On the 30th of August 2013 my wife and I walk into Westfield in the Sydney CBD. As w walked through the door into the complex we realised that there was something going on. People queuing for what seemed an eternity. As we walked past the queue my imagination started racing. Was it some super special? Then the queue stopped. The seemingly endless line up was just stopped dead in its track by a well groomed suite wearing security guard and a rope barrier. Fascinated I walked around the corner and there the lineup continued.
We kept walking till the very end of the mall. What do we find? Magnum Sydney.
Now apparently this sugar show does the rounds around the world. I actually walked back to where the queue started. I just could not believe that someone would line up for an ice-cream.
What I could not work out is how long these folks were standing there, waiting for their high class sugar hit.
My wife to the rescue. She smiles to one of the security guards and ask how long would it take us to actually get one of these sugar hits. The security guard smiled back and said you will be waiting at least two hours.
Well if eating these highly processed goodies wasn’t going to kill me a wait that long probably would.
The whole situation got me thinking and asking questions like, I wonder if they had a stand with the worlds best apples would the same thing happen? I came to a conclusion that thinking this way was trying to be delusional.
The question remains what on earth makes people queue up for over two hours? Is it marketing? Maybe it is the prestige of such a brand like Magnum? Maybe it is the addiction to a sugar hit? Or could it be a combination of all three that make someone do the seemingly impossible especially when you can just walk into a shop and purchase a magnum?
Whatever the case is I thought it would be a great idea to find out exactly what goes into these irresistible goodies. The way that I figured it there must be some incredible ingredients to get people to stand in line for over two hours.
With a little bit of research I unearthed some very interesting facts. Facts that everyone should be aware of before sinking their teeth into a Magnum.
I took the most basic Magnum and from the Magnum web site I discovered that it contains the following ingredients:
Ice-cream:
Milk, Cream, Sugar, whey, mono and diglycerides, locust bean gum, vanilla bean specs, carrageenan natural flavour, caramel colour, annatto (colour), belgian milk
Chocolate Coating:
- Sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate liquor, milk, milk fat, soy lecithin (emulsifier), natural flavour, PGPR (Emulsifier)
- And that is the healthy one! You should see the double caramel!
- Nutrition Facts
- Serving Size 1 serving (86 g)
- Per Serving
- Calories 260
- Calories from Fat 139
- Total Fat 15.5g 24% of daily intake
- Saturated Fat 11.2g 56% of daily intake
- Sodium 52mg 2% of daily intake
- Carbohydrates 26.7g 9% of daily intake
- Dietary Fiber 0.7g 3% of daily intake
- Sugars 23.2g
- Protein 3.4g
- Energy 260 kcal
- Protein 3.4 g
- Total lipid (fat) 15.5 g
- Carbohydrate, by difference 26.7 g
- Fibre, total dietary 0.7 g
- Sugars, total 23.2 g
- Sodium, Na 52 mg
- Fatty acids, total saturated 11.197 g
A bit more digging around produced some interesting additional information. 260 calories, a hefty hit for a snack. Obviously a high energy low nutrition food. In other words sugar loaded. The 23.3 grams of sugar is only half the story.
What about the 26.7 grams of carbohydrates, they are as good as sugar as soon as it goes down. This little snack produces a hefty sugar hit. At this stage I am starting to ponder about all the poor people who are trying to work out why they can’t loose weight and are being diagnosed with lifestyle diseases including type two diabetes.
We made our way upstairs and purchased a meal from a little place that specialises in whole foods, iku whole food
and as we ordered our wonderful nutritious wholesome meal that actually helps us instead of killing us I could not help wondering why we were the only customers?
