The Good Shake Challenge
Background:
We've all had a strawberry shake at McDonald's at some point or another. Those deliciously thick, frozen beverages. Unfortunately, it's pretty well known how horrible it is for your body. A large shake contains 850 calories. That's 25 grams of fat, 138 grams of carbs, and a whopping 127 grams of sugar. Any of those alone would top off half of most people's daily values. However, none of this is made from fresh ingredients. The flavoring is artificial and most of that fat and sugar is added because it's what people expect from a shake from McDonald's.
The Challenge:
Create a shake that has the same flavor and texture as a McDonald's shake, only healthy.
Now, I'm taking the word "healthy" here to mean "wholesome". I'm going to be throwing out most people's notions of what is healthy, such as having fresh ingredients, being "organically grown", or "all natural". I'm also not going to settle with it simply being low calorie. Calories are healthy! Our body needs them to get us through the day. It's a fairly well-known idea among health experts that different sources of calories are better than others. Take protein for example; It takes longer for your digestive system to break them down, and contains amino acids that your body uses for muscle growth. I'm not going to get into the BS of "Oh, high protein is a miracle diet that will make you lose weight, give you ripped muscles, and regenerate lost limbs!", no, but protein is still wholesome for your body and a better source of calories. Another thing is obviously low fat. Our body can produce its own fat from calories, so we don't need to ingest it to survive. And last but not least: sugar. In this day and age, we have so many sugar substitutes it's hard to keep track of them all. Aspartame, cyclamate, saccharin, stevia, sucralose, and the low calorie sugar alcohols: xylitol, sorbitol, lactitol, erythritol, and maltitol. The right combination of these have been used to make great tasting things like Coke Zero, Trident gum, and even sugar free candies and chocolates. A low sugar diet can help prevent type 2 diabetes. And those already with diabetes would be able to enjoy a low carb beverage.
Now all of this is great, but having a high protein, low fat, low sugar beverage just isn't good enough for me to call healthy. There's one essential ingredient that is missing from most of our food that we can't get from vitamin supplements: fiber. Now, fiber is a carbohydrate. Our body still does need carbohydrates to feed our blood. So instead of our carbs coming completely from sugar and starches it's now going to come from fiber. Fiber helps your digestive system, as well, and gives you nice clean bowels. That's exactly what is needed to tip this shake into my definition of healthy.
Healthy is a great thing, but nobody will want to drink it if it tastes like shit filtered through ammonia with a metallic aftertaste. So, to fix this problem we are going to have to break down what it is that makes McDonald's shakes taste so good, especially since most of the flavor comes from stock flavorings. One of the big things I hear from everyone is that their shakes are so thick and creamy. Well, McDonald's doesn't get that thickness from milk alone. Take a look at the ingredients of their ice cream:
- Milk, sugar, cream, nonfat milk solids, corn syrup solids, mono- and diglycerides, guar gum, dextrose, sodium citrate, artificial vanilla flavor, sodium phosphate, carrageenan, disodium phosphate, cellulose gum, vitamin A palmitate. (source)
- Sugar, water, corn syrup, strawberries, high fructose corn syrup, natural (botanical source) and artificial flavor, pectin, citric acid, potassium sorbate (preservative), caramel color, calcium chloride, red 40. (source)
First Attempt
I've ordered an array of ingredients that would be necessary in any shake that fits this description. Since I'm not going for perfection just yet, I know that I'm missing some things. However, this gives me plenty to play around with to find the proper texture and thickness.
Thickening:
In addition to the Guar Gum from the ingredients listed above, I've picked up some Xanthan Gum. This legendary thickener is used everywhere from salad dressings to non-toxic glue. Since it requires a very small quantity to achieve a great deal of thickness, my hopes is that this will help me get the thickness I need without using cream or corn syrup. Now, xanthan gum has a very interesting property. When the mixture is agitated it will become thin, but while it is at rest the mixture will stay thick. This is why it is perfect for salad dressings found in squeeze bottles. When you squeeze it, the mixture comes out nice and thin, but it holds thick when sitting on top of the salad and grabs on to the lettuce. This will also come in handy for me here while drinking the shake out of a straw; It should keep the shake flowing nice and thin and not clog it up, while still achieving the thickness I desire. Needless to say, I was very excited to get my hands on some of this stuff!
Still, my prediction is that the guar gum will provide a majority of the thickness and texture that we are familiar with in McDonald's recipe. And my preliminary experiments with these agents show that I am correct. Xanthan gum alone just gives it too much of a salad dressing feel in your mouth, light and slippery. Whereas guar gum is more like adding corn starch to milk to produce a creamy alfredo sauce. The guar gum is definitely where the texture comes from, it feels bulky and grabs your tongue. So a mixture of these two thickeners are going to be necessary.
Primary Ingredients:
Obviously, strawberries are going to be needed. I picked up a bag of frozen strawberries, since they will be the easiest to blend. I started off with a half cup of these. I thought of adding bananas to the mixture, but for now I want to keep it simple. Nutrition: 25 calories; Fat: 0g, total carbs: 6g, sugar: 4g, fiber: 2g.
Next up is the protein powder I need to give it that high protein content. I went with a whey protein isolate, since it gives the maximum amount of protein using the least amount of stock powder. Whey protein should also help out with the thickness, since it is the primary component of whey, the thick part of nonfat milk. One serving is 1/3 cup. Nutrition: 105 calories; Fat: 0.3g, total carbs: 1g, sugar: 1g, protein: 25g. (and a short list of minerals such as calcium, potassium, phosphorus, and magnesium)
Now, where am I going to get all that fiber I talked about earlier? There is some in the strawberries, but not very much. Well, the solution is to add it myself. I've chosen to use psyllium husk powder. I know it sounds pretty nasty, "You mean I'm about to eat ground up husks?!?" However, the powder actually comes from psyllium seeds, a natural product from a common plant in India. It is also the active ingredient in Benefiber, so it's fairly common and has almost no flavor. Again, this gives the optimal fiber to powder ratio for our shake. Only one tablespoon needed. Nutrition: 34 calories; total carbs: 8g, fiber: 6.7g (also adds some more calcium and iron)
Sweeteners:
I'm not going to focus on sweetening too much right now, so I can get a good idea of how well it tastes without it. However, I am armed with plenty of packets of Splenda (sucralose) so that it won't turn out completely nasty.
Process:
First, I am going to blend the strawberries together with some water (1/4 cup), to create a thinner mixture, then add the protein powder and psyllium mix. The idea is to create a stock blend before adding in any thickeners or sweeteners. This should keep a consistent thickness and sweetness all around.
Next up is to add the thickeners and sweeteners. I used 1/4 tsp of guar gum, blended. Then just a pinch (about 1/8 tsp) of xanthan gum. Another 1/4 cup of water, and blend some more. Then for the Splenda to taste. I ended up with about 8 packets of Splenda to get it to my desired sweetness.
Since this is supposed to be cold, I added in some ice, and blended again. One of the first things I noticed is that once all of these things are added the end result is starting to blend into a very pink color. Not quite the red that I expected. This might mean that I used too little strawberries, however, my blender isn't big enough for me to add any more for now, so I'll just have to go with how it is.
Now to pour it into a glass. Already, I can tell that I got the thickness down perfectly. It is pouring exactly like how I would expect for a McDonald's shake to pour.
And here is the final product. Doesn't look too bad!
Conclusion
And now to taste it. My analysis: Fairly good! Not nearly as bad as you would expect it to be. The texture is perfect. I've managed to match the McD's texture to a tee. And despite being mostly protein powder, it still tastes great. There are, however, a few things I need to work on. The first thing I noticed is that it doesn't have a very strong strawberry flavor. That means I was right in that there wasn't enough frozen strawberries in the mix. Also, some of those strawberry seeds got in there. Unlike the McDonald's version where they only use actual strawberries for the large pieces, I blended the full strawberries, so this is a side-effect. The next noticeable thing is that it is not very cold. Despite it being thick enough, the coldness isn't very consistent. The cold parts definitely taste better, so I am going to have to find a better way to chill this shake other than just ice. I am guessing the thickeners had something to do with this. The extra volume and protein between the particles don't appear to make an ideal condition for transferring heat, the result being a room-temperature drink containing particles of well-insulated ice.
And boy is it filling! Just one of these drinks and I was satisfied for a few hours. An unintended positive effect.
So, to summarize, here is the comparison between the two drinks:
McDonald's Strawberry McCafe Shake
Adrian's Strawberry Good-For-You Shake
Quantity:12oz12oz
Calories:560164
Fat:18g<1g
Total Carbs:89g15g
Sugar:79g5g
Fiber:0g8.7g
Protein:11g25g