First off, it's always important to give credit where credit is due. WE ALL have Kelly @ No Thanks to Cake to thank for this concoction. Let me make that clear! Sometimes you have these moments in life where you're like, "Why didn't I think of that?"... and Kelly does that a lot for me. She tends to make the obvious even more obvious for myself :). Case in point - if you're trying to enjoy some 'bucks, but you don't want to splurge on the full drink recipe/calories, why not modify it? We do it with food, so why not beverages? There's clearly no better place to do this than at a Starbucks, where customizing your drink is the norm. Still, I would have never thought to ask my barista to go easy on the pumps. Duh! Thank God someone is a genius out there!
So, with that being said, I took the research that Kelly has already generously done, and added on to it. She learned that your baseline tall, nonfat SCM contains 3 pumps each of the mocha and toffee nut syrups. Based on the nutri-stats, that is 25 calories per pump of the mocha syrup, and 20 calories per pump of the toffee nut (reference chart above). That means, in a tall SCM, you're swallowing 135 extra calories just in syrups. However, when you only do 1 pump mocha + 2 pumps toffee nut in a tall (no whip!)... NOW we're talkin'!
What the NTTC queen discovered is that the SCM is simply a prettied up version of a caffe mocha. That's great! Why? Because not all that long ago, Starbucks debuted a SKINNY version of the caffe mocha, which is good news for us!
Still, here is where things get a little hairy, and we learn why this is only an estimate. At this time, I'm not 100% certain that the mocha syrup they use in the skinny version is totally sugar-free and totally calorie free. So, for now, I am accepting that the baseline tall skinny mocha's nutri-stats already has 3 pumps of the skinny syrup included in their calculations below. In order to get our estimated PointsPlus, just add on 2 pumps-worth of nutri-stats of the toffee nut and you can achieve a close estimate of your PointsPlus value.
Calories - 165
(110 cals from skinny mocha + 40 cals of 2 pumps toffee nut + 15 cals caramel drizzle)
Fat - 1.5g
(no fat in syrup + 0.5g fat in caramel drizzle)
Total Carbs - 26g
(14g from skinny mocha + 10g from toffee nut + 2g caramel drizzle)
Dietary Fiber - 3g
(no fiber in syrup)
Protein - 11g
(no protein in syrup)
Total PointsPlus = 4
(I calculated a grande at 5 PointsPlus -
2 pumps skinny mocha + 3 pumps toffee nut)
In conclusion, if the mocha syrup is sugar free, then the PointsPlus total would stand as is because it would not affect the nutrition stats based on the other sugar free syrups (refer to chart above). However, if the mocha syrup is "light", and we're only doing 1 pump of it versus the 3 pumps for the baseline drink, then we've most likely over-estimated our PointsPlus value, but I'm sure not by much, even if at all. I'd rather estimate more than less in this case!
And I won't lie to you when I say this: I enjoy it more than my beloved pumpkin spice! The SCM has a lot of nice flavors melding together.
The PSL.... well, let's just say we've "separated" for now!
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Posted by: Tukiyooo
Starbucks Salted Caramel Mocha Updated at :
6:08 PM
Thursday, September 6, 2012
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