McDonalds Calories, Health Quiz

Article by Diet Bites

Quiz Results for Calories and Good Menu Choices for Dieters at McDonald's Restaurant: Answer is - CORRECT

Fast Food Restaurants Menus Getting Healthier Over Time

Fast food is forever changing and the Filet-O-Fish and the Quarter Pounder from McDonalds Filet-O-Fish are two prime examples of such. When we first wrote the fast food quiz some years back, the Quarter Pounder was actually lower in caloric and fat content than the fish sandwich.

At that time, the fish sandwich contained almost 500 calories - and was one fat fish.

Since the time our health quiz debuted, McDonalds has been working on making many healthy changes to its menu - and the fish sandwich is just one healthier change.

The Filet-O-Fish now contains 390 calories with a tab over 19 grams of fat which is a substantial leap forward in the area of better nutrition.

Even Burger King is making some fine steps forward in this area. At the time our health quiz debuted, their BK Fish contains 720 calories and 43 grams of total dietary fat. These days it has trimmed down to 590 calories and 31 fat grams - as served at the restaurant.

Remove the tartar sauce and caloric values decrease to 410 calories and 12 total fat grams - just one reason why it's a great idea to bring along your own fat-reduced sandwich sauces.

Along this same line, to trim the caloric content in the Filet--O-Fish sandwich order without cheese and ask your server to go light on the tartar sauce. This will trim about 100 calories and several fat grams - thus making it an even healthier choice over the Quarter Pounder.

Burger Calories, Fat Content

Let's view the nutrition data for the Quarter Pounder: 417 calories with about 20 grams of total fat. Not so bad at all for a hamburger of this size.

Although the Quarter Pounder can fit into most all diet plans based on caloric content alone, there is the area of dietary fat distribution. And the fat associated with red meat is saturated and Trans - the two worst fat offenders in the daily diet and fats which we should limit for heart health.

Lower Calorie, Reduced Fat Menu Options

Here are a few other suggestions at McDonald's Restaurant based on caloric content alone.

Hamburger - 265 calories with 9.75 grams of fat
Small fry - 224 calories with 11.45 grams of fat
Vanilla Fat Reduced Ice Cream Cone - 150 calories, 3.5 fat grams

Even if you enjoyed the hamburger, the small fry and the ice cream cone - so what?  It's about 639 calories and less than 25 grams of fat.

Tips for Fast Food While Dieting, Calorie Management

Here is the key; when splurging on fast food while on a weight loss plan, you'll need to monitor closely your other meals of the day.

For example, a bowl of breakfast cereal in the morning with skim milk and slices of fresh fruit contains about 250 calories - and of course the caloric content will change depending upon the cereal consumed. Let's assume that we're having corn flakes for 110 calories, skim milk for 90 calories per cup and 50 calories worth of sliced fruit.

So now our caloric daily total is just under 900 calories.

For dinner and snack times, add fruit and other foods so that you fill in your day with selections that will assist in meeting your Food Group recommendations. We've already satisfied our dairy recommendation for the day.

We have a good start on our vegetables - and need to add one more serving. We only have two servings of grain - the cereal and the hamburger bun, so we'll need to add a grain selection to each snack time as well as for our other meal of the day.

Let's assume that we add a popcorn cake for one snack and a rice cake for the other for an additional 100 calories of energy; now we're at 1,000 for our total and we only need to add two more grains to be at our minimal recommendation.

We also need to add one protein-based food to our day to meet our minimal servings as well as about 2 fruit selections. So let's build our remaining plate like this: 1 salad mix of shredded lettuce, cilantro, chopped onion and 5 cherry tomatoes; 1/2 cup of seasoned pinto beans, 2 corn tortillas, salsa, 1 Tablespoon of reduced fat shredded cheese equaling about 300 calories.

Heat the seasoned beans; they can be seasoned with chili powder and ground cumin with fresh cilantro - or use the salsa for seasoning power. Place the heated beans into the heated corn tortillas, top with more salsa, the salad mix and cheese.

We'll add a cup of melon to our dessert as well as 1 cup of whole strawberries to our third snack of the day.

Now we've satisfied all the food group recommendations and our daily total equals about 1,400 calories.

Nutrition Facts for McDonald's Fillet-O-Fish

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