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Wake Up and Read the Labels
Here at Wake Up and Read The Labels, when the holidays come around we see advertisements for many types of seasonal foods. Most healthy people know that fast food milkshakes are not healthy.
However, we believe that you can make healthy swaps for just about any food. We believe that if you eat food with real ingredients then you will feel good.
This post is going to focus on a top selling holiday drink, the Chik-Fil-A Peppermint Milkshake.
Chick-fil-A has a wonderful description of the milkshake on their website:
Hand-spun the old-fashioned way, this festive peppermint flavored milkshake is made with Chick-fil-A Icedream® dessert and features chips of peppermint bark, topped off with whipped cream and a cherry. Link above.
This sounds like an amazing treat. Spoiler alert, there are cleaner ways to make this type of dessert. However, we are going to see what ingredients Chick-fil-A uses in this drink. Image Credit: Chick-fil-A
It is actually very hard to find the ingredients to any of Chick-fil-A ice cream products on their website. When you click the ingredients tab you are told that you need to enter a location before it will give you the ingredients. This is odd. Once entered then the ingredients are pretty incredible:
Whole milk, sugar, nonfat dry milk, artificial flavor, corn starch, mono- and diglycerides, disodium phosphate, cellulose gum, carrageenan, sodium phosphate, guar gum, sodium citrate, beta carotene (color), whole milk, sugar, cream, whey powder, nonfat dry milk, artificial flavor, disodium phosphate, mono and diglycerides, tetrasodium pyrophosphate, guar gum, cellulose gum, carrageenan, corn syrup, water, glycerin, vegetable juice (for color), citric acid, natural peppermint flavor, sodium benzoate as a preservative, cream, skim milk, sugar, sorbitol, mono and diglycerides, carrageenan (thickening and stabilizing properties), natural flavor, and nitrous oxide as a whipping propellant, peppermint twist (sugar, corn syrup, natural peppermint oil, red #40), confectionery coating (sugar, hydrogenated palm kernel oil, cocoa [may be processed with alkali], whey powder [milk], soy lecithin [an emulsifier], and vanilla), powdered sugar (sugar, corn starch), corn starch, silicon dioxide, cherries, high fructose corn syrup, water, potassium sorbate (a preservative), sodium benzoate (a preservative), citric acid, artificial flavor, FD and C red #40, sulfur dioxide (a preservative). Link to list but remember you have to put in a location to see the actual ingredients.
Again, we all know that Chick-fil-A and other fast food is not good for you but the amount of ingredients in this holiday “food” is amazing.
A simple google search on any of the ingredients that you cannot pronounce or understand, will show you that these emulsifiers, preservatives, and artificial flavors and colors can be harmful to humans and are not clean.
The goal is to eat real food that is as close to how nature intended the food as possible.
The ingredients in this drink product are numerous. There are a number that could have their own blog post! There simply is not enough space in this post for us to dive into them all.
We choose to focus on sodium benzoate as a preservative. Sodium benzonate is an additive that is allowed in our food in small quantities. To be exact the FDA says we can have up to 5 mg/kg of body weight per day.
Some studies show positive effects from Sodium benzonate and other research shows that sodium benzoate generates oxidative stress and has an adverse effect on the immune system, liver, kidneys, and fertility.
Oxidative stress is another way to say it generates inflammation in the body. As we all know, inflammation can be bad if it is chronic. Our modern lifestyles lead to chronic inflammation.
Here at Wake Up And Read The Labels, we avoid potentially harmful ingredients. Although the Chick-fil-A Peppermint Chip Milkshake may be a holiday favorite, there are clean ways to make this shake yourself.
Do not give in to marketing and choose to pick a healthier way to live. Make the holidays about feeling your best and having lots of energy to spend with your family. Invest in your health and make good, educated choices when it comes to food.
Food is the number one medicine that we put in our bodies each day. Make your choices the best they can be and you will feel the difference.
