Usually, the McFlurry add-ins are mixed with the soft serve, but as you can see in the photo on the right that wasn’t the case with the McDonald’s Holiday Mint McFlurry I received.
It wasn’t a problem because I have opposable thumbs and extremely strong wrists to mix everything.
Also, I like the add-ins dumped on top like that because seeing all the red and green peppermint candy pieces made the McFlurry look more holiday-ish than if they were blended with the vanilla soft serve.
Having the candy pieces floating on the quickly melting soft serve also made the top of my McFlurry look like regurgitated crayons, a color blindness test, and the bottom of a fish bowl.
I originally thought the red and green pieces were minty candy coated chocolate, but after reading the ingredients list, it turns out they’re not chocolate and one-third of their ingredients are food dyes.
Here’s the ingredients list for those of you who are totally into food dyes: sugar, fractionated palm kernel oil, nonfat milk, corn syrup, corn cereal, modified food starch, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, degerminated yellow corn meal, soy lecithin, Red 40 Lake, natural flavor (botanical source), Yellow 5 Lake, salt, Blue 1 Lake, Turmeric Extract (Color), Red 40, Blue 1.
Mmm…degerminated yellow corn meal and Red 40.
After using my opposable thumbs and strong wrists to combine the reduced fat vanilla soft serve, mint syrup, and peppermint candy pieces, my mouth soon discovered how minty the McDonald’s Holiday Mint McFlurry was. There were no bursts of peppermint going off in my mouth, which would’ve make the cold soft serve feel even colder and make my mouth feel like it’s hosting a ski resort. The peppermint candies were equally minty and sweet, and reminded me of Wrigley’s Doublemint Gum.
The peppermint candy pieces weren’t really what I would call crunchy, but had a firmness to them. Even though they were made with corn cereal and corn meal, they surprisingly didn’t get soggy while sitting in my half-melted McFlurry. I hope whatever processed food voodoo McDonald’s is doing to prevent them from getting soggy ends up in our breakfast cereals.
One last thing about the peppermint candy pieces. I thought they were harmless, nutritionally, because they’re made with bunch of corn products, dyes, and no chocolate, but they provide eight of the 15 grams of saturated fat in this McFlurry.
The vanilla soft serve and mint syrup was a nice combination, so much so that I’d like to do a McHack that involves adding the mint syrup to an Oreo McFlurry.
Overall, McDonald’s Holiday Mint McFlurry was a delightful treat, and if I’m feeling the holiday spirit, my opposable thumbs and strong wrists could see themselves mixing another.
(Nutrition Facts – 570 calories, 190 calories from fat, 21 grams of fat, 15 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 45 milligrams of cholesterol, 170 milligrams of sodium, 84 grams of carbohydrates, 76 grams of sugar, 0 grams of fiber, 12 grams of protein.)
Other McDonald’s Holiday Mint McFlurry reviews:
Brand Eating
Item: McDonald’s Holiday Mint McFlurry
Purchased Price: $2.99
Size: 12 ounces
Purchased at: McDonald’s
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Delightful. Pleasant mintiness. Colorful, if the peppermint candies are dumped on top. McHacks. Peppermint candy didn’t get soggy in melted soft serve. Opposable thumbs and strong wrists.
Cons: Awesome source of food dyes. Awesome source of saturated fat. Peppermint candy pieces created using processed food voodoo. The candy pieces on top looked like the bottom of a fish bowl.