In response to the recent controversy surrounding their use of beetle-based food dye, Starbucks head honcho Cliff Burrows blogs:

After a thorough, yet fastidious, evaluation, I am pleased to report that we are reformulating the affected products to assure the highest quality possible. Our expectation is to be fully transitioned to lycopene, a natural, tomato-based extract, in the strawberry sauce (base) used in our Strawberries & Crème Frappuccino® blended beverage and Strawberry Banana Smoothie. Likewise, we are transitioning away from the use of cochineal extract in our food offerings which currently contain it (Raspberry Swirl Cake, Birthday Cake Pop, Mini Donut with pink icing, and Red Velvet Whoopie Pie).

Mr. Burrows’ blog post is a huge step forward for transparency in Starbucks’ varied and disgusting use of controversial animal products*, which include bat guano coagulate as a Frappuccino thickener, donkey foreskin as a flavoring agent in their matcha base, and their newly-launched Abattoir Crunch™ line of breakfast granola. We eagerly await the next vegan blog compost-storm surrounding these and other, equally vile products.

*For more information on why we can’t be sued for saying these horrible things about Starbucks, all of which are obviously meant as parody, please consult here.

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Starbucks is getting loads of unwanted attention from the MSM, due to the addition of cochineal beetles in the (very long) ingredients list for their processed strawberry frappuccino goo. Vegetarians are bleeding from their eyes, vegans are screeching and screeching, Muslims and kosher Jews finally have a common enemy, and cats and dogs are getting married. Meanwhile, Hustlin’ Howie Schultz remains silent.

Time reports:

Starbucks had previously stated these drinks, which can be made using soy milk, could be made vegan, running a campaign touting the “However-You-Want-it Frappuccino.” But the Seattle-based coffee giant recently reworked its ingredient list for the Frappuccino mix and opted for the extract in an effort to move away from “artificial dyes,” according to a statement from Starbucks posted by the vegetarian website.

The statement reads that the company’s goal is to minimize artificial ingredients in products. While ingredients can be mixed to create a vegan drink, Starbucks can not guarantee pure a pure vegan drink because of the possibility of cross-contamination within stores.

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S. Amanda Caudill is a doctoral student and part-time NYT science blogger, currently working in Costa Rica assessing mammal diversity on coffee farms. She and her colleagues found a fascinating link between coffee farms near forest patches and the reduction of awful cherry borer beetles, a detestable sub-phylum whose only goal is to get its grubby little beetle teeth all over delicious coffee cherries. The borer beetle is plaguing coffee crops worldwide and Ms. Caudill (and her peers) may have found an environmentally sound way to cull those awful bugs:

If there are forest patches next to coffee farms, the forests may act as a barrier and reduce coffee berry borer outbreaks without the use of toxic chemicals or large amounts of labor. So part of my research — in addition to investigating mammal biodiversity — is to understand if these forest patches next to coffee farms could increase habitat value and provide corridors for mammals.

This “coffee-forest matrix,” as it’s called, could be a win-win situation, creating a barrier for the coffee pests while protecting forests and wildlife habitat. I am interested to find out if this theory holds true. We will have to wait and see what shakes out after all the data is collected and analyzed.

Read the rest of the blog here and check out her earlier work at the Scientist at Work section at the NYT.

Image from MauiFeed.com. Secondary image via Thumbelina:

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