McDonald’s new Shamrock Shake has the sugar equivalent of 22 Oreos
Oh, Shamrock Shakes. Emerging from the dark place where all seasonal items hibernate when not on menus, the emerald green beverages from McDonald's grace us with their minty presence every year come springtime.
They're cloyingly sweet. They kind of taste like toothpaste, in a good way. They look like they contain highly artificial green food dye. They'll give you brain freeze so painful, your mind will stop ruminating about Donald Trump's latest tweets. They can be summed up in two words: intoxicatingly delicious.
This year, McDonald's wanted to shake things up, so to speak. In February, the fast food behemoth announced they would offer four new seasonal Shamrock iterations: a Chocolate Shamrock Shake, a Shamrock Chocolate Chip Frappe, a Shamrock Mocha and a Shamrock Hot Chocolate. Customers will also have the chance to order a Shamrock Shake and Chocolate Shamrock Shake hybrid.
What is it that makes these sweet green delights so scrumptious? Ignorance is bliss, dear friends. But knowledge is power. The time has come for us to drop some not-so-sweet truth bombs on you.
The Shamrock Chocolate Chip Frappe is loaded with sugar
The McDonald's website describes the Shamrock Chocolate Chip Frappe as "an irresistible blend of coffee and chocolate chips, topped with green sprinkles, whipped topping and a tantalizing drizzle of Chocolaty Syrup."
We have an idea of what makes it so irresistible: 101 grams of sugar, that's what.
If you slurp down the entire drink, you'll be ingesting as much as four times the daily recommended amount of sugar. One hundred and one grams of sugar is also the same amount of sugar that's in:
Five Snickers bars
Close to an entire pint of Half-Baked Ben & Jerry's ice cream
22 Oreo cookies (There are 36 cookies in a standard pack.)
Here are the full nutrition facts for a medium Shamrock Chocolate Chip Frappe:
Are your teeth starting to rot in your mouth at the thought of eating more than half a pack of Oreos in one go? Or will you run, not walk, to your nearest McDonald's for a sip of this sweet, sweet seasonal refreshment?
If it's any consolation, the normal Shamrock Shake has 21 fewer grams of sugar than the Shamrock Chocolate Chip Frappe. But that's still 80 grams of sugar — which is about the same amount in four Snickers bars.) A McDonald's spokesperson provided the nutrition facts below in an email to Mic.
The original Shamrock Shake has 80 grams of sugar.
Happy Shamrock Shake season, friends. Slurp wisely.
