Fast Food Intake Analysis

                                           Fast Food Intake Analysis

        Many already know the harmful effects of fast food. Most already know it’s not healthy for you, yet people still eat fast food more than they should. Why? Because they throw out all the knowledge of the effects of fast food because they’re in a rush. Don’t get me wrong, I eat fast food on occasion as well because it’s the easiest option, but just because it’s the easiest option doesn’t mean that it’s the healthiest option. I analyzed McDonald’s Big Mac Burger with a side of fries and a large Coke as a meal. I took note of the amount of fat and calories in each item.

        In a Big Mac there is 33 grams of fat and 563 calories. That is 50% of your daily value in one burger. There is 1,007 mg of sodium in this burger as well and 9 grams of sugar. This burger is high in about everything. It contains way too much sodium. More than what is healthy. Also if you add in the other food items that are normally consumed along with the burger then it is a lot for one meal.

        In a medium fry from McDonalds there is 18grams of fat, 27% of your daily value. There is 221 mg of sodium in a medium fry and has 378 calories. These fries are just a side and they already have 27% of your daily value of fat. These are obviously not a food that should be eaten every day. Eating these should be kept to a minimum to maintain and healthy intake of fat.

In a medium Coke there isn’t much fat. Just 0.1g of fat and 19mg of sodium. There is 44 grams of sugar in a medium cup of Coke from McDonalds and 39 mg of caffeine. That’s quite a bit for one drink. Let alone most people will refill their cup. There is healthier options for drinks at McDonalds but the majority of people will get a soda because that is what they have the most of.

This meal would be 51.1 grams of fat and 1,123 calories. If you are going on a 2,600 calories per day diet you would be almost half way through what you should be eating that day in just one meal. This meal contains roughly 1,247 mg of sodium. This meal is obviously not very healthy. All together it could be cut down some by down grading to a small fry and a small drink. But the average person gets a medium drink and fry.

This meal would not fit into my daily diet unless I only had very healthy things for the rest of the day. It would be very hard to have this as an everyday meal. I would have to very cautious of what I ate for the rest of the day because I would want to have the calories fit into 2,600 and with this meal I would already be half way there and it would be hard to plan the rest of my meals around that. With there being so much saturated fat in one meal it can be harmful to your body. That much saturated fat shouldn’t be digested in one sitting like so. All of the fats in this meal are saturated and that is not good for your body to ingest that much in one sitting. There is 1.3 grams of trans-fat in the whole meal. Overall this meal is not healthy and is not a good fast food option.