CHEWING THE FAT ... AT 7TH AND MONTANA!

Cheers erupted at 7th and Montana this morning as word spread that Starbucks is "upgrading" its pastry selection. "You'll be happy to know that your favorite Starbucks foods not only taste better, they are better," says the Starbucks website. Signs posted prominently on the Pastry Case proudly advertise: "No artificial flavors. No artificial trans fats. No artificial dyes. No high-fructose corn syrup." Their new slogan is "Real Food. Simply Delicious." In other words, Starbucks is on a health kick, right? Wrong! Take a close look behind the fancy, handwritten script on the display case and you'll find the same, old selection of Fritters and Doughnuts. As an experiment, I traced the doughnuts back to their source -- Top Pot of Seattle -- and here's what I found: A single Glazed Old-Fashioned Doughnut like the ones pictured above contains nearly 9 grams of saturated fat (the kind that the American Heart Association calls "the main dietary cause of high blood cholesterol"), 20 milligrams of cholesterol and a negligible amount of dietary fiber. And while Starbucks' advertising is correct, there's no high-fructose corn syrup, 38 grams of processed sugar is no picnic ... except maybe for ants. Don't get me wrong, I like a doughnut every now and then as much as the next guy. But this new effort by Starbucks to imply that their baked goods are now "better" for you strikes me as being ... well ... half-baked!