Just be honest with me...

My father enjoys emailing me and my foodie/nutritionist stepsister various links to articles, videos, and other Internet goodies with a foodie twist.  He especially likes to shock us with radical or preposterous food-related news.  So when he sent me this link to an article from England about "America's unhealthiest drink," I took notice.

The first time I went to Coldstone Creamery, I was visiting family on the West Coast - namely, the Yakima Valley region of Washington state.  I had never heard of Coldstone, and when my aunt told me that they mixed toppings into the ice cream on a gigantic marble slab, I knew I had to have a look.  Indeed, you enter the freezing wonderland and your nostrils are sent an onslaught of sensations in the form of a blast of sugary, syrupy cold air.  A seemingly endless number of combinations of ice cream flavors and toppings await you.  It's a bit overwhelming, but luckily, they have huge signs suggesting preconceived concoctions such as Birthday Cake Remix, Chocolate Devotion, and Oreo Overload.  I opted to create my own delicious combination, and I remember it to this day: cake batter ice cream with an entire Twix bar and brownies and cookie dough.  Just thinking of it now causes my teeth to feel as if they are uncomfortably coated in sugar.  Back then, though, I was in pre-diabetic heaven.

Photo by ChoiFreako

Nowadays, I try to be a little more careful about what I eat.  Believe me, there are a days where I indulge as much as I did back then (but then it was on a very regular basis), but because I mostly take a healthier route, my tolerance level for such rich treats is dramatically lower.  In short, if I ate that today, I would be sick for the rest of the day and wake up tomorrow with a sugar hangover the size of, well, one of Coldstone's waffle bowls.

Back to that British article.  In it, the reporter describes the "PB&C", a milkshake that, according to the Coldstone website, contains chocolate ice cream, milk, and peanut butter.  Sounds innocent enough, right?  Only three simple ingredients.  What they don't immediately tell is that, like most restaurants, they use some of the richest, most fat-laden forms of those three ingredients.  According to the article, the ice cream is what's known as "super premium", which means it contains "more than 12% butter-fat content" (most brands of super premium ice cream are between 13% and 17% butterfat).  This, and the fact that they use what I am willing to bet is full-fat milk and full-fat peanut butter, helps it earn its "unofficial" nickname: "a heart attack in a glass".

Photo by aratake

I'm not bashing Coldstone here - not at all.  Believe me, I love their ice cream.  And I think that it's pretty darn obvious that when you order a milkshake, you can expect to be imbibing quite a few calories.  What I have a problem with is that when you buy even a small size of this beverage, it weighs in at 1280 calories and 82g of fat, 45g of which are saturated (that's 225% of your daily serving of saturated fat, if you're curious).  A similarly-sized, homemade version (using two scoops of chocolate ice cream, one cup of milk, and two tablespoons creamy peanut butter) would give you roughly 876 calories and 56g of fat, 28g of it saturated. Still not exactly a balanced meal, but it's a little easier to swallow (so to speak).

I recently had a rather heated discussion with my father-in-law about the new laws coming out that require restaurants to display the nutritional information about the food they serve (calorie content, fat content, etc.).  His argument was that he didn't want the government telling him what he can and cannot eat - he's a free citizen of this country, and he'll decide what to put into his body, thank-you-very-much.  I completely agree with this statement.  I don't think that prohibiting foods is the answer.  But that's not what displaying nutritional information would mean.  It's not like they are going to post cops at the cash register to arrest you if you decide to order a 2,000-calorie "snack".  What it means is that a consumer will be made aware of exactly what they're getting when they place their order.  They will be informed that while their burger or salad or milkshake or coffee drink might come in a small package, it may contain an entire day's worth of calories, or protein, or sodium, or saturated fat.  And I am so on board with that.

Don't tell me what to eat, but do tell me what I'm eating.

Photo by Lemonshortcake