Starbucks Expands Reduction of Artificial Trans Fats

Earlier this year, Starbucks announced their intention to eliminate artificial trans fats from the food products from a selection of their stores. On Monday, they announced that they are expanding this to cover all continental United States stores, as well as stores in Alaska and Canada. Their announcement comes on the heels of similar announcements made by Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken, both of which promised to elimate trans fats, and Wendy's, which has reduced the level of trans fats in their foods.

Boeing's Recycling is Profitable

Boeing made over $60 million last year from its recycling program. This article also highlights a few other companies in the Seattle area that have environmentally-friendly initiatives or products. The other companies mentioned are Costco, Starbucks, Microsoft, and Nordstrom. Apparently, Microsoft is claiming that the "sleep" feature in its new Vista operating system is a big energy saver. Also, a data center being constructed by Microsoft is using green building techniques and hydropower.

Starbucks Grant to Spur Neighborhood Transformation

Starbucks has made a $550,000 donation to help revitalize a park in King County, Washington. The hope of area residents is that the neighborhood will be revitalized also, as a result of the improved park. What the grant money will be used for is not exactly known at this point. One idea is that it will be used for materials and equipment to be used for the park's facelift, and the actual labor needed to work on the park will come from both volunteers from Starbucks and the local community.

Starbucks to Switch to Healthier Milk

I was attracted to this article due to the seemingly negative headline it had. "Starbucks milk not doing a body good" is how CNNMoney.com chose to headline the story about how the coffee chain is aiming to replace all milk made with an artificial bovine growth hormone. The growth hormone, rBGH, is used to increase dairy production in cows. rBGH increases the hormone IGF-1 in both cows and the humans that consume products from cows who are given rBGH. "Elevated levels of IGF-1 is associated with increased cancer rates."

Interesting to note that the article states that Starbucks does not plan expanding this move to their stores in other countries. Why? rBGH is not allowed to be used in most other nations. It's primarily here that we'd rather shoot up cows to increase their milk production (and, thus, increase sales) at the expense of our own health. Pretty uncivilized, I'd say.

Great move by Starbucks on the heels of their recent pledge to rid trans fats from the food of half of their stores.