Shannon here. I’m finally back this week bringing you the show notes for our newest, and certainly one of our more trendy episodes. This week we jumped on the trend of unicorn foods. But before we get into the multi-colored fun, we tackle a quick recap of the week’s training.
I proudly hit my modified training goals – 4 training days a week including 3 days on the Peloton cycle and a HIIT workout that focuses on legs, butt and back. Sometimes it’s the little victories that make your week.
I’ve also started sharing some of my yoga learnings and leading Nick through yoga training, starting with basic vinyasa flows focusing on proper alignment. We even quickly chatted about areas of yoga that I’m most interested in.
Nick had his first appointment with his new functional medicine doctor. No worries, there were no particular issues that inspired it, but rather a general search for knowledge about what was going on in his body.
Functional medicine is focused treating underlying causes of symptoms, not just the symptoms themselves. Nick’s doctor was very thorough in their initial appointment, even commenting on his low heart rate and making some… interesting samples requests. Chances are we’ll be talking about the results on an upcoming episode!
Now, onto the trendy talk – unicorn foods. The mystical food trend around rainbow colored foods that started on Instagram and has spread to brands across the world. Most recently, Starbucks jumped on the swirly color food item and they debuted a rather controversial product – the Unicorn Frappuccino.
Pictures of the concoction – pink and blue swirls of sugary blended ice complete with sprinkle topped whipped cream – appeared all over with a note that it would only be available for a limited time, so of course I had to pick one up for coworkers and I to sample.
Nick was not so inclined to try it and took a very adverse position to the whole thing, somewhat outraged that a ridiculous cup of sugary iced syrup could get so much attention. Nick even quoted a line from his man crush, Anthony Bourdain about his hate for Starbucks’ Unicorn Frappuccino.
Granted he was fairly unaware of the whole unicorn food trend anyways. It wasn’t until I reminded him of the viral sensation that was the Squatty Potty video in which an animated unicorn pooped out rainbow soft serve.
So where’s the health/fitness hook, right? Well, we dive into the nutrition facts of this particular item and it rocks some particularly lengthy amounts of flavorings and sugar. And amidst the laundry list of ingredients, Nick was most scandalized that there was NO COFFEE IN IT at all. There was a scary combination of fat (16g) and sugar (58g) in a grande (medium) though.
The most shocking part? The Unicorn Frappuccino is not the worst offender on their menu. Most of the frappuccinos are just as bad on the nutrition side. This led us to talking about how Starbucks, which has quickly jumped in to compete with fast-food restaurants, doesn’t always boast the best food options. It’s really just the straight coffee that isn’t too terrible.
In the end, the responsibility of keeping a healthy balance comes down to us (the customers) making the right decisions. So be sure you take a peak at what’s in your food and try to keep a good balance if you partake in even the trendy foods.
Finally, we recapped some of the listener responses from our previous episode – when do you listen to the podcast – and the most common response seems to be while commuting. So thank you to EVERYONE who is listening, whenever and wherever.
This week, let us know if you’re a trendy food or just unicorn food lover!
As always please send any and all feedback to elementaltampa@gmail.com or drop us a line on social media. Have a healthy and balanced week!
Links to this week’s episodes:
Android: http://subscribeonandroid.com/addictedtofitness.libsyn.com/rss
Website: http://addictedtofitness.libsyn.com/unicorn-food-starbucks-arent-the-only-offenders
Elemental Training Tampa 