I’m sure by now, you all have heard about and seen more than a few pictures of the very limited Unicorn Frappuccino that came out recently.

I’ll begin this blog with stating that yes, in fact, I did order and drink one (hey, I still have a 10 year old kid residing inside me!) and I actually liked it! (again, I chalk it up to the 10 year me and those kid-like taste buds). In the very limited time this Unicorn drink was out, it created an enormous outrage on social media and even in live conversations.

I’ll share here a bit of the story of what transpired with me after I put out a picture of myself with one of these colorful, elusively named drinks. Within a day of it’s release and myself posting I had tried one, I was tagged on a mutual friends comment about the drink. As I read a few other comments within the same conversation, I saw people saying things such “the diabetic coma frap? no thanks!” and other things such as “do you even realize what you just consumed?” Now, before we go any further….Yes, I knew going into it that it would contain a lot of sugar. One look at the drink and it’s no mystery! I also knew that if I was drinking that, I would need to be smart with the rest of my day in terms of what I ate and drank. I also made sure I got a workout in to help burn through the calories. I also want to state that I am not in anyway saying that consuming large amounts of sugar on a regular basis is okay. It’s not, end of story.

The thing that baffled the most with the outrage across social media is the fact that we have tons of food items laden with just as much or more sugar, and no one. says. a. thing! So, in response to some of these comments I decided to throw a little perspective out there. Here’s some facts I found:

• a regular 12 ounce soda has between 38-39 grams of sugar
• a 16 ounce soda (most of what is served in restaurants) has 48 grams of sugar
• a 20 ounce soda (think small bottle of coke, etc) has 65 grams of sugar
• a 20 ounce Mountain Dew has 77 grams of sugar
• a serving (1/2 cup which is one fourth of the container/pint) of ben and jerry’s ice cream ranges from 21-30 grams of sugar.
• a serving of maple syrup, which is only a tablespoon is 14 grams of sugar
• a grande Pumpkin Spice Latte is 50 grams of sugar
• a grande Mocha Latte is 35 grams of sugar
• a medium coolatta drink at DD has between 60-100grams of sugar
• a full pint of Halo Top ice cream would contain between 20-30 grams of sugar. (yes, it’s not as much, but it’s still a good amount)

I could go on and on, but I’ll stop. I think at this point you can see where I’m going. How many people out there drink soda regularly, meaning daily and typically more than one a day? How many people out there can only eat a half cup of B & J’s ice cream?! (I can’t!). Who only puts a single tablespoon of maple syrup on their pancakes or waffles? How come no one says a word when pumpkin spice lattes come out every year or when coolatta’s are advertised?!

WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE WITH THE REST OF OUR FOOD PRODUCTS!?!?!?!

I also saw statements of outrage over how the Unicorn drink was being marketed to kids, and how that is shameful. I’ll agree, we don’t need anymore sugar laden products marketed towards kids, however, have these people not noticed that every single candy bar, cookie, soda, ice cream, gummy fruit snack, sugary cereal, etc are marketed towards kids!?!? At this point I pretty much did the facepalm. I’m astonished that this one drink, which was only available for about 5 days, could create such a mayhem across social media and even in news arenas. But, I’m also wondering if this could be a HUGE LESSON for us all. Could this be the tipping point people need in order to change their habits, change what they are okay with from our food producers and change what they may be blindly consuming without knowing?

I’ll conclude with a few of the lessons I took from this whole incident:

First: be aware of what you’re consuming. Even so called “healthy” products can end up not so healthy if we aren’t watching portion size or looking into the nutritional content.

Second: If you were shocked, disgusted or outraged at this unicorn drink, use it as momentum to be outraged at the daily onslaught of unhealthy food and drink choices that are advertised and pushed on us.

Third: before jumping on a “bandwagon” of outrage/astonishment or whatever you want to call it, look into your daily habits a bit more. Check what you may be consuming on a regular basis…it’ll probably shock you and not always in a good way.

I know that I personally learned a few things from this “Unicorn Outrage”. You may still see me shaking my head in a state of bewilderment over it all too.

Dr. Jen