No longer. And, they are phasing out the transfats. A single Hamburger- or even one of the larger double meat sandwiches- is not bad for you. What is bad for you is eating too many hamburgers sodas and fries, or worse yet- only hamburgers sodas and fries.
On occassion, if you don’t overdo it, nothing wrong with fast food (assuming normal healthy metabolism, not odd alergies, medical conditions etc). Nothing wrong with a big slice of birthday cake either- but eating cake every damn day is very bad for you.
Lets see. diabetes [so I seriously control my useless carbs and concentrate on high fiber veggies and limit my fats heavily] Thyroid problems the navy refuses to diagnose [despite the fact I have every symptom mrAru has, and using his synthroid relieves, except the shredding fingernails. I gained 150 lbs over 3 years without changing my diet or activity level.] Badly damaged back and assorted joint problems that restrict me to gentle walking as exercise. I average 1200-1500 kcal a day and barely maintain my weight. My metabolism is exceptionally sluggish. I was stuck in bed for 3 months and unable to eat at all back when I was still healthy as a frosh in university and lost all of 4 lbs on water and broth [i could only keep down very fat free unsalted chicken broth and water.] I gained weight on iv feeding when the doc finally decided to hospitalize me. I used to gain weight running 5 miles a day when I played soccer in high school and was still eating much less than 2000 cal a day.
I joke that I have an exceptional ability to survive famines
Blargh … I suppose the craptastic beef used by fast food places does need something to make it taste better, but a home made burger from good quality beef, with a tiny dash of worchestershire sauce needs nothing more than a really great homemade cibatta roll and trimmings like a microthin slice of red onion, some leaves of butter lettuce and a thin slice of homegrown beefsteak tomato to make it perfect.
Cant abide catsup - for some reason I react badly to teh high fructose corn syrup in it - makes my glucose go crazy. I really wish there was a brand of catsup that used cane sugar. I can tolerate cane or beet sugar in the tiny amount that would be in catsup but not the HF corn syrup.
Isnt there some rumor around that HF cornsyrup is causing all sorts of health problems now?
Actually, I have kept a food diary for years [I adore my PDA, frees me from the little notebook of doom=)] as part of monitoring. It is why I can eat MSG as it has apparently never triggered a migraine, and avoid HF corn syrup like the plague as I noticed my pp glucose readings going wonky when I have catsup or something with FH cornsyrup in it. Cane sugar doesnt do the wild swings like the corn syrup, just a single spike.]
I was thrilled when I got onto the internet and discovered the USDA site that has all the nutritional info on pretty much anything you can think of eating. Great fun looking at stuff you thought was healthy to realize how much sodium or fat is in it=)
There’s no such thing as low-fat oil. Oil is, by definition, fatty acids, i.e. fat. Some oils are worse for your health than others and some are more reusable than others, but they’re always “fat”.
aru, several years ago I had a severe bout of gastrenteritis. The only thing I could have for over two weeks was water; the following week I was able to convince my stomach that Golden Apples Are Good For You If You Chew Slowly. I was working 14h days.
Weight loss: zip. I’m still trying to figure it out.
What nutrients do you think it lacks? It has penty of protien, and we don’t usually look to meat dishes as a source of fiber. The vitamin content isn’t bad.
You could do far worse than a cheeseburger, side salad and OJ.
Actually, I’d suggest you read the judge’s summary of his decision before you start throwing this cite around. The only two defamatory statements that the judge found were “true” (and thus not libelous) where that McDonald’s was “responsible” for the inhumane treatment of animals by their meat and egg suppliers (page 8), and that they targeted children in their advertising (page 7). The judge also disagreed with McDonald’s that characterizing their food as “low quality” or “at best mediocre” was not comment, and thus defamatory. Overall, however, the judge disagreed with virtually everything the Defendants said, both in their pamphlet and in the course of their defense. The six highlights that the McLibel people have drawn out are weak enough when taken out of context as they’ve done, but are no vindication at all when considered in situ.
The problem IMHO is not the hamburger, it’s the stuff added to the McDonald’s hamburger that causes problems…the amount of preservatives and sugar added to this piece of beef is disgusting…rent the movie Super Size Me and you will probably not eat at a fast food joint for quite some time…there is a scene toward the end of the movie where they take a McDonald’s Burger and a “home made” burger and put them in a jar to see what will happen over time…the McD burger basically sits there almost unchanged, while the other starts to mold an disintegrate into mush…and whatever you do, don’t eat that french fry you found under your car seat, although it looks like you may have just dropped it, it could have been there for years and still looks exactly the same…on that note, I am off for a double cheeseburger from the dollar menu…
Morgan Spurlock ate 5000 calories per day, from what I’ve read in the reviews (haven’t seen the movie). And you’re right, he didn’t eat at McD’s every day…he stuffed himself at McD’s every day. If you stuffed yourself with 5000 calories everyday at Salads-R-Us you’d get fucked up as well. Additionally, he restricted his exercise during the month that the movie was shot. And finally, his girlfriend is a vegan chef. Uh, can you say “political agenda?” Not that I’m necessarily defending McD’s…it’s just that I resent scare tactics by muckrakers.
Heh, Supersize Me had spin like the hubcaps on a pimped up El Camino. Even more jarring because it was contrasted with the spin put forth by McDonalds. My favorite example is towards the end, where he talks about how even the McDondals salads have sugar in them, with a shot of a McSalad, complete with tomatos. Tomatos are fruit. Fruit has lots of sugar. For all I know, there could have been a layer of Pixie Stick dust underneath the lettuce, but he didn’t give me enough information there for me to know that the sugar WASN’T naturally occuring fructose. I don’t recall the shot of the salad including any extra salad dressing or anything either.
Incidentally, his girlfriend gave up veganism soon after Morgan quit his month-long force-feeding binge, according to the little title cards at the end of the movie.
As for the burgers having preservatives… ARE preservatives bad for you? We’re talking the stuff they put in McBurgers and twinkies and Smuckers Jelly, not formaldyhide, of course. Used to be that it wasn’t all that unheard of for meat to be spoiled before it got out of the packaging plant. Bunch of US soldiers in Cuba suffered from severe food poisoning during the Spanish American War because their rations had all gone bad before being packaged and shipped to the front lines. I think I like the idea of the hamburgers being specifically designed NOT to go bad, thankyouverymuch.
This site, from the About.com people, has nutrition information on a wide variety of items.
I took the information for 1/4-pound of 75% lean ground beef, (the fattiest variety of ground beef I could find listed), pan-broiled (which, seemed to be reasonable parallel to whatever McDonalds is doing to their meat these days), on a Mrs. Baird’s sesame seed hamburger bun (the only sesame seed bun listed).
I compared that to McDonalds’ nutritional information for a quarter pounder stripped of everything but the sesame seed bun and the “grilling spices”, which again, I assumed can’t be removed at point-of-sale.
I realize we were wondering about the regular hamburger, but on Calorie-Counter, I had a choice of a 1/4 pound, or doing the math to compare a McD’s hamburger to whatever multiple of 3 oz I would need for an apples-to-apples comparison. No one is paying me to do this math, so I went for the QP.
The results (%'s are RDA for 2000-calorie diet):
Item McDonalds Homemade
Calories 420 361
Calories from Fat 160 145
Total Fat 18(27%) 16.2(24%)
Saturated Fat 7(37%) 5.4(28%)
Cholesterol 70(23%) 64(21%)
Sodium 730(30%) 307(13%)
Carbohydrates 40(13%) 30(10%)
Dietary Fiber 3(11%) 1(4%)
Sugars 8 4
Protein 24 23.1
Vitamin A 100(2%) 0
Vitamin C 2(2%) 0
Calcium 15% 8%
Iron 25% 21%
The McDonalds Quarter Pounder contains: 16% more calories than if you made it yourself with some of the fattiest ground beef available 10% more fat (by weight and calories), including 1/3 more saturated fat almost 10% more cholesterol more than double the sodium 33% more carbs, including twice the sugar,
all for a negligible protein advantage trace amounts of Vitamins A and C
and sizeable increases in Calcium and Iron, the one area they scored well in.
After all that, it turns out I made a mistake. At some point, when I went back to the McDonalds site to check my numbers, I forgot to remove the condiments before calculation.
In the spirit of honesty, please consider my previous post amended to read:
Item McDonalds Homemade
Calories 400 361
Calories from Fat 160 145
Total Fat 18(27%) 16.2(24%)
Saturated Fat 7(37%) 5.4(28%)
Cholesterol 70(23%) 64(21%)
Sodium 460(30%) 307(13%)
Carbohydrates 35(12%) 30(10%)
Dietary Fiber 3(11%) 1(4%)
Sugars 5 4
Protein 24 23.1
Vitamin A 0 0
Vitamin C 0 0
Calcium 15% 8%
Iron 20% 21%
The McDonalds Quarter Pounder contains: more than 10% more calories than if you made it yourself with some of the fattiest ground beef available (the extra calories are in the ketchup, apparently) 10% more fat (by weight and calories), including 1/3 more saturated fat almost 10% more cholesterol 50% more sodium (it was in the condiments) 16% more carbs, including 25% more sugar almost 5% LESS Iron
all for a negligible protein advantage
and sizeable increases in Calcium, the one area they scored well in. (Butter in the mix?)
(No vitamins and C in the stripped QP. Reagan was right! Ketchup IS a vegetable!)
If you ask they should leave off the burger seasoning to keep the sodium down. It’s a common tactic to get a fresh meat patty instead of one that’s been sitting in the heater for half an hour.
