How many calories in a Shamrock Shake?

How many calories in a Shamrock Shake?

The McDonald’s Shamrock Shake is the worst thing on the restaurant’s menu (excluding breakfast*). End scene.

No really, the large (22-ounce) Shamrock Shake has 968 calories and 134 grams of sugar, making it not only the most caloric item on the menu, but also the greatest in sugar.

To put this in perspective, you could eat two Big Macs and only consume 100 calories more than one large Shamrock Shake. You could eat two large fries and only consume 50 calories more than the one shake. You could drink three cans of Mountain Dew and only consume four more grams of sugar than the large shake.

There’s nothing lucky about this shake — it’s a diabetic episode just waiting to happen. The Shamrock Shake’s roots are anything but Irish — it’s chemical mint and ice cream not potatoes and corned beef — yet the tale of its origins is surprisingly pure.

The Shamrock Shake was born in 1970 at only a few stores. In 1974, Philadelphia Eagles tight end Fred Hill’s three-year-old daughter was treated for leukemia and he and his wife were camped out at the hospital. The couple then recognized they weren’t alone and other families were in more dire straights than themselves. With the support of a local McDonald’s advertising agency and his NFL team, they ran a week-long promotion around the Shamrock Shake — in Eagles green! — and raised enough money to open what became the first Ronald McDonald House.

That’s enough to make anyone want to celebrate the Shamrock Shake’s annual return, but its altruistic ways are a better tale for the history books than the junk reality it is today.

The Shamrock Shake has four main ingredients — vanilla reduced-fat ice cream, Shamrock Shake syrup, whipped cream and a maraschino cherry — made of 51items. Mint is not one of them. Again… the word “mint” doesn’t appear one single time amidst the seven instances of high fructose and regular corn syrup, three food dyes, artificial flavors (like vanilla), two uses of carrageenan, and other undesirables! And there are certainly not any shamrocks, although eating clover is actually a nutrition boon.

Think you can just go smaller and spare yourself? Think again! The ingredients remain the same while the nutrition report is still shocking. A small (12-ounce) has 530 calories and 73 grams of sugar and the medium (16-ounce) has 704 and 97 grams of sugar.

It’s atrocious. Seriously, even a 12-ounce can of Mountain Dew only has 46 grams of sugar. A classic 12-ounce Coke only has 39 grams of sugar.

McDonald’s remaining menu of ice cream treats isn’t much better, but certainly not worse. Sticking to the big ‘ole 22-ounce, a vanilla shake is 820 calories with 101 grams of sugar, strawberry is 850 calories with 123 grams of sugar, chocolate is 850 calories with 120 grams of sugar, and a 16-ounce Oreo McFlurry is 690 calories with 85 grams of sugar.

The one thing the Shamrock Shake has going for it, outside of some 60 million cups served, is a cornered market on processed chemical mint milkshakes. Few other brands have the same offering, and they are all still lower than the Shamrock Shake. Sixteen ounces of straight Braum’s mint chocolate chip ice cream is 720 calories and 68 grams of sugar, Baskin-Robbins mint chocolate chip is 593 calories and 68 grams of sugar, and Culver’s mint is 958 calories with 109 grams of sugar.

If you must get dessert at McDonald’s, a standard “vanilla” ice cream cone has 170 calories and 20 grams of sugar.

If you want to have a mint shake with significantly fewer calories and sugar, and made with real mint, take a few short minutes to prepare your own. These homemade versions from DietsInReview and My Darling Vegan ought to set you right.

TapGenes Take Away: With more sugar than three cans of Mountain Dew and as many calories as two Big Macs, the Shamrock Shake is the worst thing on McDonald’s menu.

Read More at TapGenes

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*Anything named Big Breakfast is more than 900 calories.