How RFK Jr. changed my mind about Dunkin’ – The Boston Globe

For 30 years I have lived in Boston, and for 30 years I have remained baffled by one thing.

Not the rotaries (those make sense). Not the lack of happy hour. Not the unwritten rules of snowstorm space-saving.

The coffee.

Specifically: Dunkin’.

Why does Boston run on coffee that doesn’t taste like coffee? Dunkin’s tastes like burned sweet potatoes. And yet the franchise is so much a part of our local fabric that when Cardi B played TD Garden last week, she addressed the crowd: “Boston! You Dunkin’ Donuts eating [word that definitely can’t be used here], how we doing toniiiiight?” I’m sure Ben Affleck was dancing somewhere in the crowd, wearing a Red Sox jersey.

I grew up in New York, believing that if the Yankees suck, it is only in occasional relation to the Mets, and totally unaware of Dunkin’s regional chokehold just a few hours north. Dunkin’ has a strong presence in my home state, but in Massachusetts it has main character energy. When I moved here, I discovered that this chain appeared to be a religion. A cult? Would that be overstating things? All around me people were chugging iced coffee in the dead of winter (often while wearing shorts), and “regular” coffee came with cream and sugar by default. I had chosen a new home where light and sweet were the palate’s preference, and I had to put my dark and caustic expectations on a shelf.

I understand Dunkin’ was founded here, in Quincy in 1950. That’s history and local pride. But Starbucks got its start in Seattle in 1971. You don’t see Bill Gates appearing in its ads. The general populace doesn’t call it “Starbs.” Last year, in fact, The Seattle Times ran a story with the headline “Starbucks’ popularity has waned the most in hometown Seattle.”

After I had lived in Boston for about a decade, I had a eureka moment: Bostonians don’t like coffee. Bostonians like caffeine, a bargain, and a beverage that tastes like dessert.

With this thought came acceptance, and after that I mostly ignored Dunkin’ discourse — until last month. Then Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called out Dunkin’ for being unhealthy. “We’re going to ask Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks, ‘Show us the safety data that show that it’s OK for a teenage girl to drink an iced coffee with 115 grams of sugar in it,’” he said. “I don’t think they’re gonna be able to do it.”

Never mind that the average consumer of such a beverage in Boston is a burly middle-age construction worker. Never mind that I’ve yet to see compelling safety data showing it’s OK for a teenage girl to contract measles after forgoing vaccination. There are only a few drinks on Dunkin’s lengthy menu with at least 115 grams of sugar, according to its easily accessed Nutrition Guide — mostly large frozen coffees that max out at 172 grams, a gobsmacking amount of sugar that would turn me into a gerbil on a wheel if I consumed it one sitting, though I’d probably pass out from brain freeze first.

Each time RFK Jr. brings up the unhealthiness of the American diet, a “see, you can’t dismiss the guy, he’s right about some things!” think piece gets its wings. And each time I read one of these, I lose my schnitzel (fried in tallow, of course). We already know nutrition policy needs reform, and I can’t think of another figure who has gotten so many plaudits for stating the obvious about public health, while taking so many measures that could endanger it.

So I felt a bit salty about this attack on sugar. And Boston felt very salty about this attack on Dunkin’. When Bostonians act extra Boston-y, I often admire the spirit without fully sharing the viewpoint. Not this time. This time I was in perfect agreement.

And then I saw it: On Instagram, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey had posted an image inspired by a flag from the early days of the Texas Revolution. In place of a cannon, Healey’s post featured a Dunkin’ cup, but the words remained the same: “Come and take it.”

No confiscation without representation. You can pry our iced coffee out of our cold dead hands. I felt a surge of pride. Boston pride. I want to live in a city and state where politicians stand up for what is ours — be it a drink so sugary no mere mortal can withstand it, or legal rights that pertain regardless of immigration status, or trans kids’ ability to determine who they are and live accordingly.

And I felt the perverse urge to transgress.

I walked to the closest Dunkin’, all of three minutes away. I needed all the steps I could get if I was going to drink a vanilla bean Coolata, the sugariest drink on the roster that I could contemplate actually consuming. A large clocks in at 167 grams of total sugar, 150 of them added, which in a more rational moment I believe is an anti-consumer hate crime. That suddenly seemed beside the point.

I placed my order. The Coolata was just the start. I also experienced, for the first time, the thrill of ordering an iced coffee “extra extra.” (For a small, this turns out to include four sugars and four creams.) And, in a nod to moderation, I added a small regular.

I took a sip of the Coolata, a slush as white as the driven snow. (I had ignorantly assumed there would be coffee in there somewhere, but no.) I took another sip, and another. An icy dagger pierced my head. My heart rate skyrocketed. But worst of all, I had to taste the stuff. Nothing should ever, ever be this sweet.

The iced coffee, by comparison, was drinkable. Until my straw touched down in the drift of crunchy sugar strewn over the cup floor. Extra extra is too extra for me.

Then I sipped my small regular. It was still way too sweet. It was also way too creamy. And it still tasted like burned sweet potatoes. It was perfect. I loved it. It tasted like home.

Devra First can be reached at devra.first@globe.com. Follow her on Instagram @devrafirst.