The Reason People Are Refusing To Drink Chick-Fil-A's Lemonade Again

Maybe fast-food restaurants should ask their social media-savvy employees to leave their phones at home. Videos of what goes on behind the scenes at fast-food places often go viral (via BuzzFeed) and have been known to generate negative publicity. Even something as routine as making the lemonade at Chick-fil-A can cause viewers to swear off the drink — or even the restaurant — for life.

A Chick-fil-A employee posted a short video (that has since been deleted) to TikTok that shows a pitcher of sugar going into a container of yellow liquid, with the caption, "This is how much suger (sic) they put in the lemonade at Chick-fil-A," along with a queasy-face emoji. The video, posted on August 4, has been watched 2.6 million times.

"I'm gon have to find another drink then," one commenter said under the video. "Just another reason not to eat there," someone else commented.

The sugar content in Chick-fil-A's lemonade is not a trade secret. A 14-ounce serving has 58 grams of carbs (via Yahoo! Sports), which is mostly sugar, as the other two ingredients aren't exactly loaded with carbs (water and lemons). That's more sugar than what's found in Mountain Dew, which has 46 grams in a 12-ounce can (via FatSecret).

Believe it or not, this is the second Chick-fil-A lemonade Tik Tok controversy of the summer. In a TikTok post that has since been deleted, former Chick-fil-A employee Antonella Nonone showed that the restaurant's $3 frosted strawberry lemonade is about 70 percent ice (via In The Know). "What a rip off," a TikTok user commented on Nonone's post.

Don't like all that ice in the frosted strawberry lemonade? At least Chick-fil-A doesn't skimp on the sugar in its lemonade. Or does it? Here's a news flash for those who have never run a lemonade stand as a kid: the refreshing summer beverage packs in a lot of sugar, no matter who makes it.

Simply Recipes says the "perfect lemonade" consists of four parts water, one part lemon juice, and one part sugar. Given those ratios, Chick-fil-A's lemonade is actually too tart to be perfect. Whether intentional or not, Chick-fil-A has made a lot of its recipes and practices public by putting training flash cards for employees on Quizlet (free sign-in required to see all cards). The open secret to making Chick-fil-A lemonade is to combine 8 quarts of water, 2 quarts of lemon juice, and 7 cups of sugar. Those seven cups of sugar are one cup short of two quarts, which would give you Simply Recipes' ratio of four, one, and one. Knowing this, maybe customers will boycott Chick-fil-A unless employees start adding one more cup of sugar to the lemonade.

The sugar shortfall wasn't lost on some of the commenters on the viral post. One TikTok user wrote, "And somehow it tastes bitter." Another commenter said, "If this bothers you, you should see how much sugar McDonald's puts in their sweet tea."