McDonald’s healthier if you avoid the Tick Approved Meals
McDonald’s healthier if you avoid the Tick Approved Meals |
| Thursday, 23 April 2009 10:50 |
| If you are worried about your sugar intake, eating from the McDonald’s burger menu is a better option than the Tick Approved meals according to a new report.
The investigation into the sugar content of the McDonald’s menu has found that it is relatively easy to eat a standard McDonald’s meal without consuming any significant amount of sugar. None of the 17 types of burger on offer contain more than one and three quarter teaspoons of sugar. The chicken options all contain one teaspoon or less. The lowest sugar burger is the Filet-o-Fish at a mere half a teaspoon. A serve of fries doesn’t add anything to the sugar count and neither will tea, coffee, diet coke or water. Some of the worst choices on the main menu are the newly introduced ‘Tick-Approved’ items. The Tick Approved Chicken Sweet Chilli Wrap, Garden Salad and Italian Dressing delivers almost three times as much sugar as the worst burger (McFeast Deluxe). A medium orange juice would add another eight and half teaspoons of sugar to the meal. New research confirms we should be more concerned about sugar than fat. A study out of the University of California released this week names the fructose found in sugar (and fruit juice) as the culprit behind the obesity epidemic and a raft of other health problems. In the study, obese individuals consumed drinks sweetened with fructose for 10 weeks. They ended up with increased (1.5kg) tummy fat, higher fatty triglycerides (which leads to heart disease) and 20% higher insulin resistance (which leads to Type II Diabetes). None of this happened to the control group. “As long as you avoid the full sugar drinks, condiments and deserts, you can eat just about anything on the McDonald’s menu without worrying too much about sugar,†said the report’s author, David Gillespie. According to the report, a large Fanta will deliver 16 full teaspoons of sugar and a McFlurry with M&Ms serves up just over 11 teaspoons of table sugar. The best option on the desert menu is the Apple Pie with just one and half teaspoons of sugar. The investigation into the McDonald’s menu was commissioned by David Gillespie, a former lawyer and author of Sweet Poison: Why Sugar Makes Us Fat (Penguin). For More Information Sources Press Release Published by Get The Word Out |