22 comments

McDonald’s Mondays: And the healthiest item on the McDonald’s Menu is…

Posted by & filed under Community Features.

hamburger

A ham­burger! That’s right, just a clas­sic, plain ol’ run of the mill ham­burger. Not a salad. Not a yogurt. Not even the Filet-o-Fish. Accord­ing to an admit­tedly unsci­en­tific study con­ducted by Lifehacker.com (they relied solely on McDonald’s pub­lished nutri­tion facts), the clas­sic, afford­able, and still deli­cious ham­burger is the best thing on the menu.

Want to know where every­thing else landed? Check out their com­plete arti­cle pro­fil­ing the 5 best and 5 worst items on the McDonald’s menu.

It should prob­a­bly be noted that the info they referred to is the US nutri­tion facts. Would any­one be inter­ested in Smart­Canucks putting together a sim­i­lar arti­cle focus­ing on Cana­dian McMunchables?

22 Responses to “McDonald’s Mondays: And the healthiest item on the McDonald’s Menu is…”

  1. FreebieChick

    That’s funny because some­times that’s all i get are 2–3 of the plain ham­burg­ers, noth­ing on them.….good to know it’s the health­i­est thing on their menu, haha­haha :)

  2. baggypants

    I am glad to hear that…whenever I feel the (not so frequent)urge to go to McDon­alds, I usu­ally have the kid’s Happy Meal… a small ham­burger, small fries and a milk…not the most healthy meal but a mod­er­ate one when feel­ing the urge for fast food…and you get a toy!!

  3. Cabmonk

    Haven’t been to mcdon­alds since early 2006, not that I don’t have the urge to go, I love those ham­burg­ers. :)

  4. G

    They list the filet-o-fish at being a healthy choice… BUT, I am sure that it is over 400 calo­ries, and 20g of fat. Doesn’t sound so good to me!
    AND, a ham­burger isn’t the health­i­est thing on the menu— what about a chicken fajita? It’s only 200 calo­ries, and 5 grams of fat. Sounds good to me, AND they taste great:) Oh, and a gar­den salad with grilled chicken, is also only 200 calo­ries, and around 6 grams of fat… and if you skip salad dress­ing, and use salsa instead (sounds weird, but tastes fan­tas­tic:) It’s not a bad choice!

    A grilled spicy buf­falo snack wrap is also only 240 calo­ries, with 9 grams of fat… I’m pretty sure that’s bet­ter than the ranch one that they have listed there, because they use hot sauce, not a creamy sauce. I am sure there are other semi-good choices, but I really only have paid atten­tion to the things that I order.

  5. funkright

    McD’s new sal­ads (at least in Canada) are pretty good for you, get the grilled (not the fried chicken) and the Thai ver­sion, it all nets out at less than 450 calo­ries (it’s a full meal). Plus it tastes pretty good :)

  6. Cabmonk

    G, Remem­ber this is from Mcdon­alds US, I looked at their nutri­tion list and the low­est calo­rie wrap has 260 calo­ries and the ham­burger has 250 calories.

  7. G

    I real­ize that they are dif­fer­ent– I was just point out some good choices avail­able in Canada. I didn’t want any­one to mix up the filet-o-fish as a healthy option:) Espe­cially since this is a Cana­dian site:)

  8. ed

    It’s hard to believe that a McD salad (cus­tomized with­out any fatty dress­ings) is less healthy than a ham­burger! Even with a vinai­grette dress­ing it can’t be worse than a ham­burger. That makes no sense.

  9. mlongboat

    I always get the grilled snack wrap with no sauce:) Yes there’s cheese but its a spoon­ful of real shred­ded cheese. I dont think its too bad for me:)

  10. G

    mlong­boat– You can also ask for salsa on the side, and get the snack wrap plain, and add the salsa:) Tastes great!

  11. Syd

    what I was upset about was the removal of the orange drink, that was then replaced with Coke Zero. I don’t have the stats of the orange drink, but the Coke Zero is by far the worst car­bon­ated bev­er­age on the menu. while Coke has 350 calo­ries, it has almost no sodiun, while a large Zero has 85 mg of salt. Diet coke, while hav­ing twice the calo­ries of Zero (2), it also has less than half the sodium (30mg). Get the diet if you must so they will bring back the Orange!

  12. hm

    even if the burger has less calo­ries than a salad (it’s the sauce/dressing that is all calo­ries) the salad is still more ‘HEALTHY’ (being veg­eta­bles) than uber-processed meat and a white-@$$ bun.

    and if mcD’s takes some­thing called ‘orange drink’ off their menu, it’s gotta be pretty bad for you. (or maybe not pay as well as Coke).

  13. rrr

    ^^^ agree.

    less calo­ries != more healthy. peo­ple seem to get really bent up on calo­rie count. some­thing is more healthy, IMO, if it has more nutrients/calorie. obvi­ously calo­rie count is impor­tant, but I think you’re bet­ter to get a few more calo­ries then you need and all your nutri­ents, then not.

  14. Daani

    The peice of checken that you get on the salds is big­ger than the ham­burger itself :p . I work at mcdon­alds and am around (and con­sume) the food alot. Even though our tiny ham­burger may be less calo­ries (due to its small size) it does not con­tain 2 full serv­ings of veg­ta­bles let alone any veg­ta­bles at all (unless you con­sider one pickle and a sprickle of pow­dered onions veg­ta­bles). And one tiny ham­burger is usu­ally not a full meal to a grown woman or man. The sald how­ever is a full meal and then some.

  15. Daani

    What G says about putting slasa on the salad is an inter­est­ing idea, and one that i would like to try! thanks :)

  16. Daani

    Also we got rid of our orange drink due to lack of sales.

  17. urouj862

    i havent eaten any­thing from Mcdon­alds except their fries for more then 5 years now!, No healthy, when­ever i walk by one.… its hardd to resist MMM­M­M­M­M­M­M­M­m­m­m­m­M­MMm that smell… but No…

  18. Syd

    Daani, they told me at the drive thru that the orange was taken away because they needed the space for the coke 0. In any case, I will miss it dearly!

  19. Wednesday?

    How come it’s now Wednes­day, and there hasn’t been any­thing new posted since Mon­day? Just wondering…

  20. a

    @ Wednes­day; Pôôôôvre ti-pit.
    Did you even post some­thing lately?
    Peo­ple do what they can.
    What’s about you?

  21. Wednesday?

    @ “a”

    I only com­mented, because usu­ally there are mul­ti­ple posts per day, and it seems rare that they would miss a whole day. I wasn’t com­plain­ing or crit­i­ciz­ing, just wondering.

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