.  I personally dislike Matcha (tastes like dirt to me), so I probably won’t try it.  Another positive is that, if the ingredients list is accurate, there isn’t much that would cause digestive distress, which is something considering that many sugar-free coffees have sugar alcohols in them, which are powerful laxatives. 

The lowest calorie way (whey?) to add protein to your coffee is to simply add vanilla or chocolate protein powder (depending on your preference) to black coffee.  You can get fancy and blend it up with ice, vanilla extract, etc, but be mindful of too many extra calories because the calories we drink add up fast.