Starbucks Knows Ignorance is Bliss

I, for one, am not looking forward to seeing calorie counts plastered all over the place, per orders of the city Board of Health. I think Starbucks can probably second that. We've already been through it together, Starbucks and I, and we appear to have reached the same conclusion: I, the consumer, don't want to know that your bran muffin, which had seemed so grainy and healthy, in fact constitutes a third of my daily diet. Please, I exercise regularly and I'm not fat, so just shut up and let me enjoy my breakfast.

Maybe six months ago, Starbucks thought it would be a good idea to get a jump on this calorie-posting thing, so they started doing it of their own volition. Horribly large numbers appeared on the little white signs under all the pastries. Now, when I look up the [nutritional info] for the Astor Place Starbucks bran muffin online, a chart tells me the muffin contains 430 calories, but I could swear that back when I used to enjoy that buttery delight nearly every morning, that sign said 590. Once I'd seen that number, I was no longer able to enjoy that little brick of fat, so I stopped getting the muffin. Then I pretty much stopped going to Starbucks. And soon after that, those calorie postings disappeared, suggesting that I was not the only one who lost my appetite. And sure, the MUD truck muffins may be just as fatty, but if you're going to let people smoke cigarettes, it only seems fair that I be left in peace while I gobble my muffin in delicious ignorance.