Starbucks Classic Porridge

Starbucks Classic Porridge costs £4.25 and carries 233 calories with 10g of protein and 0.17g of salt. It is oatmeal made with semi skimmed milk and single cream, finished with a topping of your choice.

It is the lightest hot breakfast Starbucks sells and by a distance the lowest in salt. The Smoked Bacon Roll carries 2.3g against this one's 0.17g, a difference of more than thirteen times, and the calorie gap is nearly 170. For anyone eating breakfast in a Starbucks more than occasionally, that is the single biggest lever on the menu.

The single cream is what separates it from porridge made at home and it accounts for most of the 6.3g of fat. Made with milk alone the same bowl would be noticeably thinner and around 60 calories lighter, which is the trade Starbucks has made deliberately: this is a richer, smoother porridge than the standard, and the texture is the reason people order it.

The gluten free label sitting next to an oat allergen warning confuses people, and both are correct. Oats contain no gluten of their own but are almost always milled alongside wheat, so only oats handled in a dedicated facility can carry the label. The allergen line is there because oat itself is a declarable allergen, separate from gluten entirely.

Oats do something to a breakfast that eggs and bacon do not, which is release their energy slowly. Beta glucan, the soluble fibre in oats, forms a gel in the stomach and slows everything behind it down. That is why a bowl of porridge holds longer than its 233 calories suggest and why a pastry of twice the size leaves you hungry sooner.

Toppings are added at the counter and none of them are in the figures above, so a bowl with the dried fruit and the syrup lands well above 233. It carries milk, so it is vegetarian rather than vegan. Prices reach £4.95 on delivery. The overnight oats are the cold equivalent at 254 calories.