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 Linda Thomas
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Linda is the morning news anchor and features reporter for KIRO Radio. This is her local news blog, with an emphasis on social media, technology, Northwest companies, education, parenting, and anything else that grabs her attention.

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Seattle woman will eat food only from Starbucks for a year

January 8, 2013 @ 4:12 pm (Updated: 9:56 am - 1/9/13 )

Beautiful.jpg
A Seattle woman says she'll only consume food from Starbucks for all of 2013, though friends and family tell her it's going to "cost a lot of money" and she's "going to gain weight," (Photo courtesy Beautiful Existence)
"That's going to cost a lot of money."

"You're going to gain weight."

Those are the reactions a Seattle woman gets when she tells friends about her plan for the year.

Beautiful Existence, her legal name, is only going to eat food and drink beverages from Starbucks for all of 2013.

"I've been going in and getting their nutrition by the cup charts for all their serving sizes," she says. "I'm already getting a feel for what to eat - the plain nut pack as a snack because it only has 190 calories, compared to the piece of pumpkin bread."

Lucky for her, Starbucks bought a tea business and a juice company last year, so Beautiful will also purchase food from Evolution Fresh and Tazo Tea.

"I'm still trying to figure out how I can do sushi," she says. "I have two friends who are chefs and I want to see if I can get them to help me tear down some of the products at Evolution fresh and do something else."

Are you still trying to figure out why she's doing this?

Beautiful, who does not work for Starbucks and isn't getting paid by the company, designs year-long challenges for herself.

I met her after she spent a year shopping only at Goodwill.

This year's project is about more than eating turkey paninis and sipping green tea, she says.

She wants to document her experience to show how communities benefit from Starbucks.

"The company pays good benefits for part-time workers. That's where my money is going," she says.

In keeping track of her receipts, so far she's spent an average of $18.79 a day on food and drink from Starbucks.

"We're really lucky and I would say actually spoiled as Americans because we have all these different eating options," she adds.

"You go to all these other countries and they don't have these luxuries. Really? Is it really going to be that hard for one year of my life to limit my menu? We'll find out."

By LINDA THOMAS

More from Linda Thomas

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Comments (68)


  • Add A Comment

  • shark75 wrote...
    CH did you forget to take your lithium today?
    January 9, 2013 4:01 pm
    Yes I looked at her blog pic....nothin' to write home about. If you think she's cute I think that says a lot about your standards. I think you're the one that might be after some cold smelly flounder!!
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  • soo purletiv wrote...
    @ Chuck Gould
    January 9, 2013 4:47 pm
    Boobus Americanus?

    That is a term I have not heard for a few months. Reminded me of this:

    http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/9196/obamushmq0.png

    Whoever did this, did a great job. Kind of messes with the eyes for a bit...

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  • Ron_Spins wrote...
    Starbucks is a cakewalk
    January 9, 2013 10:17 pm
    Try living in Haiti for a year.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • ruenells wrote...
    Worst Coffee On the Planet
    January 10, 2013 7:09 am
    While i commend her on her goal. There are far better places to get quality food and especially coffee from. Good luck on the journey, just hope she doesn't get food poisoning like I have from fraps.
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  • anotherfencewalker wrote...
    and in conclusion..
    January 10, 2013 8:23 am
    Linda..you're fine. Let me help some of you out who may not understand how the commercial b'cast business works. My background is not recent but some things never change and never will: Number 1 and most of all, it's show biz first. As an employee you can walk into work one day and find that your seat at the mic has a "new kid" occupying a spot that you thought was yours. It's one of the most unfair and rude careers you can get in to. Radio (and TV too) has to draw an audience no matter what the format is. They have to sell air time to pay the bills. These stations cost mega bucks to run and that's before they run payroll!! If ARB ratings info confirms that the audience is shrinking, growing or is hour to hour up-and-down, changes are made and heads roll. Yes, KIRO air staff and likely others internally have been subjected to corner-office whiplash the last couple of years. The problem with some (many?) listeners is that they think that stations like KIRO can shift at the whim of audience opinion. It's not like clicking on a new website. KIRO enjoyed outstanding ratings and admiration from its peers until Enercom showed up and totally took it all apart and wrecked it. I knew it was heading downhill when I heard a rock guitar music bed behind Bill Yeends intros in the morning. Thanks KIRO for putting "Newsradio" back on the air. Now..could you get Don to stop yelling so dam much..?
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  • flipper wrote...
    Look at the banner below...KIRO is lying
    January 10, 2013 8:59 am
    Ron and Dawn along with the DingDong Vacuous one said the Bonneville had stated that "John Curley is still part of the family". Well, you see any reference at all to John Curley at the bottom of this webpage?
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  • Desslok wrote...
    365 pounds later. . . .
    January 13, 2013 2:14 pm
    She asks: "where are the WOMEN challenging themselves in the world?" Yeah lady, you're really challenging yourself by eating at a ubiquitous, overpriced Supersonics hating establishment for 365 days. She is a self absorbed, shallow, attention craving drama llama. Lets ignore her and hopefully Insufferable Existence will just go away. . .
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