Are popular burgers "Happy Meals"? Fat chance!!

It's almost an insulting and cruel joke to name greasy fries, sugar-rich drinks, and high fat & sodium/white flour burgers as a happy meal, but it makes McDonald's happy anyway. Don't mean to beat up on poor ol' Mac coz they are not in the health field, and are giving the public what the public continues to want. It's up to us as individuals to make healthy choices and eat well. But all fast food consumers would benefit from more knowledge of what they are eating.

Obviously there are 1000s of junk food diners and the sky's the limit on invented menu offerings. However, the more we question what's in the product, the more informed we are. Note: am not using the word "food" here, as it's hard to imagine that a lot of this stuff qualifies for that label. Case in point: MacDonald's Happy Meal. This headline was attention-getting last week: "McDonald's Happy Meal resists mold for six months!"

Now I am not an nutrition expert, but doesn't real food get moldy, shrivel, and rot? Even plastics exposed changes its colors. But take a look at this photo comparison of a happy meal on day 1 and at 6 months, left on a shelf. There is hardly any difference. McDonald's Happy Meal resists decomposition for six months

So this is only one meal from one place, and just what the blazes is in that? Can it be of any benefit to your body? Perhaps if you are sodium, sugar, or fat deprived, then yes.

It's recommended that adults get no more than 1500 mg of sodium a day. If you really are not getting enough salt in your diet, then try this salt blast - the infamous
Double Down burger from KFC, with its 1740 mg of sodium, 540 calories, and 30 grams of fat. I bet that will never ever rot.


Even if there were any living organisms in it, they probably all perished from cardiac problems. This double-trouble burger is pretty much the same as many other fast food offering in terms of fat and calories, but the sodium level makes your heart stop a while.

Too bad that products like this are so popular, and ultimately create unhappy experiences at the hospital. But it does not have to be, it's a free choice world, and it's a matter of which ones we make.

KFC's Double Down - New burger to die from for

If you want to get 92% of your daily recommended dose of sodium in one food item, then Kentucky Fried Chicken's Double Down, will not let you down. Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, obesity specialist, at Weighty Matters, reports that this new beast, or beasts (chicken and bacon), weighs in at 540 calories and 1,380 mg of sodium (adults are recommended to get not more than 1500 mg of sodium a day).

It is a "breadless" burger, if you forget the two coated deep-fried chicken fillets, that surrounds two strips of bacon, and two slices of processed cheese.

Freedhoff's food articles remind me of reading comparisons between Canon and Nikon cameras, as if each negative (no pun intended) feature is a positive. In this link he compares the Double Down to a "secret" McDonald's menu item, called the Mc10:35, because it is a combo of egg and bacon taken from the breakfast McMuffin, and added to the McDouble (replacing inadequate McSingle), at the changeover time between bk and lunch (apparently now popular in the San Francisco area .. so far).

Estimated calories 560, estimated sodium 1,300mg.
Nutritionally? Pretty much a wash. Yuck factor? Flip a coin.
The winner?
The Double Down.

The winner will indeed be KFC. For a few minutes, consumers tasting this will feel like they've won a prize. Too bad that all those types of happy meals don't keep us happy after we consume them.

Ontario's Big Mac Tax Axe

Ontario will be exempting fast food under $4.00 from 8% of it's 13% HST coming up next July.

The exemptions announced Thursday on food or beverages heated for consumption, salads, sandwiches; platters of cheese, cold cuts, fruit and vegetables will cost the province $325 million in revenue, Duncan said, but the plan will more than pay for itself in jobs created and by expanding the tax base overall.

There are a couple of quirky things about this, from two angles. First of all, health care needs less strain on it, rather than having more obesity, heart, stroke and other problems associated with over consumption of garbage food, that cheaper junk may assist in doing. Second, a customer might buy individual products like fries, or a drink, or a burger, separately for under $4.00 but if they buy a combo, then it goes over $4.00, and then all the same products now become taxed.

Food and beverages heated for consumption will presumably cover many junk foods burgers, fries, hot dogs, spam-type meat sandwiches, etc., so is that a step forward for society? Or, healthcare, which is a huge piece of a provincial budget? Making it easier to have future health problems seems to be part of Ontario's HST plan. Perhaps the 591,000 net new jobs over 10 years will include many more health professionals to help deal with a combo of health problems trash food contributes to.