"The dipper well is a continuous stream of water that basically cleans off the utensils we use to make drinks," Starbucks spokeswoman Tara Darrow said. "If somebody has a soy allergy and the spoon has been used in soy, it makes sure that the utensil is sanitized."
The article, entitled Starbucks in Hot Water over Water Use, is on Seattlepi.com and comments on the excessive water usage as well as the challenges Starbucks is encountering in developing a good alternative. The British "tabloid" article which first "broke the story" is featured in The Sun. It'll be interesting to see what solution Starbucks selects to resolve this issue.
4 comments:
They can pretty much bail this practice as it doesn't "sanitize" anything. If you have an allergy, you do a little more to avoid cross contamination than run shared utensils under cold water. It is ignorance on Starbuck's part. Starbucks is not the place to go with any food allergy especially a nut allergy. All the pastries are cross contaminated along with the mix that is used for frappacinos and the mocha they use.
Starbucks scares me also--I wonder what my daughter will do when she is older and wants a "safe" coffee. I'm hopeful by then things will be more accomodating to allergic folks--but in the meantime, it's a no-go.
HI! I wanted to comment on the recent allergy attack a woman had who is allergic to tree nuts after eating a peach yogurt.
My stepdad is a botanist and mentioned to me that peaches have tree nuts inside - their pits! When they are processed there is a good chance particles of the pit will contaminate the fruit. I would caution anyone who has tree nut allergies to be careful about eating fruit like apricots and peaches! Please spread the word but also check this out yourself with your doctor.
Elisa
Elisa, thanks so much for your comment. Good point!
There's also a more recent post here about that anaphylaxis incident: http://www.foodallergybuzz.com/2009/01/starbucks-anaphylaxis-incident-in.html
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