Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new contestant in the who-can-top-this outrageous new fast food item: the bacon milkshake from Jack in the Box.

The bacon shake is made with no actual bacon, just real vanilla ice cream, bacon-flavored syrup, whipped topping and a maraschino cherry, according to the website. We were thinking this had to be the most trayf food known to mankind before we saw the ingredient list. We’ll get to the nutritional info in a minute.

The item is proving to be somewhat polarizing, with some people loving the product (or the idea of it, at least) and others finding it downright nasty. On MyFoxDFW.com, one commenter posted, “Disgusting!!!” while another said, “Mmmmm, Bacon ... is there anything it can’t do?” One person was intrigued: “I have no interest in a bacon flavored milk shake, yet I find myself oddly inclined to want to see what it tastes like...”

On the Gizmodo site, this was posted: “I can’t be the only one grossed out by this,” followed by, “You’re not, but, you know, it’s very ironic and hip to like bacon mixed with totally inappropriate flavors.”


Bacon shakes are apparently not new, since we saw plenty of recipes on the Internet, ones that used real bacon. How anyone concocted this is beyond our imagination, even though we’ve heard the phrase “Everything’s better with bacon” repeated ad infinitum.

Fast food companies seem to relish coming up with new ways to fascinate and gross us out at the same time: Witness KFC’s Double Down (two two fried chicken fillets, surrounding two slices of cheese, two slices of bacon, sauce and no bun) and Domino’s Pizza’s Mac-N-Cheese Breadbowl pasta. The description on that reads: “a flavorful blend of melted cheeses mixed with penne pasta and baked to creamy perfection.” It sits inside a big “bowl” of dough.

OK, let’s get to the good stuff. A 16-ounce bacon shake weighs in at 773 calories, 28 grams of saturated fat, 2 grams of trans fat and 75 grams of sugar. Hankering for a 24-ounce size? That’ll be 1,081 calories, 37 grams of saturated fat, 3 grams of trans fat and 108 grams of sugar. Mmmmm. We’re saying that ironically.

Since we’re too afraid to order one, we’re relying on you dairy-and-bacon-lovers to do some recon for us and tell us what you think -- yea or nay?