Holiday beverages bring us cheer and help us create and remember fond memories. Many popular holiday beverages come from Starbucks— from the pumpkin spice latte to the Christmas cookie frappuccino, toasted white chocolate mocha, and so much more, there’s a Starbucks drink for every flavor of the holidays. Unfortunately, these popular drinks have lots of extra sugar, fat, flavored syrup, and empty calories we normally wouldn’t want to consume!
Overdone, these loved holiday beverages can contribute to inches around your waistline, and the dreaded holiday weight many gain during this special time of year. Specifically, the average holiday beverage can contain upwards of 350 calories and most are created using milk, sugar, all sorts of chemicals for flavor, and even alcohol. (Although I don’t encourage counting calories, I also don’t support consuming lots of empty calories).
You may be asking yourself— how can I enjoy the holiday season, stay healthy and not feel deprived of my favorites?
While you can make substitutions at Starbucks— like swapping dairy milk or heavy cream in your drinks for oat milk or almond milk— if you really want a healthier— and better— version of your favorite Starbucks holiday drink, you can actually make it at home!
So let’s take a look at 5 popular kinds of Starbucks holiday beverages, and make them better the Beauty Detox Way.
From the above-mentioned PSL (pumpkin spice latte), to others like the cinnamon dolce latte, almond milk latte, sugar cookie almond milk latte and the caramel brulée latte, there are a lot of popular holiday lattes at Starbucks. The average coffeehouse latte is made with vanilla syrup or flavors, steamed milk, coffee, tons of sugar and whipped cream. There are more than a few Beauty Detox no-no’s involved here!
You may be surprised by how easy it is to substitute any of these beverages for a healthy, tasty treat! Here are a few of my favorite latte recipes to help you get started.
While Starbucks is beginning to phase out its popular eggnog latte, it’s hard to talk about holiday drinks without mentioning eggnog. This traditional holiday favorite is a heavy, sweetened dairy-based beverage, where you um, drink eggs.
It may sound odd to the non-eggnog drinker— such as yours truly— as it was never part of my holiday traditions growing up. But I know that some of you grew up with it and love it.
To create this drink you traditionally use milk, cane sugar, and whipped eggs, garnishing with a cinnamon stick or nutmeg. Like regular lattes, there are a lot of ingredients in eggnog that you want to avoid, but don’t worry my eggnog-loving Beauties! You can enjoy it the Beauty Detox way too.
Here’s my recipe for creamy vegan eggnog, where you can enjoy this old holiday favorite without the eggs and dairy.
