When the leaves start to change and the air gets cooler, many of us get excited for one flavorful fall favorite: the pumpkin spice latte. Though Starbucks is known as the mother of the PSL, a new ingredient breakdown reveals that Dunkin may be the place to go for a healthier fall fix. The two competing coffee chains have both reintroduced their versions of the signature pumpkin spice latte in recent weeks, and though they both may satisfy your craving for seasonal sweets, here’s what you should know about what’s inside the cup.
Right off the bat, Starbuck’s grande sized PSL weighs in at 16 fluid ounces, which is about an ounce larger than Dunkin’s size small. Though the one ounce size difference goes rather unnoticed, the amounts of not-so healthy ingredients in each differ by a lot. Starbucks’ PSL contains 150 more calories than its Dunkin counter part, totaling 350 calories in just 16 fluid ounces. The Starbucks version also contains 10 more grams of fat, 12 more grams of sugar, 40 more milligrams of sodium and more than twice the amount of cholesterol than that of Dunkin.
Though it is important to note that neither drink is necessarily the healthiest beverage choice, the breakdown of ingredients in both shows the Starbucks PSL to be packed with much more unhealthy content: one grande pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks contains more than half of the recommended amount of daily sugar intake and 17 percent of the recommended carbohydrate intake for adults.
Though we are often hyper-conscious of what is in the food we eat everyday, it’s rather common to overlook the ingredients in the drinks we chose to consume on the regular. Though there is nothing quite like the first sip of a piping hot PSL, it might be worth considering what’s inside the cup before we fill up.