How healthy are the iced teas from your favorite brands & restaurants?

Honest Tea not only exclusively produces organic iced teas, but they also have some of the healthiest options available. A regular 16.9-ounce lemon tea contains only 80 calories, 21 carbs, and 21 grams of sugar. Opt for peach or raspberry, however, and that’ll up the nutritional content to 100 calories, 25 carbs, and 25 grams of sugar. Looking for something lighter? Go for Honest Tea Unsweet Lemon Tea, which has no calories, carbs, or sugar.

If you like your tea sweet, ordering a McDonald’s sweet tea will run you 90 calories for a small, 16-ounce serving. All things considered, that’s not bad, except this beverage also contains 21 grams of sugar and 21 carbs, which isn’t nearly as ideal. Instead, opt for a small unsweetened tea, which is calorie-free and carb-free. 

Fuze is right on par with McDonald’s in terms of nutritional content, except you can cut back a bit with Fuze by buying a can instead of a bottle. A 12-ounce serving of the lemon flavor, for instance, will only contain 70 calories, 19 carbs, and 19 grams of sugar. Roughly the same goes for their green, strawberry red, and mango orange teas. Surprisingly, the sweet tea variety isn’t too much worse, as it boasts 100 calories, 26 carbs, and 25 grams of sugar. If this all sounds like a sugar overdose, go with the calorie- and sugar-free diet version.

The smallest iced tea available at Burger King is a 20-ounce, but thankfully the tea isn’t especially unhealthy and will only set you back 120 calories, 35 carbs, and 35 grams of sugar. Plus, if you’re really concerned, they also sell it unsweetened.

Whether you choose raspberry, lemon, or peach, your 16-ounce Nestea will contain 100 calories, 26 carbs, and 24 grams of sugar. However, you can opt for the unsweetened variety, which has no calories, no carbs, and no sugar. Looking for something in between? Try Nestea’s Slightly Sweet Black Tea, a marginally healthier option that instead contains 90 calories, 22 carbs, and 22 grams of sugar.

Like Nestea, Lipton’s Brisk Lemon Iced Tea also has about 100 calories per 16-ounce serving, as well as 27 carbs and 26 grams of sugar. The same is true of the raspberry, peach, strawberry melon, and green tea varieties, and even sweet tea!

The standard tea at Chick-fil-A is a sweet tea - after all, this is a southern chicken chain we’re talking about! However, for a sweetened tea, the nutritional info isn’t especially unreasonable. A medium, 16-ounce cup will contain 120 calories, 31 carbs, and 30 grams of sugar. There’s apparently also an unsweetened version with no calories, carbs, or sugar, but we’ve never heard it ordered before, and we wouldn’t be caught dead trying to order one ourselves!

Popeye’s has used its own Cane Sweeeet Iced Tea variety since 2010, and it packs roughly 135 calories, 34 carbs, and 34 grams of sugar per 16-ounce serving. That’s not terribly unhealthy, as long as you don’t order and consume one of the gallon-sized jugs in one sitting.

Although Lipton makes numerous varieties, the traditional, no-frills Lipton Iced Tea in a 16-ounce bottle totals 150 calories, 33 carbs, and 33 grams of sugar. Considering this is one of the most popular varieties of iced tea in the country (and possibly the world), we’re glad it managed to stay in the healthier half of this ranking... barely.

Sonic Drive-Ins boast something like a million different drink combinations, but if you want their regular sweet tea, it’ll cost you 140 calories, 37 carbs, and 37 grams of sugar for a 14-ounce serving. There’s also unsweetened tea, but if you want something in the middle, go for the green. It’ll only set you back 70 calories, 18 carbs, and 18 grams of sugar for the same 14-ounce size.

Tazo, which is the packaged iced tea brand offered at stores and restaurants like Starbucks, contains 140 calories, 35 carbs, and 34 grams of sugar per 13.8-ounce bottle of black tea with lemon. If these figures seem a bit too high (and they are), but you don’t want to cut out all the sugar, opt for the black tea with a touch of sweetness instead. With this, you’ll cut the calories, carbs, and sugar quantities in half.

Pure Leaf has a large selection of iced tea offerings, but their standard lemon variety contains 160 calories, 41 carbs, and 41 grams of sugar per 18.5-ounce serving. The pomegranate and sweet tea flavors have the same amounts, but raspberry and peach each contain 180 calories, 46 carbs, and 46 grams of sugar. And don’t even get us started on the Extra Sweet Tea, which has a startling 250 calories, 65 carbs, and 65 grams of sugar! Yikes! Thankfully there are unsweetened versions of both the black, green, and lemon versions, as well as “Not Too Sweet” and diet. 

Prefer your tea served in a glass bottle? Opt for a Snapple - but beware, because, in addition to being made from the best stuff on Earth, Snapple is also made from a heck of a lot of sugar. Whether you choose lemon or raspberry, you’re looking at 150 calories, 37 carbs, and 36 grams of sugar per 16-ounce serving. Peach is worse across the board, and Mango Madness even tops those figures with 190 calories, 46 carbs, and a whopping 44 grams of sugar! If you’re not averse to artificial sweeteners, you might want to go with a diet Snapple instead.

Even if you pass on the pastries and donuts, a 16-ounce sweet tea from Dunkin’ Donuts will still total 160 calories, 40 carbs, and 39 grams of sugar. If you can tear yourself away from the sweetness, order an unsweetened ice tea and you can go sugar-free with just five calories and a single carb.

Sure, the Gold Peak bottles may look fancier, but they still contain plenty of sugar. A normal, 18.5-ounce bottle of Gold Peak Sweet Tea contains 190 calories, 48 carbs, and 48 grams of sugar. The same goes for the lemon, raspberry, and peach varieties, even though the labels don’t contain the word “sweet.” If you’re trying to slim down, pick the unsweetened variety instead.

It’s hard to resist those 99-cent cans of Arizona Lemon Tea, but drink an entire 23-ouncer and you’ll be consuming nearly 270 calories, 75 carbs, and 72 grams of sugar! Even the 16-ounce bottles can do some serious damage (especially if you drop one of those heavy glass containers on your foot). Fancy yourself a green tea drinker instead? That will still run you more than 200 calories, 50 carbs, and 50 grams of sugar. At least the green tea is available in a zero-calorie version.

Do you get your sweet tea from Hardee’s? If so, you’re looking at around 190 calories per 16-ounce serving, along with 49 carbs and 48 grams of sugar! For the record, even though Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr are part of the same company, the latter uses the aforementioned Gold Peak brand.

Zaxby’s smallest cup sizes are 12 ounces and 22 ounces, so we’ll have to approximate what a 16-ounce sweet tea serving will contain for the purposes of this slideshow. By our estimates, a pint amounts to 200 calories, 55 carbs, and 55 grams of sugar, which is more or less the same as the iced tea in the next slide.

Bojangles calls its iced tea “legendary,” but as it turns out, the nutritional content is also the stuff of legends. A small, 16-ounce sweet tea contains 210 calories, 52 carbs, and 50 grams of sugar. Shoot, even the unsweetened has 5 calories, and 1.5 carbs, which is more than most other brands. We guess that’s the price you pay for the best darn fast food iced tea available.

KFC has the unhealthiest iced tea around, which might explain why they’ve had to feature so many different Colonel Sanders characters in their commercials lately. One 16-ounce sweet tea contains a shocking 230 calories, 59 carbs, and 59 grams of sugar. We’re not sure what goes into the Colonel’s secret chicken recipe, but we’re pretty sure the special ingredient in their tea is sugar – and lots of it. You might want to change your order to an unsweetened tea instead.