A diabetic woman has gone viral for calculating how much insulin she would have to take if she drank a viral milkshake with a whopping 2,600 calories.
Addy Tayler, 26 and from Glendale, Arizona, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2022, and now has to carefully watch what she eats and drinks.
She told Newsweek: “I see a lot of videos on TikTok about crazy foods people eat,” but “never thought twice about them” until her diagnosis.
“Now that I have to count carbs and be aware of nutrition facts, I’m so intrigued by those kinds of videos,” she said.
Type 1 diabetes is also known as insulin-dependent diabetes, and is a chronic condition where the pancreas makes little or no insulin, the hormone which allows sugar to enter cells to produce energy, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Complications from type 1 diabetes can include heart disease, nerve damage, kidney, eye and foot damage, and complications in pregnancy, however the condition can be treated by managing the amount of sugar in the blood using insulin, diet and lifestyle.
Recently, Tayler came across the “extreme” nutritional facts of a drink offered by Baskin-Robbins in 2009: a chocolate Oreo milkshake, where a 32 fluid ounce serving contains 2,600 calories, 59 grams of saturated fat, 185 mg of cholesterol, and 333 grams of carbohydrates. The drink went viral at the time due to its nutrition information, and has since been discontinued.
And, imagining what would happen if she drank it, on May 3 she shared a video to her Instagram account @addytayler_t1d, where she regularly shares about her life with the condition. Newsweek has contacted Baskin-Robbins for comment on this story.
In the video, Tayler shows the viral drink alongside a list of its nutrition facts.
“This shake has 333 grams of carbs,” she said, and calculated that if she drank it, she would have to take a “bare minimum” of 33 units of insulin.
The fat content—135 grams—would cause a delayed blood sugar spike so high she couldn’t “even imagine,” and predicted her blood sugar would be high for a week.
She then calculated how much it would cost her, as a type one diabetic, to consume the drink.
Her brand of insulin is $312.50 without insurance, or around 32 cents per unit. Having that drink would force her to take 50 units of insulin, meaning drinking the shake would cost her $15.625—on top of the cost of buying the drink itself.
Instagram users were shocked, awarding the video more than 82,000 likes, one commenter writing: “My blood sugar would be high for the rest of my life.”
Another added the tongue-in-cheek comment: “You forgot to add the cost of the ambulance.”
One user pointed out: “You were giving yourself anxiety just saying this out loud. It was on your face.”
And as one summed it up: “Holy cow.”
According to nutrition website Nutritionix, a drink offered by Baskin-Robbins in 2024, a large Caramel Cappucino Blast, contained 1,040 calories per serving, including 32 grams of fat, 176 grams of total carbohydrates and 430 mg of sodium, a drop from the earlier product but still not something which would be healthy to eat every day.
Tayler told Newsweek she hopes people realize how bad certain foods can be for your health, but admitted she believes “most people are totally unaware of what they’re consuming.”
“I think that most people are probably unaware of nutrition facts and have no idea how to read them. It’s not something that is taught in school,” she said, adding: “And to be fair, I was the same exact way until I couldn’t be!”
As a type 1 diabetic, Tayler is still able to mostly what she wants “as long as I take the proper amount of insulin for it,” but she said something like the Baskin-Robbins chocolate Oreo shake would be “very dangerous” for her.
“That much insulin at one time probably just isn’t a great idea,” she explained.
“Insulin can be unpredictable because it doesn’t all work at once. It works over about four hours, and you have to account for how long the shake—or any food—takes to digest.
“High-fat content items are even trickier as they take a long time, and typically have a very delayed reaction on the blood sugar, even a few hours later.”
As she put it: “So yes, I very well could drink that shake—but personally I never would. It would not be worth it to me!”
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