You Should Never Get Breakfast At Starbucks. Here's Why

There are more than 30,000 Starbucks locations worldwide (via Statista). You'll hear their blenders whirring and coffee pouring in your grocery store, the airport, and of course in their many stand alone locations. Chances are, you've stopped in to a Starbucks with your stomach grumbling — maybe before a dreaded early morning flight — and picked up one of their breakfast options. Well, here's why you should think twice before your stomach leads you to another Starbucks breakfast.

You might think of Starbucks as a chain coffee shop and not a fast-food joint, but if you consider how quickly they serve up meals, it becomes pretty obvious the cafe could enter the fast-food club. And while not all fast-food is bad by definition, there are some roadblocks to healthy food when convenience and consistency are key to your brand. It's probably not a shock that many corporations opt for frozen meals to achieve these goals, and Starbucks is no different (via The Daily Meal).

We all have frozen meals in our freezers, but it certainly feels bad to pay nearly $5 for a frozen sammie when you could microwave your own at home for less than a dollar (via Fast Food Menu Prices).

Beyond the cost issue, some freshly heated Starbucks sandwiches can be frozen for a while. In a small Listeria recall in March of 2016, it was noted that one type of sandwich was marked "best by" August; so, 5 months later (via The Food Poisoning Lawyers). 

Alright, so you might be able to deal with an overpriced frozen sandwich in a pinch, but that's not the only mark against Starbucks' breakfast menu. Panera wanted to crush its breakfast competition and did some investigating into Starbucks' egg cooking methods. What they found may turn you off from Starbucks breakfast from here on out.

Panera asked the FDA to create an official definition of eggs when it found additives like artificial butter flavors, gums, and fake colors in the "eggs" served at Chick-fil-A, Burger King, and — you guessed it — Starbucks (via Business Insider). Apparently when Starbucks serves oddly fluffy and perfect eggs, it's really serving eggs, soybean oil, modified food starch, whey solids, salt, nonfat dry milk, and citric acid. Yes, the chain does serve actual eggs in breakfast sandwiches, but they are certainly not the same healthy eggs you eat at home.

Meanwhile, it's easy to see how delicious descriptions of Starbucks breakfast items like the Spicy Chorizo, Monterey Jack & Egg Breakfast Sandwich can tempt you, but consider you'd be better off eating 17 strips of bacon than one of these relatively-small sandwiches, because the Spicy Chorizo breakfast contains more fat (via Eat This Not That).

Sorry but when you visit Starbucks, you might want to stick with the coffee.

Starbucks has a dilemma that might be hard to remedy. Only 20 percent of the company's sales come from food, so there's not a ton of incentive to change the way they operate in order to offer fresher items (via Eater). Their locations are often too small to accommodate a full-sized kitchen like other chain bakeries such as Panera. Instead, Starbucks defrosts and reheats frozen food, and obviously, frozen will always have trouble competing with fresh. In theory, the company could invest in chefs and huge kitchens, but Starbucks is known for its tasty coffee more than its snacks, and is thus designed for baristas.

Starbucks baked goods, like the breakfast sandwiches, aren't the healthiest items, either. Sugar makes anything taste good, but the coffee company is a little heavy-handed with the sweet stuff in a lot of its pastries like croissants, coffee cakes, and muffins.

Many of the breakfast pastries served at Starbucks have far more than the 24 grams of added sugar per day women should consume — and even more than the 36 grams of added sugar per day men should eat (via Eating Well). For example, Starbucks' (albeit delicious) chocolate muffin packs an impressive 39 grams of sugar (via Spoon University). If it's between the muffin and the high-fat breakfast sandwich, the healthiest choice is, well, tough to make.

Critics have gone after the company's croissants, too. One non-fan of the Starbucks breakfast offering says the croissants are way too buttery (via OC Weekly). And as much as butter tastes good, it's not the healthiest choice either, especially considering half of the calories from this morning munch come from fat (via Food Nutrition).  

In the end, as much as we all love the company's coffee, it seems like Starbucks is still struggling to figure out a breakfast to go along with your morning cup. Until then, make it a Venti and enjoy the beans!