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You’d think a strawberry milkshake was fairly innocuous when it comes to added ingredients. After all, it mainly consists of milk, a bit of ice cream and a few strawberries. A reasonably healthy, cheap and filling meal. The truth however, is a little more alarming.

Although the big fast food manufacturers should be applauded for publishing the ingredients that make up their foods, a view of these lists makes grissly reading. A medium Burger King milkshake contains a whopping 590 calories, and the following ingredients: milkfat and nonfat milk, sugar, sweet whey, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, natural and artificial vanilla flavour, guar gum, mono and diglycerides, cellulose gum, sodium phosphate, carrageenan and natural flavours from plant sources. Phew! And that’s just the milkshake.

The strawberry shake syrup contains: corn syrup, water, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, artificial flavour, sodium benzoate (preservative) and coloured with red #40. For a simple food like a milkshake, this list is nothing short of monumental. But if you take a closer look it contains the all too familiar ‘flavour’, both natural and artificial.

In his book Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser looks at the typical ingredients in a Burger King strawberry milkshake: amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, amyl valerate, anethol, anisyl formate, benzyl acetate, benzyl isobutyrate, butyric acid, cinnamyl isobutyrate, cinnamyl valerate, cognac essential oil, diacetyl, dipropyl ketone, ethyl acetate, ethyl amyl ketone, ethyl butyrate, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl heptanoate, ethyl heptylate, ethyl lactate, ethyl methylphenyl-glycidate, ethyl nitrate, ethyl propionate, ethyl valerate, heliotropin, hydroxyphenyl-2-butanone, a-ionone, isobutyl anthranilate, isobutyl butyrate, lemon essential oil, maltol, 4-methylacetophenone, methyl anthranilate, methyl benzoate, methyl cinnamate, methyl heptine carbonate, methyl naphthyl ketone, methyl salicylate, mint essential oil, neroli essential oil, nerolin, neryl isobutyrate, orris butter, phenethyl alcohol, rose, run ether, y-undercalctone, vanillin and solvent.

It would appear that underneath the natural and artificial flavours, an abundance of compounds lay. There is nothing illegal going on here. This is all within the law. Likewise with food labels, they too can include all these ingredients and place them under the umbrella term of ‘flavourings’. It’s really rather frightening.

The value of flavourings is of tremendous importance to the fast food industry, which require their foods be standardized, and flavourings can offer a standardized product. In order that artificial flavourings are made believable, the correct ‘mouth feel’ must be gained. This is achieved by the addition of starches, emulsfiers, stabilizers, sugars and fats (Marsili, 1993, Food Product Design).

So next time you pop into your favourite fast food outlet for a milkshake, take a moment and think about what’s really in this stuff.

(Burger King has been used as an example simply for ease of obtaining information. They are not out of the ordinary … any other fast food company could easily be substituted.) www.bk.com/food/nutrition/ingredients.aspx