Shamrock Shake: McDonald’s St Patrick’s Day treat calories are equivalent to one and a half hamburgers

McDonald’s celebrates St. Patrick’s Day each year with their famous minty-green Shamrock Shake, which contains a whopping 820 calories.

Shamrock Shake’s calories are equivalent to one and a half hamburgers at McDonald’s.

Included in those calories are a hefty 23 grams of fat and 115 grams of sugar.

Other menu options with the same nutritional value include 3.6 orders of small fries, a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit, 4.3 orders of hotcakes, and 8 soft baked chocolate chip cookies, The Huffington Post reports.

St. Patrick’s Day treat is made up of the company’s Shamrock Shake syrup, an ice cream base, whip cream, and a single cherry.Not only are the calories astonishingly high, but the frosty treat is also filled with a number of additives that have been shown to cause adverse health effects.

The artificial vanilla flavor includes lignin, a byproduct of wood pulp extraction. Lignin has been known to trigger migraine headaches.

Hidden in the whip cream is carrageenan, a thickening agent. Degraded forms of that chemical, non food-grade, are listed as a possible carcinogen in humans by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Food-grade versions have been linked to colon inflammation, a risk for colon cancer.

Then there’s the combination of Yellow 5 or Red 40 and Sodium Benzoate, which has been linked to hyperactivity in children.

So next time you pull up to the drive-thru, consider what you’re really getting.

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