Many people were shocked when they saw the movie Super Size Me and read the book Fast Food Nation because until then, they did not understand how dangerous and unhealthy fast foods really were. But, let’s face it – did people really stop eating fast foods after watching them? It certainly made an impression on people, but I am reluctant to believe that everyone really ended or changed their habit of eating fast foods. I constantly see people at the drive-ins of fast food restaurants in the weekends, and especially in this economy where everyone is so busy trying to make an additional buck, fast food continues to be easy way for people to satiate their hunger at a low cost.
I am not going to tell you to stop eating fast food (that would be for a trained dietician or nutrition). Instead, I recommend everyone to check out the websites for McDonald, Burger King, and Wendy’s to review the healthiest way to consume fast foods. To be as impartial as possible, I decided to compare Big Mac, Double Whopper, and Baconator because all these three burgers have two patties on them.
A nice thing about these fast food restaurants’ websites is that they provide the nutrition facts for you. Of course, they will never advertise or promote the customers to go and look them. They put up there, in case anyone wants to know. So, let’s start with total calories. According to the McDonald nutrition website, Big Mac has 540 calories. Double Whopper, on the other hand, has 920 calories! Wendy’s Baconator closely follows up on Double Whopper with 830 calories. These are all very large numbers.
Now, you should also consider how much of these calories that you are getting from fats. According to Mayo Clinic’s nutritionist, 20 to 35 percents of total calories should come from fat, and each fat can be translated as approximately 9 calories. With McDonald, it tells me that 260 calories are from fat, and 260 calories out of 540 calories are about 48 percent. So, you are receiving about half of your calories from fat. Can you reduce it by taking out the cheese? Well, interestingly, you don’t. Taking out American Cheese (many fast food restaurants allow you to do this) gives you total calories of 490, where 230 calories are from fats (percentage: 47%). There is a more decrease if you take out the Big Mac Sauce instead – 180 calories of fat from total of 450 calories (40%). So, taking out the Big Mac Sauce puts you in a closer position to what Mayo Clinic recommends.
Burger King does not explicitly provides this information, but it did say that Double Whopper contains 58 g of fat, which is 522 calories using Mayo Clinic conversion. So, Double Whopper has about 57 percents of fat calories. Note that all these numbers are actually excluding cheese (BK always asks, “Would you like cheese on that?”)! So, let’s take off mayonnaise instead. This change makes the Double Whopper to have total calories of 760 and fat calories of 369 (41 g of fat), translating as 49% for fat. This is still a huge figure.
With Baconator, about 55% of its calories come from fat. Unfortunately, I cannot progress any further because this one does not allow me to take off the ingredients as in Burger King or McDonald. Lastly, I want to end this comparison with another important factor for health – sodium. Big Mac from McDonald has 940 mg of sodium. Similarly, Double Whopper from Burger King has 950 mg of sodium. On the other hand, Baconator comes with 1880 mg of sodium! Now, what do these figures really mean? Well, according to another article by Mayo Clinic, an average adult should not consume more than the range of 1500 to 2400 mg. So, with Baconator, you are taking about one day’s sodium by just one meal!
Depending on your weight, age, current medical situation, and amount of exercise, you need to be careful with fast food. They can be very detrimental and deleterious to your health, so let us all try to control the amount of fast foods we intake. Also, if you can, feel free to go to these links and find your way to build a fast food in the healthiest way possible!
Sources:
McDonald. McDonald’s USA – Big Mac. McDonald.
Burger King. Burger King – Menu and Nutrition. Burger King.
Wendy’s. Nutrition Facts & Personalize It – Wendy’s. Wendy’s.
Katherine Zeratsky, R.D., L.D. Fat grams, calories or percentages: Which are more important? – MayoClinic.com. Mayo Clinic.
Mayo Clinic Staff. Sodium: Are you getting too much? – MayoClinic.com. Mayo Clinic.
