FOOD NEWS
Why You're Technically Not Able To Get A Milkshake At McDonald's
By Alexander Billet
Although McDonald's serves shakes, you will notice that the word "milk" is pointedly missing from "shake" on the menu, as they cannot technically be categorized as milkshakes.
Per McD's website, state-to-state dairy regulations vary widely, and rather than figure out where they can legally put "milkshakes" on their menu, they simply call them "shakes."
However, this doesn't mean McDonald's shakes are made without milk. The dairy content of an item has a lot of bearing on how it can be described in legal terms.
Governmental dairy regulations fall under the Food and Drug Administration, but they don't directly regulate or enforce dairy — that role is down to the states.
For example, Pennsylvania defines a "freezer-made milk shake" as containing between 3.25% and 6% milk fat and no less than 10% non-fat milk solids, but New York would disagree.
Each state can decide its own specific regulations and definitions for dairy, and this complicates things for McDonald's since they ship their shake ingredients across state lines.
McDonald's once had Triple Thick Milkshakes on their menu since at least 1949, but that was at a single location in California before it became a national chain.
Today, McDonald's shakes are made with their soft serve ice cream mix, and while the website refers to the mix as ice cream, the shakes don't qualify as milkshakes in every state.