Sadly, Tim Horton’s was outside security at the Vancouver airport, so I failed to secure any donuts before I got to the departure gates. However, I did have one for lunch yesterday, after a creditable meal of a ham and swiss sandwich and a giant frozen lemonate (which gave me my first real case of brain freeze). As dessert, I essayed the “maple dip” donut suggested by one reader, but I found it mediocre. The sandwich was much better. Dejuner:
I was forced, then, to have my morning pastry at the overpriced Starbucks inside the airport. While waiting in the huge line, I noticed how slowly it was moving. And that was because many of the customers, instead of just getting coffee (110 calories with whole milk, tall version), were ordering versions of Starbucks’s “candy coffee”, i.e. caramel chocolate macchiato (240 calories, tall, whole milk), cinnamon dolce latte whip (540 calories for a tall), or any of the numerous ways that Starbucks has transmogrified coffee into adult candy. But because they also specified various versions (whipped cream, extra shot of espresso, etc.), each order took an eternity.
None of this existed 25 years ago. At the tonier places you could get a cappuccino or a latte (both of which I consume), but there was no chocolate, no whipped cream, no dulce de leche or pumpkin flavoring. The Canadian customers were wolfing down these calorific drinks; are they on the way to becoming as obese as their American friends?
This is part of the inexorable trend of converting adult foods, originally intended to be healthy (or neutral) into confections. When granola bars first appeared as “healthy snacks,” I predicted that they would change into candy bars. I was right. Now you can get versions like these, which deceive the buyer into thinking they’re getting something healthy:
And when fancy bottled water invaded the U.S., something I deplore except in the gaseous version (i.e., seltzer), I predicted that because of the tendency of so many people to buy it, and carry it around, sucking on the bottles like a baby on its formula, it, too, would start gradually but inexorably changing into soda. It started with flavoring the waters, and then, slowly, some sugar found its way in. Many of the waters still have zero calories, but that’s because they contain artificial sweeteners. Many also contain artificial flavors and other chemicals.
Americans, and many others, have become a victim of what evolution bequeathed us: a penchant for sweets, which were useful in our sugar-deprived ancestors but are injurious in the modern world. So, I proffer. .
A Dr. Ceiling Cat Tip:
If you need to carry water around with you for the occasional suck, get a water bottle and fill it from the tap. It is a waste of energy to buy bottled water in either glass or plastic bottles, and there is simply no need. It is an affectation, and an environmentally damaging one.
I agree, the whole bottled-water thing is probably the second biggest scam ever unleashed upon mankind.
After religion I presume!?
France has a very long tradition of selling bottled water (Evian goes back to the 19th century, I think) with many brands available from different springs. It may no longer be the case, but certainly as recently as the 1980s, when I lived there, there was not a reliable piped potable water supply to all places outside the cities and towns. We had to fill jerry cans at the local village for drinking water or buy it bottled from the supermarket.
More recently the bottled water industry has succeeded in pulling off a great trick on consumers by persuading them that there is something special about bottled water and we have the absurd result that vast volumes of the stuff is shipped around the world and consumed by people who have permanent access to perfectly good piped water supplies.
I presume you’re of a certain age as I am. Most people under ~35 don’t think buying water is unusual but I still do. I’m predicting that in a decade or 2 we’ll able so buy small disposable cylinders of compressed air that will vent into our nose or mouth as we go about our day. I’d probably go for either Rocky Mountain air or La Jolla beach air…but when I’m feeling homesick I’d pick up a bottle of NYC Subway air.
Faucet water + some lemon juice or lime juice is a pretty standard drink for me. I used to use the real thing (fruit slices) but its more expensive/glass and once you cut one, you have to use it fairly quickly or it goes bad.
I’ve tried the water additives (Myo etc). The only appeal they have to me is that they’re different: after weeks of lemon-lime water and unsweetened iced tea, different can be good. In terms of taste quality, however, they taste pretty artificial to me.
A little Elderflower cordial makes a tasty addition.
Oh yes – elderflower cordial and four or five icecubes after a few hours in the midday sun chopping wood or mowing the lawn…it’s ruddy lovely.
You know what makes a nice addition to some tap water?
A dram of Lagavulin 16.
Sadly, I can’t drink whiskey of any type, as it produces an allergic reaction – probably the result of a ‘practical work’ Easter weekend when writing a dissertation on the stuff years ago.
Calvados, however, is a different matter, so I understand whereof you speak. 🙂 Especially pot distilled varieties, which retain more of the apple flavours than column distilled versions. Column distilled forms are more complex and subtle, and preferable as a stand-alone drink.
I also add a tiny bit of lime or lemon juice to tap water. It’s refreshing, incidently whitens my teeth a bit, and hopefully supplies a bit of vitamin C, too. We have stores called Dollar Tree, where either one is $1 for the bottle. They cost more at the grocery story. The lime juice is in a smaller bottle, but it is my favorite and still very economical. Neither seems to need any sugar, if one doesn’t apply too much juice concentrate.
On the plus side, the candy coffees have led to a fresh round of decay in the mouths of office workers who sip on them for long periods of time.
It’s an ill wind…etc.
Mmmm. That candy cane cocoa granola bar looks good! I’ll have to look for them. 😉
I got ‘granola’ as a seven letter word in TV’s Countdown when even dictionary corner only got a five letter word. I’ve absolutely no idea what it is except that it’s some kind of pseudo-foodstuff. Tell me it’s not a brand name – I’m quite proud of that score and I’ve got a feeling it might not have been allowed.
No, it’s not a brand name. It’s kind of like a cereal.
I used to scoff at people in the late 80’s/early 90’s when they would PAY MONEY for evian, which I think was the first “boutique” water. Now every major company has their own brand. We’ve discussed this before on WEIT, but it’s still an important issue. Some cities have horrible water and I understand buying 5-gal jugs and such, but the small bottles for individuals is ridiculous. Though I admit buying bottled water on road trips when I haven’t planned properly.
The water in London, when you’re used to the water in north Wales, or the Pennines, is very close to undrinkable. It’s not fussiness on my part I don’t think – it really is disgusting. I’ve no idea why, and when I mention it to Londoners they have no idea what I’m talking about.
I don’t think I have ever found the water undrinkable in North America or Europe. I prefer a stainless refillable bottle and usually take one when I travel. I avoid the pastries at Starbucks now that I have found that they get them in bulk, wrapped in plastic and they just heat them up when you order. I am also planning on avoiding Tim Horton’s when next I go to Canada, as they are now owned by Burger King, which is an unAmerican corporation–and also makes some pretty awful fast food burgers.
When I was in Romania, the aging infrastructure made tap water questionable to drink. And this was in Bucharest, not some tiny, middle-of-nowhere village. Granted, that was in 2007, so maybe things have improved.
Selling a Canadian iconic company to Americans is part of the Canadian identity.
Except, IIRC, Burger King in now officially a Canadian company. Some tax scam.
I’ve noticed your absence. Where were you?
Crazy busy at work.
I can vouch for her…the Director had an helicopter waiting for her at the base when her team got back from the red zone rescue operation, waiting to whisk her to the ER where she performed an heart / lung / kidney transplant for the President’s daughter. She finished that just barely in time to make it to the launchpad for the comet intercept…and then the Director still had the nerve to chew her out for not yet having finished breaking the latest DAESH encryption algorithm!
How she managed to keep her composure in the underground bunker at that staff meeting I’ll never know….
b&
>
Ha ha. Also I had to go to that soirée and get my hair done.
I have encountered undrinkable (because chlorinated) water in parts of both France and Spain. And I have heard that even parts of the UK have resorted to chlorination in the last few years due, I understand, to inadequate maintenance of the infrastructure.
I recall overly chlorinated water while in training at an Air Force Base. One night, I was so tired, I fell asleep after refilling my canteen and forgot to put the cap on. Next day, the water actually tasted just fine, so I passed the word: Fill at night, cap in the morning, giving the chlorine time to clear.
Just curious- if you liked the flavor of their pastries well enough before you found out how they were prepared, why do you avoid them now?
I didn’t say I liked them all that much, but there are times when there are not a lot of choices. Much prefer something that is fresh baked.
So this high calorie version of coffee at the Starbucks at the airport is what…about 10 bucks. Even at a regular Starbucks it’s good for 5 bucks or more. It’s close to insane.
I’ll bet you used a straw in the cold lemonade and thus…brain freeze.
That’s why it’s otherwise known as “morebucks”
Yes, I did. I had never experienced a brain freeze before but that did it to me. Not only gave me a terrific pain in the cranium, but did a number on my stomach until it melted. Still, the frozen lemonade was much better than the donut!
Hmmm. First time for a brain freeze? Must not feast on many shakes or on homemade ice cream. Both always induce brain freeze for me!
Lately I’ve been getting sternum and spine freeze. A sharp pain to those areas when consuming cold beverages but not to the brain. Maybe my nervous system is totally haywire from too many migraines. I wonder if I will get a sore nose if I stub my toe!
Yes, tap water! I try telling that to a friend of mine in New York City, but he won’t listen. NYC has great water. I’m originally from Massachusetts, and whenever I visit my parents and drink the water there I can taste the yucky difference. New York City rules! At least in the tap water department.
New York City water comes from reservoirs in the Catskills and other nearby mountains. It arrives via a complex network of subterranean aqueducts, at least one of which travels under the Hudson River from west to east. The water is treated a bit, then pumped to taps. Tests showed it was cleaner than several brands of bottled water.
That is surprising only because bottled water is often, essentially, bottled tap water.
Is it true that NYC tap water is the key to delicious NYC bagels?
A lot of places have gross tap water, but that’s easily fixed! Every supermarket has a kiosk that sells good water for $0.25 per gallon, and you can buy a gallon jug of drinking water and refill it endlessly, and fill your water bottle from it when you’re on the go.
In some parts of Philadelphia you are advised to not drink tap water, as it contains unacceptably high levels of lead. Replacing the very old lead water mains apparently is just too expensive.
I don’t even like milk in my coffee.
Just some zero-calorie sweetener and maybe a shot of zero-calorie hazelnut.
I like to be able to taste the coffee itself. You can’t really appreciate the different roasts/blends when it’s full of cream and other stuff.
Not that I’d begrudge anyone their candy coffee.
On the flip side, I also drink coffee sans additives, but for the opposite reason. My palate is thoroughly uncultivated when it comes to coffee. I drink it black because that’s easiest and coffee is free at work. Different roasts, sugar or artificial sweeteners, milk, fancy Starbucks drinks? Whatever, it all tastes like Coffee anyway.
I’ve heard people make similar comments about beer, wine, and spirits — “Whatever, it all tastes like Alcohol anyway!” I didn’t understand how someone could possibly say such a thing until I started drinking coffee, and suddenly I was the philistine.
I’m not anything like a connoisseur myself, but I can taste the difference between light roast, dark roast, and espresso. And I know what I like. I prefer a fairly dark roast that doesn’t taste burnt to a light roast, but espresso is really where it’s at. So smooth.
I am not really a coffee drinker, but sometimes if I am at the gym late and dragging ass I will drink a cup or two of the free coffee. Strictly for the pick-me-up. It usually tastes similar to what a well used ash tray smells like. I don’t know if it is supposed to taste like that or not, but if I want coffee for the taste I’ll go for the Haagen Dazs coffee ice cream instead.
Lol!
That would almost certainly be Folger’s or some similar coffee-impostor.
Do try espresso from a reputable coffee house some time. I bet you’ll discover you *are* a coffee drinker.
I’ll give it a shot.
Lol yet again.
Very, very well played.
😀
Okay, I tried it. You might be right. I think I could probably get used to espresso. Not bad at all!
But I still like Haagen Dazs coffee ice cream.
Welcome to the dark side!
Mwahahahaha!
Five days a week I drink black coffee, and it tastes good. On the weekends, I’ll go for a change of pace and add Irish cream or regular creamer. Also good, but too rich to drink all the time. I even like the Starbucks candy coffee once or twice a year. It reminds me very much of a chocolate shake. In fact, I’ve always thought coffee and chocolate tasted very similar. Maybe it’s just the bitterness.
One of the markers of spring in Chicago was the water in a bottle in my car finally achieving a lasting liquid phase. I feel like that was only a week or so back – weather here has finally achieved something that is “not actively cold”, and the natives are starting to complain about overheating.
Filters on the fridge or a filter jug in the fridge take any bad taste away.
On the subject of flavored water, an (unnamed) passenger recently picked up a couple of bottles at a gas station somewhere in central Indiana – turned out to be “grape” flavor. Even worse than normal when you are not expecting it! Not even in a thirsty state could I get past the first mouthful, so just drove the last 250 miles thirsty.
And finally – even straight espresso in Starbucks needs another shot!
I recommended the maple dip, but I won’t argue that it’s mediocre as Tim’s donuts are all mediocre. I liked Krispy Kreme when it was here (in Calgary) much better – although it gets you closer to a coronary much quicker.
My daughters’ work/worked at Starbucks, so I have to tow the company line somewhat. I don’t see the point of a sugared coffee as it’s the coffee I want to taste. I go for a triple grande non-fat or, on a hot day, an iced coffee with non-fat milk and occasionally a single pump of caramel or vanilla syrup (most sweetened drinks add 4 pumps of syrup).
I prefer and normally drink tap water.
However when out and about and I’m very thirsty, I will occasionally buy bottled water. (With an inner seething, given that ever since bottled water appeared, I too thought it was insane to pay for it).
But what amazes me is just how BAD some bottled water tastes. Evian is pricey, but at least it tastes pretty pure and clean.
But…Dasani or Aquafina? They taste awful, with this off-putting metallic/chemically after taste. And yet they are so popular they are usually the only brand I can find.
I mean, how do you go into manufacturing water…water!..and manage to make it taste bad? “You Had One Job!”
Evian has always tasted off to me; I’d prefer any other (flavorless) water to that.
Also: nobody’s brought up fluoride yet?
you just did…..
Insightful.
You’re not trying to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids, are you?
The cynic in me thinks they make the water taste that way (and I agree, it’s disgusting) simply so that it doesn’t taste like tap water. The (and this is where I really dial up the cynicism) unthinking masses are too distracted by the fact that it tastes different, and therefore must be special somehow, to notice that it’s disgusting.
A lot of the bottled water is simply filtered tap water, with maybe some additives for taste. Crystal Springs, for instance, is municipal water from Cobb County, GA (Chattahoochee River water) that’s been through a filtration process.
I highly recommend a Soda Stream or one of its copycats if you enjoy seltzer water. It is much more economical and environment-friendly to reuse plastic bottles than trashing them or even recycling them. You don’t need the flavored syrups, none of which contain HFCS. You can simply add regular fruit juice or even tea.
Try to get one on sale plus a manufacturer’s rebate. I saved $20 on mine.
Seconded. I have the older penguin model and the glass carafes, and now it’s quite easy to get the replacement CO2 cartridges. The tap water here (from aquifer) is full of minerals and isn’t great in terms of taste, so I put it through a Brita filter before filling my water bottles and camelback for running. For the fizzy water, though, I just use it directly out of the tap.
I agree. Love the fuzzy water.
Yeah, I gotta agree…I go to Starbucks (and Tim Horton’s if I’m near one while traveling) quite a bit but I never get anything loaded with confections. Too many calories I don’t need! I do put cinnamon on my coffee sometimes but that’s the closest it ever gets to being candy.
It really seems like maintaining average health in America takes an above-average effort.
I put about half to three quarters of a tea spoon of cinnamon in my coffee maker, shake it down into the grounds, and then turn it on, so the cinnamon is cooked right into the coffee. You can add more to taste. I never bothered to research the rumor that cinnamon helps manage blood sugar and stave off diabetes. It was just simpler to add it in and forget about it. It isn’t very water soluble, though, so mixing it into the coffee grounds really helps.
As for the rest, I generally take powdered milk and table sugar in my coffee, but I can do without either or both. Cold or iced coffee seems especially good straight, except maybe the cinnamon cooked into it as above.
Morning pastry, sandwiches, my freakin goodness….
Someone has to introduce Mr Biologist to the harsh but healthy reality of evolution-compatible dietary habits.
Evolution is true, and back-to-basics eating also!
Check out Rule 18 in Da Roolz. 😉
Yes, we have to nip this incipient Food Policeperson in the bud.
Seriously, you gonna tell me how to eat?
We should only eat the wild type of any food stuff, as everything else has been genetically modified (selective breeding is a form of genetic modification)! Say no to pasteurisation and yes to E.coli!
Sandwiches???
I put in a R/O system about 10 years ago at the same time we got a water softener system. It is expensive initially but the water is very good. All you do is change some filters once a year.
I told you to get the dutchie donut!
Ditto.
I didn’t see them! I will get a dutchie, the sour cream donut, and the honey cruller at the airport tomorrow.
I’ve had the sourcream donut holes and I didn’t like them. Just sayin’.
Once again I feel compelled (maybe I had no choice) to cite George Orwell, who pointed out that tea has its own natural (bitter) flavour, and one should not consider adding sugar to it any more than one would add sugar to beer. I feel the same about coffee: why wreck its real taste by adulterating it with even milk and sugar, let alone all the horrors that Scarf**ks inject into it?
And if I take my tea with sugar, would I have problems with the Big Brother? 🙂
But Orwell, water has its own natural taste! Why adulterate it by adding tea leaves? 🙂
Touché.
Tea was discovered when an Monk threw some leaves into the water he was boiling for drinking, simply because he was tired of the same old water-tasting water and wanted a change of pace.
Somewhere Orwell wrote that there’s not much to say about water: it quenches the thirst, and that’s about it (can’t find the reference, sorry). He would certainly have said that the best thing you can do with water is turn it into tea. His article on how to make the perfect cup of tea has 11 essential points (many of which have been challenged!)
Not a convincing argument; you could say exactly the same thing about chocolate (naturally bitter, don’t add sugar, etc.)
I’ll drink hot tea unadulterated, but when I want iced tea I’m typically looking for something thirst-quenching and not bitter, so I don’t mind sugar then.
The amount of sugar in sweet tea is absurd, though, so I buy unsweetened and add 1 tsp or so to it (for a 1.6 liter jug). That works out to just under 1g sugar/glass, which is enough to take the bitter edge off but still 20x less than the amount of sugar in regular sweet tea.
Well, I think I might just make the same argument! I don’t like chocolate drinks, or ‘milk’ chocolate (which, in the UK anyway, is usually cloying fatty stuff); but I do like high-content chocolate with no added components.
I will admit to quite liking Middle Eastern mint tea, served in small glasses with rather a lot of sugar. That, plus ME coffee (with cardamom) makes up a lot of hospitality in eg Saudi Arabia.
I love cardamom!
Actually, I do occasionally drink beer with added sugar – shandy. It’s quite good on a hot day after mowing the lawn.
I know.
Just a cup of coffee, at a coffee place, takes five minutes because no one else is getting just a cup of coffee. The same goes for bagels. Want to stop in and grab a fresh chewy one quick? Forget it, everyone ahead of you wants theirs with stuff added.
Funny you should bring up water. I was just this morning wanting to vent about being duped by CVS into buying a cherry soda disguised as a sparkling water. Sandwiched in-between lime flavored Perrier sparkling water and Raspberry-Lime flavored Arrowhead sparkling water (both of which I like and neither of which has a hint of sweetener) was a store brand Gold Emblem. It was half the price of Perrier or Arrowhead, so I grabbed a couple.
I poured myself a glass to drink while I work and almost gagged on the sickly sweet yet bitter taste. Aspartame! It was a diet cherry soda, pure and simple, no more “sparkling water” than a Diet Mt. Dew. There is no hint on the package (which you can see here) that it differs from the two sparkling waters it was bracketed by on the shelf.
At first I thought it was just bad marketing, but on reflection I think maybe it is not. Maybe customers won’t buy diet cherry soda, but will buy diet cherry soda labeled as “sparkling water”. Perhaps customers *want* to be fooled. Although a diet cherry soda has no sugar or calories, it still sounds decadent (and may be), whereas “sparkling water” sounds better. On one level, when they drink it they must know it’s a diet cherry soda. But maybe it provides just enough obscurity that they willingly participate in the self-deception.
Do you remember Tab? OMG, that stuff was horrid. Never understood why anyone would drink it.
One of the (state-owned) water corporations here in Victoria (AUS) produced this video a while back. It sums up the bottled water debate pretty well (at least in my state, where the tap water is very good).
https://youtu.be/q3oAv0BjtN4
Bah! Not sure what happened there. I tried to follow da roolz but it didn’t work. Anyway, if you search YouTube for ‘Yarra Valley Water Dupe’, you’ll get the video
I’ll admit to having a weakness for black licorice and for fruit-flavored candy (curse you, ready availability of Fruit Gums on Amazon), but I like my candy neat, not baked into cookies or granola bars. Granola bars weren’t exactly healthy or low-calorie before they included bits of candy, either. Pretty much any processed, commercial baked item, whether it’s a granola bar, cookie, cracker, or (gasp!) Pop-tart, is going to have more calories than most people expect or want to accept. There are always cookies from Subway at our seminars and student presentations, which I never eat because they don’t taste good to me, but I looked up the calories per cookie and it was >200. A couple of people essentially called me a liar when I mentioned the calories (I strongly disapprove of the presence of these cookies and their expense).
I think some people are in active denial about 1) how many calories are in certain foods, and 2) what “one serving” is. Others just aren’t paying much attention, and “can’t understand” why they gain weight or don’t lose it.
Well, there is no “one size fits all” serving. A serious athlete can, and has to, consume upwards of 4,000 kC a day.
I prefer the honey cruller from Tim Hortons.
Oh, yeah, those are nice too.
Well, there’s a Tim Horton’s INSIDE security at Toronto (I marked it for my return), so I’ll try the honey cruller. But it better be good!
There are few things as Canadian as Timmy’s. We’ve long passed the point where there are more TH outlets, (almost 4,600) than points scored in the NHL (518) by the actual Tim Horton.
Ron Joyce has done a LOT of civic good through Tim Horton summer camps and sponsoring minor sports, but IMNSHO, TH donuts are just not worth it. The main bakery is upwind of my work, so all year long I bask in the sickly sweet odour of partially baked goods. Everything is frozen and the baking is “finished” at the local outlets. Back in the day all baking was fully fresh in store, but that’s long gone.
I much prefer the in-store donuts that are actually baked fresh in the Zehrs grocery chain in Ontario.
And, I won’t post a picture of the package, but I got my copies of WEIT and The Albatross last week from Amazon. I plan to hold off reading them until late August when I spend a lazy week at a cottage resort. There are lots of folks reading by the lake, and I wish to subtly broadcast what I’m reading.
Peace,
Paul
Get a box of mixed donut holes, then you can decide which are worth buying in future. 🙂
Get the Dutchie donut!
I second the cruller. I got through university on a diet of large (now medium) coffees and honey crullers from the local Timmy Ho’s.
If you’re reading this, PCC, go for the DUTCHIE, like Diana M said! The cruller has a nice flavour but it’s like eating air. The fruit explosion muffins are good too, but kinda sweet for me.
And remember, just because Timmy’s is/was a Canadian icon, that doesn’t mean the food is great. :-/
I think the greatness hangs on not what you consider “great” but what you consider “food”. 🙂
Yeah, and what’s the most convenient, with a Timmy’s almost at every major intersection. 🙂
(I do like their chili (contains a little too much salt though) and sandwiches – the Tuscan chicken panini is very tasty.
Yes, if we had to climb a tree, risk life and limb, smoke the bees out before harvesting, being stung and swinging around up there, obesity would be a rare animal.
Titillating packaging and advertising gets the salivating mojo going…at the risk of sounding boring, we should stop this madness. With diet and exercise you can have your cake, it is not TOO difficult.
Sweetness = $$$$$$$ in the modern consuming world.
Obesity,is believed to be taking over from cancer as the number one enemy of human health and that is no mean feat.
Diabetes is a major and not to discriminatory on who it takes out.
Resources, energy, dollars diverted from education (say) we are on a hiding to nowhere.
AFAIK, most sugar comes from sugar cane and sugar beets, not honey. Still backbreaking labor to harvest it by hand, but there’s no animal attack threat involved.
My big complaint with Starbucks is that, even ignoring all the sugar and flavorings and what-not they dump into the beverages, the coffee itself is really quite awful. Nasty — which, obviously, explains why they have to so thoroughly adulterate it!
A month or so ago I experimented brewing coffee (French press) with distilled water instead of tap water, figuring the high pH of our mineral-rich tap water likely wasn’t doing the coffee justice. That resulted in a pretty significant improvement…but I really didn’t want to have to keep buying plastic jugs of distilled water, so I bought an electric distilling machine:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B000ANW7HQ
I’ve since taken to using it for pretty much all drinking and cooking, going through not quite a gallon a day. It’ll have paid for itself before the end of the year in savings over buying plastic gallon jugs of water, it’s already paid for itself in terms of convenience…and it’ll also quickly pay for itself environmentally by keeping all those plastic jugs out of the landfill.
b&
I like their chai tea latte, especially because you can call it a tai chi latte and the baristas are so used to that screw up that they don’t even blink an eye.
Then you just have to up the ante a bit…next time, ask for a kung fu ladle, and then a jiujitsu spoon, and then a karate spork…carob spam…chocolate bacon…chicken mole….
b&
Eventually they will assume I’m having a stroke and call an ambulance.
What with all the sugar and caffeine they serve to everybody, I’m sure it’s something they deal with all the time….
b&
>
lol
Tazo makea very good chai teabags. You can add your own frothy milk at home, and cane sugar if you like.
Yeah I have some chai tea here. A friend of mine makes her own from scratch.
Isn’t “chai tea” fully redundant?
Well, the Chinese say ‘chai’ for tea, any tea. Then there’s this other stuff that is spiced up tea (cinnamon, cardamom and black pepper) labelled Chai. I don’t know why that is.
My Ondian friends spice it up their way. Maybe Chai tea is an Indian thing.
I think it’s an American marketing thing.
Maybe it’s like when we say the hoi polloi and the “the” is redundant because hoi is the definite article. Okay maybe not.
I am a fan of Chai tea, and hot chai latte, but after I had the chai latte from our local coffee chain called Bigbys’ it is clear that the Starbucks version is vastly inferior.
If you ever come across a Bigbys (here are locations), try their chai latte. It is amazing, IMO.
One of the biggest waste is the single-serve coffee brewing machine. Those coffee pods are filling up the landfill. The inventor now hates it, and he said he never intended this device for home use, just for businesses when a quick cup of joe is needed.
Well, I don’t know about that.
I really think coffee is fully a matter of personal taste.
I too do not prefer Starbucks; but I don’t find it terrible in any basic way — it’s just over-roasted for my tastes (I never use flavorings — another trend I can’t fathom at all — I actually like the taste of, you know, coffee.)
Locally (Minnesota) I consume Caribou and Dunn Brothers, both of which I strongly prefer to Starbucks.
To me, Starbucks is bullseye in the same wheelhouse with over-hopped micro beers and over-oaked US wines. Take a good trend (more flavor!) and then over-do it until you produce … an inferior, out-of-balance product.
“To me, Starbucks is bullseye in the same wheelhouse with over-hopped micro beers and over-oaked US wines.”
I am stealing this sentence for future use. Thank you.
A few months ago I bought a bottle of “Fred water” because it looks like a small bottle of gin or vodka. The plastic is very high grade. The bottle is meant to be used over and over. And I love the double takes I get in my office and car as I sip from what looks like a liquor bottle.
Tim Horton’s coffee never did it for me – too watery. Now that I’ve given up coffee (long story) I appreciate their “steeped tea”, though I only stop there on road trips.
I can’t understand the attraction of the sugary “frou frou” coffee drinks – the only time I tried one, the sweetness made my teeth ache.
I hope the “long story” doesn’t involve vilifying caffeine. Lots if recent research indicates that caffeine is really quite healthy.
I won’t vilify it; however I can no longer consume it (I used to drink about 2 pots of what my colleagues dubbed “death brew” every day — not quite Turkish coffee; but very very strong).
I started waking up nights with my heart racing and I got really cranky driving in traffic — not quite road rage; but not too many steps away.
Cutting back the caffeine (in my 30s and 40s), eventually to zero, cured these issues.
It’s also convenient being de-caffeinated on those mornings when one has to fast before medical tests (as one reaches certain age mileposts). You may be hungry and thirsty; but at least a caffeine headache isn’t adding to the misery!
Sure; too much of most things is a bad idea.
I must have the highest tolerance for CNS stimulants of anyone I know. I’ll drink 2 20oz coffees and still be able to doze off.
It’s not the caffeine – hence the switch to tea. There’s some other component (I forget the name) that irritates my gastro-intestinal lining. My doctor harangued me for years about giving up coffee before a particularly painful bout earlier this year convinced me.
(I thought I had posted a reply but it seems to have disappeared)
I won’t vilify caffeine – that’s why I switched to tea instead of giving it up altogether. There’s some other thing in coffee (I forget the name of it) that irritates my gastro-intestinal lining. After my doctor harangued me for years about giving up coffee, I finally did it earlier this year after a particular painful experience.
I only go for the honey-dipped Tim Hortons donuts, with an occasional Dutchie/apple fritter. They’re way too sweet for me.
Here’s some interesting news on ariticial sweeteners ending up in our lakes, rivers and even TAP water!
http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/rivers-lakes-loaded-with-artificial-sweeteners-researchers-say-1.2411398
I drank tap water when I lived in Chicago. If you tasted water in College Station, you’d buy reverse osmosis water ($0.40/gallon) like we do – and fill your drinking water from that. The amount of sodium in our tap water is remarkable; wash a car and it’ll be covered in white spots if you let it air dry. Like Ben, we find our coffee is much better with the reverse osmosis water.
You live in a dry continent that is drying out even more because so much water is wasted on golf courses in deserts etc. Not perhaps where you live, but certasinly broadly speaking.
http://www.wri.org/blog/2014/04/water-stress-magnifies-drought%E2%80%99s-negative-impacts-throughout-united-states
PCC is quite right to criticise bottled water, but there is also a duty on public authorities to provide more water fountains (mains), & they are now lacking in the UK. I can only think of one in Lodon, the stone one in Regents Park.
I recommend carrying two refillable bottles. Low-pressure fountains won’t fill one very full, sometimes only halfway. With a second bottle, you can always get one full. Oh, and carry a couple tea bags too, for flavor, or a little caffeine.
Right on! I carry a small one and a larger one.
I went to a Starbucks. Once. All I wanted was a cup of plain coffee. Black – darker and stronger the better. Espresso would’ve been fine, but I figured I’d try to get what I assumed was their base liquid, unadulterated. Quick in, quick out. Or so I expected. They had to go ‘prepare’ the fucking thing.
First and last time!
I have two SIGs for water, handy and better than a plastic bottle. Worked with someone whose water bottle for the field was a truly disturbing ancient 1L plastic bottle. It had green in it!
I usually re-use PEET bottles for water bottles. However, I clean them well between uses, store them open and dry, and recycle them as needed to avoid the green (or black).
Re-use and then recycle. (I don’t buy water in them; usually Gatorade — really tough bottles with larger mouths. When I need a drink, I need a drink!)
It’s possible North Americans feel the same way when they see our food but I’m always disgusted by the shabby way they package their snacks. It always looks so dull and grotty. In Britain our packaging is much more psychologically reassuring – lots of greens and light blues, less like they were designed by the interior decorator of a prison. The contrast is particularly striking now that there’s an ‘American Food’ section in our local Tesco(by food they mean Milk Duds, Reese’s Peanut Butter Coronary Drops and some kind of spreadable, woolly, sugar fleece-in-a-jar that looks like when you leave food in a warm place for a while and it grows white hair.
It’s all stuff I’ve heard about in Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Friends and other programmes growing up, but it all looks so hideous, so grimly packaged, I can’t bring myself to try anything. Except the Reese’s Nutrageous bar, which I admit is bloody lovely.
It probably is cultural. It’s been over a decade since I’ve been to Europe, but I do remember thinking that the packaged foods just didn’t look as appetizing as the food back home.
Now, freshly prepared foods, on the other hand, are a whole different matter. I just don’t understand why most American bakeries make such crappy bread.
Cost/economics. The competitor using slightly crappier ingredients to produce slightly crappier product wins in the marketplace, resulting in a ‘race to the bottom.’
We do have good bakeries, but they cater to the upper-middle class because the bread price is significantly higher than, say, wonderbread.
Yes, it looks even worse than Polish food.
In Britain we have Lidl, a supermarket chain that sells European, generally German, Scandinavian and eastern European, food. It’s much cheaper than ‘our’ food, generally just as good, if not better, but the same problem with the packaging is present there too. It all just looks so incredibly unappetising.
And you tend to come across utterly bewildering foreign foods that are obviously popular in their home countries but strike me as borderline inedible. Yoghurt Blocks, Jellied Cheese, Pasta ‘N’ Rice – that kind of thing. Never mind the tins of ‘mystery meat’ that have no information about what’s in them.
The contrast is particularly striking now that there’s an ‘American Food’ section in our local Tesco(by food they mean Milk Duds, Reese’s Peanut Butter Coronary Drops and some kind of spreadable, woolly, sugar fleece-in-a-jar that looks like when you leave food in a warm place for a while and it grows white hair.
It sounds like they put an 8-year-old in charge of what counts as ‘American Food’ and he just went down the candy aisle. No burgers? Baby back ribs? Corn bread? Crab cakes? Geez…
When I went to Japan, all the packaging looked like something I would see on acid.
You mean like the Fruity Oaty Bar?
I operate a general principle of tap water in protestant countries and bottled water elsewhere.
However, when it comes to dodgy drinks, in the immortal words of Half Man Half Biscuit:
“Cresta – what the f**k were we drinking??”
Reblogged this on Anthropology Now and commented:
Hidden (and not-so-hidden) sugar is everywhere.
I fully agree on the water bottles. I try to avoid buying bottled water any way I can. Mainly because I find it insanely wasteful.
The other trend I deplore is putting sugar/sweetener in EVERYTHING, these days. What Holy Handgrenade is sugar doing in, for instance: Bread, ketchup, mayonaise, peanut butter, salty crackers, etc., etc.
In general, I hew to the old line of not mixing sweet and savory. (My one main exception is Reeses Peanutbutter Cups.) I sort of like salty caramel — as long as the salt isn’t overdone.*
(I also strongly dislike adding fruit to an otherwise salty/vinegary salad; but I know this is widely enjoyed — I can’t fathom this either.)
* It seems to me that USians always tend to go over the top on whatever is currently the trend: E.g.: Overly-hopped beers, overly-oaked wines, sugar in everything, salt in candy, fruit in salads, etc. I like strong flavors more than the average US bear (e.g. blue cheese, which I can eat like candy, and garlic, which I use with a liberal hand in cooking); but I almost always seek a balance, not a club to the head/mouth.
“fruit in salads”
I once made a salad to bring to a dinner party. It consisted of spinach, field greens, raspberries, candied almonds, and a pretty sweet raspberry vinaigrette. The host said “leave it to Andrew to figure out how to turn salad into candy”.
Dr. Atkins, in his books attack the abuse of sugar, sweet fruits and carbohydrates based on evolutionary facts: thousands of years hunting and then eating mainly meat, fish and few vegetables (fruits only a period of the year and not as sweet as modern agriculture gets), green leaves (poor in carbohydrates), and nuts (oil rich). Now change to agriculture, full of grains the hole year(full of carbohydrates), fruits, sweet drinks and milk (10% of lactose and galactose sugars). And recently even purify grains from fibers and fulfill our kids with sugar (thru chocolate, candy, cake, confiture, sweetened drinks, etc). Diabetes second type and people looking like whales are the effects.
And the FDA insisting: fats are guilty.
Evolution should be the guidance to nutritionist. Certainly they will solve the problem. For me is another good prove of the truth of Evolution.
I can follow you there: cut out the starches, most of the refined sugars, processed foods and refined seed oils and your metabolic syndrome will melt a like snow under the sun.
Note, since our recent ancestors had quite differing ‘ancestral diets’, one would expect some of us to be less prone to metabolic syndrome than others. (Eg. we know that populations that traditionally eat a high starch diet have more copies of the amylase 1 gene than those that don’t).
I think there is a whole wide open field for nutritional, genetic and evolutionary research there.
I generally only have (frozen) leomonade at TH, as I don’t drink coffee and I don’t like the donuts much.
It is stereotypically Canadian, so they are *everywhere*, though.
I absolutely loathe sugar. I spent the first 40+ years of my life feeling like s**t most of the time, and only when it started getting even worse did it become clear that sugar was to blame.
Unfortunately I can still remember the taste of chocolate, and I do rather miss it.
I must be a caffeine addict, because I’ll choke down any kind of sludge. Starbuck’s, Dunkin, McDonald’s coffee, deli coffee after it has been sitting all day, you name it.