There is regular ice cream, and then there is a McDonald’s Ice Cream Cone – which you can get your hands on if you’re lucky enough to visit when the ice cream machine is working!
The cone itself is the stuff of childhood memories with exciting trips going through the drive-thru on a hot summer day.
Even if you’re no longer a child, let’s face it, life is sometimes hard and there is no better pick-me-up than a soft-serve ice cream.
It has been a staple item of the McDonald’s menu for years – even decades! In fact, ice cream has been a notable item since the 1940s.
That said, the iconic ice cream sundaes that we have all come to love weren’t introduced until 1978.
Today, you can find ice cream making up a massive 60% of their dessert menu. This should come as no surprise, either, since it is a delicious and versatile dessert that goes with everything!
However, while it makes for a delicious sweet treat, you don’t want to eat Mcdonald’s soft serve ice cream every day as it contains one major culprit: calories.
With this in mind, this article will explore everything you need to know about the calorific content of a Mcdonald’s ice cream cone.
What Is Soft Serve Ice Cream?
Soft-serve ice cream can be characterized by its creamy and light texture with an airy consistency.
It is made using a combination of blending air with sugar, milk, and flavoring. This is then frozen before being extruded in a special machine.
Here, the machine works by spinning the frozen mixture – consisting of milk, air, and flavoring – into a creamy texture.
As opposed to traditional ice cream, soft serve will typically contain significantly less fat – making it a less-rich and lighter sweet treat.
These machines allow for a variety of toppings and flavors, allowing you to create tons of unique flavors. The most popular flavors include vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry.
Plus, you’ll also find a ton of toppings too, including syrups, candy, chopped nuts, and sprinkles – allowing you to completely customize your ice cream to your taste.
Soft-serve ice cream is a popular choice among both children and adults alike thanks to its delicious taste, affordability, and convenience.
McDonald’s Ice Cream Cone Nutrition
The good news for McDonald’s ice cream lovers is that the classic soft-serve recipe has just got healthier. It features reduced fat and fewer calories when compared to the original.
The cone features creamy and sweet vanilla ice cream in a crispy cone – containing a total of 200 calories, most of which is made up of carbohydrates.
You can also find a smaller version aimed at children called the Kiddie Cone.
If you’re looking to satisfy your sweet tooth while keeping the calories low, this could be a good option for you. In fact, it contains 75% fewer carbs and 77.5% fewer calories than the regular cone.
In addition, if you want more ice cream without the additional calories and carbs then you can always ditch the cone, too – you can’t get any healthier!
Is McDonald’s Ice Cream Healthy?
While the soft-serve ice cream may be a classic dessert at Mcdonald’s, with the sweet cream base and more sugar added, it contains 19 grams of sugar – this is nearly the same as the Apple Pie!
This isn’t ideal since the FDA recommends no more than 50 grams of added sugar a day. That said, if you only eat one ice cream as a treat, you shouldn’t worry too much about the added calories.
Thanks to its natural vanilla flavors, no trans fatty, and low calories, it makes for one of the healthier options at McDonald’s.
In addition to its core ingredients, it is also made using sugar, milk, corn syrup, cream, mono and diglycerides, natural flavors, guar, cellulose gum, carrageenan, guar, milk, vitamin A palmitate, cream, and sugar.
Does McDonald’s Use Real Ice Cream?
When it comes to McDonald’s ice cream it is pretty accurate! In fact, it is chiefly produced using low-fat dairy ice cream.
Here, natural flavors, sugar, milk, and corn syrup are combined to provide you with those iconic McDonald’s ice cream flavors you know and love.
To keep up with consumer demands, McDonald’s decided to join the healthy ice cream trend – making significant modifications to their recipes.
This includes removing preservatives and artificial flavors. According to CNBC, McDonald’s began phasing out artificial flavors from their ice cream in 2016.
What Brand Of Ice Cream Does McDonald’s Use?
The brand Dairy-Mix is used not only by McDonald’s but also by Wendy’s, Dairy Queens, and a range of ice cream parlors and wholesalers, too.
Since its initial release in 1970, the classic McDonald’s soft-serve ice cream has lost most of its artificial flavors since 2016.
Soft-serve ice cream is an incredibly popular dessert in a lot of fast-food restaurants. In fact, 60% of chains have this dessert on their menu.
Rockton, an Illinois-based Taylor Company, previously known as Taylor Freezer Corp, is the food service behind the equipment at McDonald’s.
Is McDonald’s Ice Cream Vegetarian?
The current recipe is Lacto-vegetarian which means that it contains milk but no other non-dairy animal products.
In fact, it is made using powdered milk, sugar, cream, and glucose as a sweetener.
However, you should keep in mind that while some items may not contain any animal products, they can’t guarantee that these products won’t come into contact with others in the kitchen.
However, the ice cream itself has been certified as vegetarian by The Vegetarian Society.
Final Thoughts
Soft-serve ice cream makes for a delicious and tasty sweet treat. There is no better feeling than rolling up to the drive-thru window and collecting this fluffy cloud of goodness from McDonald’s.
That said, despite its deliciousness, you should be mindful of the calorific content. A typical serving of ice cream contains 200 calories.
One of the most common things I talk to my clients about is calories, but so few of them actually know anything about them.
Calories is not a dirty word. If you remove emotion from it, it is simply a unit of energy.
We need calories to live and thrive, and knowing how many to consume is important to ensure that you’re living a healthy lifestyle.
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