McDonalds Nutrition Revealed
Seeing the golden arches in the distance is a comforting thing when you’re hungry and you don’t want to cook. But while the name McDonalds has become synonymous with convenience, it’s also been berated for its lack of healthy food choices. From movies like “Super Size Me” and books like “Fast Food Nation,” it’s becoming clear that fast food restaurants can do more in terms of helping their customers have healthier eating options.
Thankfully, times are a changing and you do have more options in fast food than ever before. Healthy eating can be convenient, after all.
Are We Being Tricked?
One of the things that most opponents of fast food will tell you is that places like McDonalds try hard to hide the fact that they are unhealthy. By showing active people in their advertising and being the sponsor of the Olympic Games, you begin to equate McDonalds with healthier food choices than other restaurants. After all, if these people are eating the food, it must be good for us. In addition, there has been speculation that McDonalds includes sugar in most of their foods along with fats. This combination makes a person crave the flavor combination again and again – not quite creating an addiction, but certainly creating a tendency to crave the foods at McDonalds. The only foods that don’t contain sugar are the diet sodas and the French fries, some people say.
When you’re on a budget, it’s hard to stick to healthier choices because many fast food restaurants have created a dollar menu that’s filled with worse choices. Though you might be getting smaller portions through this menu, you will still have troubles finding much with nutritional worth.
How McDonalds is Trying to Help
But before you dismiss McDonalds as some sort of monster, you’ll be happy to know that they are trying to limit the negative impact on a consumer’s health by offering more healthy options. With menu items like a grilled chicken sandwich and salads, you can begin to control your portions and keep your caloric counts from being too high. In addition, there are nutritional posters at most McDonalds restaurants as well as a section on their website that allows you to custom tailor a meal to see how many calories, fat, sugars, and sodium milligrams you are taking in. You can even remove the buns from sandwiches to see if it makes a huge difference.
On the other hand, there are some healthy foods at McDonalds that aren’t as healthy as they seem. Parfaits, for example, contain high levels of fat due to the granola topping. If you were to leave this off, the parfait is lower in calories, but the fruit is still coated in sugar, which reduces its ability to be nutritionally sound.
Things like a plain hamburger are actually a decent choice as they are low in calories and are also low in price.
Yes, You Can Eat Fast Food…
The fact of the matter is that you can eat fast food as long as you’re not eating it for every meal of the day. Try having one fast food meal a week to help control your excess fat and caloric intake, for example. Or you might want to save fast food for only one meal and then count the calories you are taking in from that meal.
The key is to find ways to reduce the calories in each fast food meal that you eat – it is possible. Though some sandwiches are worst than others (double quarter pounder with cheese, for example), there are some options that will easily fit into a balanced diet.
But There are Ways to Slim Down Your Meals
There are many ways you can slim down the meals you want, so you might be able to hit the drive thru more often than you think. Here are some easy tips you can use:
• Choose the ice cream cone instead of a milkshake. The cone is only 150 calories and less than 5 grams of fat.
• Always opt for water or a diet soda.
• Choose low fat dressing or vinaigrette for your salads.
• Remove the bun before eating a sandwich.
• Never order extra cheese or sauce.
• Ketchup is a good topping as it contains no fat, but it does contain sugar.
• Eat your fast food early in the day in order to have time to burn it off.
• Consider eating half of the portions you order.
• Have one full fat sandwich once a week to calm a craving – but no fries.
• Avoid anything breaded – nuggets, sandwiches, etc.
Related Information:
Burger King Nutrition Revealed
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