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This Keto Diet Friendly Starbucks Drink Went Viral — But Experts Have Doubts
Customers are seeking — and sharing — Keto diet friendly drinks at Starbucks, but are they good for you?
Celebrities and civilians alike have been singing the praises of transforming their bodies through the Keto diet, which espouses excluding sugar and grains, plus eating lots of good fat, moderate protein, and low carbs. It's been helping people achieve weight loss, even if they don't adhere to the key principles — like Chris Scott, a Season 15 competitor on Bravo's Top Chef who recently credited his 20-pound slimdown to a "sort of Keto diet" that still includes the occasional bowl of ice cream.
With so much popular interest around the Keto diet trend, a Starbucks customer named Sonia Coronado, who maintains an Instagram account called @ketosony, has claimed that she basically invented her own version of Keto diet friendly drinks at Starbucks — and her creation has gone viral on social media.
“Normally I’d order an iced coffee with heavy whipping cream and sugar-free vanilla, but on this particular day I saw Starbucks had a Peach Citrus White Tea and I thought it’d taste delicious if I ordered it iced with heavy whipping cream and sugar-free vanilla the way I’d normally order my iced coffee,” she told People. “It was amazing, better than I ever expected and it instantly reminded me of peaches and cream!”
Her order sounded so delicious to so many Keto adherents that it has been embraced and shared with the hashtags #whitedrink and #peachcitruswhitetea — but Health editor Cynthia Sass explained its faults to People. "White tea is a great start, but this drink also contains conventionally produced heavy cream, not grass-fed organic dairy, as well as an artificial sweetener and preservative in the syrup," she said.
"Ultimately, I’d be more concerned about the long-term effects of a Keto diet on your gut microbiome than I’d be about the sucralose of this one Starbucks drink, specifically," Good Housekeeping's nutrition director Jaclyn London told Delish. "Bottom line: This sounds delicious, but drink it for its flavor — not for its perceived health or weight-loss promoting 'benefits.'"
