One Major Starbucks Mug Recall Left Customers With Injuries
The metallic mugs came in gift sets that included Starbucks holiday coffee or hot cocoa and either an 11- or 16-ounce mug. The sets were sold at Walmart, Target, and Nexcom, both in-store and online. Twelve incidents of the mugs breaking from overheating were reported, with ten of them causing injuries, one of which required medical attention. Of the injuries, nine mug users received severe burns or blisters on their hands from the extreme temperatures, and one individual was cut. Consumers pour and reheat hot liquids in mugs all the time, but metallic Starbucks cups are another one of the things you should never put in a microwave.
Read more: 12 Kirkland Signature Foods Costco Customers Buy On Repeat
Starbucks mugs are famously collectible — and these cups sell like hotcakes on resale sites — but it seems the Starbucks metallic ceramic mugs of 2023 were never meant to be. The metallic coating that made them such an adorable gift is also what made them so dangerous when heated up. Thermal behavior varies depending on the material, but a study published by Science Direct delivers evidence that metallic coating specifically causes higher temperatures and prolonged heat retention in mugs, particularly on the handle. These hotter temperatures and longer cooling times pose an increased risk for burns to the user.
The higher burn risk isn't the only downside to metallic coating on drinkware, either. Metallic-coated drinkware can cause deeper burn wounds, leading to more severe injuries and extended healing times. The higher temperatures of the mug can also create the perfect scenario for thermal shock. Thermal shock happens when the materials used in cookware expand and contract differently due to sudden, extreme temperature changes. This phenomenon can cause drinkware to instantly crack or shatter. Since metallic coating causes higher temperatures and prolonged heat retention, the risk of thermal shock is higher.
For more food and drink goodness, join The Takeout's newsletter. Get taste tests, food & drink news, deals from your favorite chains, recipes, cooking tips, and more!
Read the original article on The Takeout.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
NEVER Do These 10 Things In A Drive-Thru, According To Fast Food Workers
Fast food drive-thrus are designed for convenience, but there are some unspoken etiquette rules to follow. We dug through Reddit threads and compiled a list from fast food employees about their biggest drive-thru pet peeves. Offenses include placing a large order, being indecisive, smoking, and playing loud music. The drive-thru window has been a game-changer for the fast food industry. Nearly every chain has one, so you can grab a Crunchwrap Supreme or McDonald's Coke without even parking your car. But we've all sat in a line that's felt less than convenient–and it's likely the result of some drive-thru faux pas. To keep things moving, fast food workers say there are a few etiquette rules every customer should know. We scoured Reddit—from subs for all fast food employees to ones dedicated specifically to McDonald's and Starbucks—and compiled a pretty extensive list. Here's what workers hate the most (and wish you'd stop doing): 1. Smoking Or Vaping Just don't. Not everyone wants smoke blown in their face—or the smell that lingers. "The smoking thing makes me so angry," one Reddit user wrote. "I'm already breathing tons of carcinogens from car exhaust, don't smoke there and add to it!" 2. Being Indecisive When Ordering We know it's tough to decide, but please, hurry up. (Here's Delish-approved inspo from the McDonald's Dollar Menu and Wendy's breakfast menu.) "Find out what your passengers want before you're at the speaker," one Reddit user commented. "If you're not familiar with the menu, go inside and order carry out." 3. Placing Orders From The Passenger Seat Drive-thru speakers are already hard to hear through, and loud passengers make it even more difficult for employees to get your order right. Be prepared! "I get you want to order for yourself, but unless you're screaming, we CANNOT hear you. It won't kill your dad or boyfriend to say your order," a Reddit user wrote. 4. Placing A Massive Order If you're placing a large order, head inside instead of holding up the line. "Customers who order +$20 worth of anything in the drive-thru are a big one for me," a Reddit user posted on the thread. "If your order is going to cost that much, please park." 5. Getting Distracted By Your Phone Scrolling through Instagram will only get you distracted and slow down the line. Be aware when it's your turn to move forward, rather than stalling everyone else. "SITTING ON YOUR PHONE IN THE DRIVE THRU WITHOUT PAYING ATTENTION!!!," one frustrated Reddit user posted. 6. Ordering More Food At The Second Window The pick-up window is for paying and grabbing your food—and that's it. "Please try not to order anything at the second window/window where you get your food," a Reddit user begged. "Especially during our busy hours or if you are adding on more than one simple item." 7. Not Having Your Payment Ready Rummaging through your wallet or paying in loose change slows everything down. Get your payment ready while waiting in line, and not at the window. "Don't pay anything like $5 or more in all change," one Reddit user wrote. "Especially in anything not quarters." 8. Having Loud Engines Or Playing Loud Music It's already difficult to hear through a headset. Don't make it worse with obnoxiously loud engines or music. "Turn off your engine if you have a loud exhaust," a Reddit user suggested. 9. Handing Them Your Garbage It's gross and unsanitary. And if you couldn't guess, drive-thru workers hate it. There's even an entire Reddit thread about it. 10. Checking Your Entire Order At The Window It's okay to double-check that your order is correct, but pull forward to keep things moving instead of blocking the line. "Have some courtesy for the people behind you," this Reddit user wrote, "and go find a parking space to check on your food in." You Might Also Like Insanely Easy Weeknight Dinners To Try This Week 29 Insanely Delicious Vodka Cocktails Solve the daily Crossword
San Francisco Chronicle
6 days ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Milkshakes, malts, concretes, frappes and more: A (delicious) guide to frozen drinks
In the summer heat, we find ourselves drawn to that glorious section of the drinks menu that promises relief in the form of a cold, creamy, brain-freezing indulgence. But ordering a frozen drink looks different in different parts of the U.S., and in different restaurants and ice cream shops. Geography, tradition and local lingo all play a role in how frozen drinks are made and what they're called. Let's break it down one strawful (or spoonful) at a time. Milkshakes Perhaps the most iconic of the bunch, the milkshake is typically a blend of ice cream and milk, blended until smooth and sippable. It's simple and sweet. The ice cream usually forms the base flavor of the drink, and then other flavorings are involved, from syrups to extracts to fresh fruit. At the Lexington Candy Shop, a 100-year-old luncheonette with an old-fashioned soda fountain on Manhattan's Upper East Side, vanilla is the most popular milkshake — about 60% of all shakes ordered. That's according to John Philis, who co-owns the shop with Bob Karcher, and whose grandfather, Soterios Philis, opened it in 1925. Their next most popular flavors are chocolate, coffee and strawberry, Philis said. Lexington Candy uses homemade syrups, he says, which give the shakes 'a nice wow.' Other fan favorites at the shop include the classic black and white (vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrups) and the Broadway (chocolate syrup with coffee ice cream). In the summer, there are peach shakes. Malts A malt is essentially a milkshake with a scoop of malted milk powder thrown in. Malted milk powder is an old-fashioned flavoring that combines malted barley, wheat flour (caution to the gluten-free crowd) and evaporated milk. It gives the drink that distinct toasted, almost nutty flavor that transports you mentally to a 1950s diner or drive-in. Fun fact: Malted milk powder was originally created as a nutrition booster, mostly for babies, but it found its home behind the counter of ice cream shops and luncheonettes. It adds slightly richer, old-school vibes to shakes and other frozen drinks. There are also plenty of frozen blended drinks made with frozen yogurt instead of ice cream; these are sometimes known as fro-yo shakes. Frappes 'Frappe' might mean different things to different people, depending on where they're from. In New England, particularly Massachusetts, a frappe is what most of us would call a milkshake, made with milk, ice cream and usually some other flavorings. In Massachusetts, you will hear this drink called 'frap' (rhymes with 'nap'), but believe me when I say there is no consensus on the correct pronunciation of the word. Sometimes a frappe from this region might simply be flavored cold milk, no ice cream involved. There is also a genre of frappes associated with coffee-blended drinks, popularized by chains like Starbucks. Think icy, blended lattes, often topped with whipped cream. These are pronounced 'frap-pays.' Frosteds Philis says that in New York City and other regions, a shake used to be known as a 'frosted.' 'When someone comes in and orders a 'frosted,' I like this person,' Philis declares. When McDonald's and other fast-food chains started calling shakes 'shakes,' the world followed suit, and the word 'frosted' went out of fashion. A frosted float, Philis explains, is a milkshake with an extra scoop of ice cream floating on top. Talk about gilding the lily! Concretes Then we have the concrete, an ultra-thick, creamy frozen dessert so dense that a spoon can stand upright in it. This is essentially frozen custard blended with mix-ins like candy, cookies or fruit, but no milk is added. It's more of a scoopable treat than a slurpable one. Concretes are popular where frozen custard is popular — mostly in the Midwest. Frozen custard has significantly less air in it than most ice cream, and a required 1.4% of egg yolks, which gives it its signature richness. The concrete was invented at a frozen custard shop called Ted Drewes in St. Louis. If you buy one there, the server will hand it to you upside down, saying, 'Here's your concrete,' and it won't fall out. Travis Dillon (whose wife, Christy, is founder Ted Drewes' granddaughter) gave this origin story: In the 1950s, a kid named Steve Gamir used to come in and ask the guy behind the counter for 'the thickest shake you can make.' Employees started leaving the milk out of Gamir's shakes, just running the custard through the machine, resulting in a shake that requires a spoon, not a straw. Dillon says chocolate is their most popular flavor, then chocolate chip, strawberry and Heath Bar, but adds that there are lots of other flavors to explore, including a malted chocolate concrete — the best of two frozen-drink worlds! Floats Ice cream floats are the fizzy cousins of shakes. A scoop of ice cream (usually vanilla) is plopped into a glass of soda (usually root beer or cola, occasionally orange soda or a lemon-lime like Sprite) to create a frothy, sweet, bubbly concoction. Floats can be nostalgic for some folks. Lexington Candy remains old-fashioned with their floats, making the sodas to order with syrup, stirring by hand, then adding the ice cream. In some areas of the country, you might hear a root-beer float referred to as a 'brown cow.' Ice cream sodas Like floats, ice cream sodas are not made in a blender. Philis says his are made with the syrup of your choice, coffee, half-and-half, plus seltzer. Then add a scoop of ice cream. He says usually the syrup and the ice cream are the same flavor, but people also like to mix and match. Smoothies Finally a word about smoothies, the supposedly more health-conscious frozen treat. Smoothies are traditionally made with fruit, yogurt, juice and sometimes ice. Sometimes, the fruit is frozen before it is blended into the drink. Smoothies are designed to feel virtuous, but they can still pack plenty of sugar, calories and richness, depending on the ingredients. For instance, if you see a peanut butter-chocolate-banana smoothie, you may realize quickly that this is more about flavor than health. So the only question is: Is there enough time left in the summer to try the whole lexicon of frozen creamy drinks? Believe in yourself. I believe in you. ___ Katie Workman writes regularly about food for The Associated Press. She has written two cookbooks focused on family-friendly cooking, 'Dinner Solved!' and 'The Mom 100 Cookbook.' She blogs at
Axios
08-08-2025
- Axios
Think your plastic is recyclable? Think again
A West Des Moines family is displaying a year's worth of plastic waste that wasn't allowed to go into their recycling. Why it matters: Even if your plastic has the recycling symbol on it, it often still ends up in the trash. State of play: West Des Moines resident Natasha Kennedy used to recycle everything. At work, she would save her plastic Starbucks cups to recycle at home, going so far as to even take her co-workers' cups. That is, until a colleague told her she actually can't recycle the cups, despite them displaying the signature recycling symbol. "I'm like, 'This is ridiculous,'" Kennedy tells Axios. "I didn't believe her, so I went online and no, you can't recycle it — and there's a lot of other things you can't recycle." Driving the news: That prompted Kennedy to save her family's impermissible recyclables for a year, string them together and display them on her lawn and public right of way, including berry boxes, produce packaging and, of course, Starbucks cups. How it works: Recycling is a commodity, and if the processed materials can't be sold, they go to a landfill, says Joe Horaney, deputy director of Solid Waste Agency in Cedar Rapids and Linn County. Recyclable plastics are labeled with a number denoting their plastic type. In Cedar Rapids, recyclable plastics labeled 1-5 and 7 are allowed, but ultimately, only 1-2 are recycled because there is no market demand for the others, Horaney says. Solid Waste Agency works with third-party Republic Services to process their recycling. Once all the plastics are sorted through, items labeled 3-7 end up in a landfill that's not in Linn County. They plan on banning more plastics in the future. "I tell folks, it's kind of a waste at that point because it costs more to recycle," he says. "At my home, I only recycle ones and twos." What they're saying: Metro Waste Authority (MWA), based in Des Moines, tells residents to only recycle plastic containers with a twist-off lid, like laundry detergent, milk jugs and shampoo bottles. Berry and Cool Whip containers are not accepted because their packaging is thinner, making them more difficult to melt down and be repurposed, says Emily Grier, spokesperson for MWA. MWA opened its own recycling facility in Grimes in 2021 instead of relying on a third party, which has helped it take control and find more partners to purchase its recycling. Still, people are using too much plastic to make all of it sellable on the market, Grier says. Flashback: For 30 years, China purchased nearly half of the United States' exported recycling materials, according to NPR. But that ended in 2017, after Chinese officials banned " foreign waste," resulting in a national recycling stockpile that the country is still enduring today. Zoom in: Kennedy received notice from the city yesterday noting she can keep her signs in the right of way, but must remove the plastics from there. Her family said they are willing to move them back into the front lawn. The big picture: Plastic makers — including oil and gas companies — have spent millions marketing to Americans that their items could be recycled, but investigations have shown they knew there wasn't a market for it.
