Saturday, August 18, 2012

Can you eat healthy when eating fast food? Probably not!

Don't trust the fast food marketing

Prevention Magazine has a really nice piece on McDonald's new 400 calorie of less campaign. It breaks down each item billed as 400 calories or less and analyzes the nutritional content. Don't let the very highly paid and adept marketing of fast food catch  you. The amounts of sodium, sugars, fats and added ingredients are startling. Here are a couple of examples, but I highly recommend you follow the below links and read the entire content, so you don't get caught in their marketing traps. Stay healthy!

Premium Grilled Chicken Ranch BLT Sandwich, grilled: 380 cal

McDonalds' website calls this one "Refined and real, all on the same bun." We're not sure if they meant refined as in "elegant," or refined as in "processed"—but it's more the latter, according to the ingredient list. The chicken contains rib meat, maltodextrin, and sodium phosphates and the "bakery style bun" has high fructose corn syrup, dough conditioners, and ammonium sulfate. This sandwich gives you a quarter of your daily cholesterol, 10 g of fat, 9 grams of sugar, and 1,000 mg of sodium. 
Swap it for: A whole dinner of grilled chicken slathered in barbecue sauce, with a buttered ear of corn—for the same amount of calories. 


Read more: http://www.prevention.com/food/healthy-eating-tips/how-healthy-are-mcdonalds-400-calorie-meals/premium-grilled-chicken-ranch-blt-sandwich-380-cal#ixzz23v5lZ7OY


Mango Pineapple Real Fruit Smoothie (large): 350 cal

McDonald's boasts that every size of their "real fruit smoothie" is under 400 calories. But a large mango pineapple smoothie has a whopping 77 g of sugar—which is the equivalent of eating almost three Snickers bars, in terms of the sugar content. And just in case you're wondering, the "real fruit" includes "clarified demineralized pineapple juice concentrate," which is a sweetener, not a chunk of vitamin-C-packed raw pineapple.
Swap it for: Some whole real fruit, plus filling peanut butter and soy milk, in our Peanut Butter Soy Smoothie instead.


Read more: http://www.prevention.com/food/healthy-eating-tips/how-healthy-are-mcdonalds-400-calorie-meals/mango-pineapple-real-fruit-smoothie-large---350-cal#ixzz23v669lOl


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