McDonald’s McCafe line, featuring sweet coffee and fruity concoctions, has been really sucessful with a well-educated, higher income market of consumers. Since I’m all about natural fruit smoothies, I compared the nutrition in a homemade real fruit banana strawberry smoothie, same size, with the McDonald’s real fruit smoothie. It’s nice to see that the first ingredient in the McD’s is actual banana and strawberry puree. That’s a huge improvement on the health of a train wreck shakes they sell. But, sugar is still the third ingredient, and is a big part of the nutritional breakdown, as you will see.
First, compare a homemade smoothie without added sugar:
Real Banana and Strawberry Smoothie (12 oz.):
- 6 oz. bananas and strawberries
- 3 oz. plain low fat yogurt
- 3 oz. water
Blend together in your blender for several minutes. Here’s what the numbers are for nutrition, according to what I calculated from: http://www.nutritiondata.com:
- 156 calories
- 3 grams protein
- 6 grams fiber
- 18 grams sugar
Compare that to the nutrition information for the McDonald’s Strawberry Banana Smoothie (small 12oz.):
- 210 calories
- 2 grams protein
- 2 grams fiber
- 44 grams sugar
McDonald’s smoothies are a step in the right direction, and if they decide to leave out the white sugar, I’ll try one. I know it’s more expensive to sell a drink with real fruit and no cheap white sugar added, so I’ll pay a buck extra. I promise.
44 grams of sugar reflects how you might feel when you McDrink it: all of 44 years. A no sugar added version will make you feel 18!
Unrefined 
Since I’m 52, I’ll take feeling like I’m 44;)
Seriously, thanks for bringing the big difference in sugar content to my attention.
Since we’re on the topic of McDonald’s Strawberry Banana Smoothie: 44 or 18 grams? Unrefined, The only thing you need to make tremendous green smoothies is really a blender and access to fresh fruits and green vegetables. You can use a typical low cost blender that you already own or purchase at any store. However, if you develop the wholesome habit of producing your green smoothies daily, you will ultimately burn out the blender.
Nice post, I just wrote about these on my blog as well, noting the small one filled me up but does have a day’s worth of sugar in it and that a large one was a sugar no-no:
http://guysandgoodhealth.wordpress.com/