The Starbucks Trenta question: How much coffee is good?

Starbucks is introducing a new measure.Is it a bad idea to drink that much iced coffee in a sitting?

The arrival of a giant new cup in the US coffee shops of Starbucks might leave some people scratching their heads.

Their previous largest measure was the 20 US fluid ounces of the Venti cup.

If you took a Starbucks Venti whole milk caffe latte and made it a Trenta, you would end up with a drink that was 547 calories, including 23.2g of fat and 13 grams of saturated fat.

If you scale up an iced hazelnut mocha made with semi-skimmed milk and whipped cream from Starbucks' UK offering, you end up with an alarming-sounding proposition.This would add up to 929.2 calories, 24.3% of saturated fat, and 122g of sugar as a Trenta.

Starbucks says it is only using the new measure for a limited range of drinks, which include two types of iced tea and plain iced coffee.There will be ice in the drinks.

Starbucks advertises 4.5g of total fat for Trenta iced coffee, which is 2.5g saturated.The number of calories is 230.The firm's espresso measures have a caffeine content of 2.6 and the sugar is 42g.

Emma Williams, a nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation, suggests a daily intake of 90g of sugar for women and 120g for men.The Starbucks Trenta iced tea lemonade has 59g of sugar.

If you drink two Trenta iced coffee cups a day, you're not going to get too much caffeine.

"If someone only drinks one or two cups of coffee throughout the day, they should be fine," says Dr Sarah Schenker, a registered dietician.

Coffee is the best way to increase our calcium intake because we don't get enough as adults.

She admits that the new Starbucks Trenta would be hard to drink.A person who drinks coffee regularly would not be affected by the 195mg of caffeine in the drink.

The safest amount of caffeine to take through the day is 400mg.The average mug of coffee is 80-90 grams.

She admits that coffee has its positives, but pregnant women should not consume more than 200mg of caffeine a day.

For most people, the problems with a 916ml iced coffee will be purely logistical - where do you put it and how quickly can you drink it?