A Teaspoon Guide to Mcdonald's®

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A Teaspoon Guide to McDonald’s® 2009

A Teaspoon Guide to McDonald’s

McDonald’s are often portrayed as the most evil of junk food purveyors and the obvious source of most of Australia’s health problems. But how bad are they from a fructose perspective? Remember that a good rule of thumb for fructose content is to see how much sugar is in the food and halve it.

The following lists set out the items on the 2009 McDonald’s Australian menus analyzed and ranked according to sugar content. As you’ll soon be able to tell, it’s easy to have a filling meal at McDonald’s without binging on sugar. All you need to do is avoid most of the drinks, the desserts and the condiments. Just about everything else is just fine.

Burgers It’s a rare person who goes to Macca’s without visions of imbibing in a burger. So that’s a logical place to start. Here is a list of all the McDonald’s burger offerings ranked by sugar content per serve. Obviously One Serve = One Burger. Because the burgers are different sizes the percentage sugar is different to the teaspoon ranking.

Even when taking into account all that lovely sauce, there isn’t a single burger which will slug you with more than two teaspoons of sugar. And you will eat less than a teaspoon of sugar by having any of the top seven choices (which are all chicken or fish based).

Teaspoons of sugar Burger Percentage Sugar per Burger ◑ Filet-o-Fish 1.9% ◕ Classic Crispy Chicken 1.6% ◕ Classic Seared Chicken 2.0% ● McChicken 2.0% ● Crispy Chicken 1.9% ● Crispy Chicken Deluxe with Bacon 2.0% ● Seared Chicken Deluxe 2.3% ◔● Hamburger 5.0% 1 McDonald’s is a registered trademark of McDonald's Australia Limited © 2009 Morton Gillespie Pty Ltd - David Gillespie.

A Teaspoon Guide to McDonald’s® 2009

Teaspoons of sugar Burger Percentage Sugar per Burger ◔● Cheeseburger 4.6% ◔● Seared Chicken Fillet with Bacon 2.3% ◔● Double Cheeseburger 3.3% ◔● Triple Cheeseburger 3.6% ◑● Big Mac 3.0% ◑● Lean Beef Burger 3.9% ◕● Quarter Pounder 3.5% ◕● Double Quarter Pounder 2.4% ◕● McFeast Deluxe 3.1%

Wraps The Wraps aren’t too bad either as long as you avoid anything with ‘Sweet Chilli’ in its name.

Teaspoons of sugar Wrap Percentage Sugar per Wrap ◔ Mini Seared Chicken 0.9% ◕ Mini Crispy Snack 2.9% ● Deli-Choices Seared Chicken Caesar 2.1% Tick Approved Chicken Tandoori 2.5% ◑● Deli-Choices Crispy Chicken Caesar 3.3% ◑●●● Tick Approved Chicken Sweet Chilli 6.7% ◔●●●● Deli-Choices Crispy Chicken Sweet Chilli 7.9%

French Fries & Chicken Nuggets You can safely add fries and Nuggets to you order as well. There isn’t any sugar in French Fries and you would need to eat 60 McNuggets to consume just one teaspoon of sugar. If you cant eat a McNugget without a dipping sauce then you are in sugar trouble (see condiments below).

Drinks Getting a low sugar drink at Macca’s is a little trickier, but now that they sell water, it’s no longer as hard. Most of the rest of the drink menu leaves a lot to be desired if you don’t like artificial sweeteners or hot drinks. 2 McDonald’s is a registered trademark of McDonald's Australia Limited © 2009 Morton Gillespie Pty Ltd - David Gillespie.

A Teaspoon Guide to McDonald’s® 2009

The milk based drinks in this list have been adjusted to allow for the lactose. This means I have reduced the sugar content on the label by 4.7% to allow for the lactose in milk (which of course does not contain fructose – confused yet? Read Sweet Poison).

Here are the drinks ranked from lowest sugar per serve to highest.

Teaspoons of sugar Percentage Sugar per Drink (after Drink (after removing lactose) removing lactose) ○ Diet Coke (All Sizes) 0.0% ○ Spring Water 0.0% ○ All Coffee and Tea based drinks 0.0% Small Sprite 8.6% ◕●●●●● Small Orange Juice 8.2% ●●●●●● Small Chocolate Shake 8.5% Small Vanilla Shake 13.5% ◔●●●●●● Small Coke 9.3% Small Strawberry Shake 13.5% ◑●●●●●● Apple Juice 11.0% ◕●●●●●●● Small Fanta 11.4% ◔●●●●●●●● Medium Sprite 8.6% ◑●●●●●●●● Medium Orange Juice 8.2% ◕●●●●●●●● Medium Coke 9.3% ●●●●●●●●●● Regular Frozen Coke or Fanta 13.5% ◕●●●●●●●●●● Medium Fanta 11.4% ◑●●●●●●●●●●● Large Chocolate Shake 8.5% ●●●●●●●●●●●● Large Strawberry or Vanilla Shake 8.9% ●●●●●●●●●●●● Large Sprite 8.6% Large Coke 9.3% ●●●●●●●●●●●●● Large Frozen Fanta 13.5% ◔●●●●●●●●●●●●● Large Frozen Coke 13.5% ●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●● Large Fanta 11.4%

Desserts And don’t even think about desert. But just in case you’re curious, here they are (once again adjusted for lactose). If you cant get through a meal without pudding, then I recommend you stick to the Applie Pie.

A Teaspoon Guide to McDonald’s® 2009

Teaspoons of sugar Percentage Sugar per Dessert (after Dessert (after removing lactose) removing lactose) ◑● Apple Pie 8.6% ◔●●● Soft Serve Cone 14.9% ●●●● McDonaldland Cookies 27.6% ●●●●● Sundae with no topping 15.9% ◕●●●●●●●● Sundae with Strawberry topping 21.3% ◕●●●●●●●● Sundae with Hot Caramel topping 20.8% ◕●●●●●●●● McFlurry with Oreo Cookies 16.8% ◔●●●●●●●●● Sundae with Hot Fudge topping 22.5% ◔●●●●●●●●●●● McFlurry with M&M Minis 20.5%

Breakfast If breakfast is your thing, then there are some very low sugar options at Macca’s. But beware of anything involving a ‘Hotcake’. Here’s the list:

Teaspoons of sugar Meal Item Percentage Sugar per item ○ Hash Brown 0.0% ○ Vegemite Spread 0.0% ○ All Coffee and Tea based drinks 0.0% ○ Whipped Butter (after adjusting for lactose) 0.0% Peanut Butter Spread 8.1% English Muffin 2.0% ◔ Sausage McMuffin 1.3% Sausage & Egg McMuffin 1.0% ◑ Bacon & Egg McMuffin 1.4% Marmalade 65.2% ◔●● Strawberry Jam 65.5% Deli-Choices Deluxe Brekkie Roll 4.4% ◑●● English Muffin & Jam 14.6% ◕●● Honey 82.1% ◔●●● Deli-Choices Deluxe Brekkie Roll 6.0% ◑●●● Plain Hotcakes 9.4% ●●●●● Uncle Toby’s Yoghurt & Muesli Cup (ex-Lactose) 10.5% ◑●●●●●●● Hotcake Syrup 53.3% ●●●●●●●●●●● Hotcakes with Syrup and Butter 20.8%

A Teaspoon Guide to McDonald’s® 2009

A little while ago McDonald’s decided the health conscious among us needed to be lured through the door with all manner of healthier options. They are ‘healthier’ because they are low fat but in many cases sugar makes an unwelcome appearance via dressings.

Teaspoons of sugar Menu Item Percentage Sugar per Menu Item ○ Pasta Pets 0.4% Caesar Salad Dressing 3.1% ◔ Garden Salad (No Dressing) 1.1% Crispy Chicken Caesar with Bagel Chips (No Dressing) 0.7% ◑ Seared Chicken Caesar with Bagel Chips (No Dressing) 0.9% Zoo Goo Sauce 7.7% Italian Salad Dressing 9.8% ◕ Classic Chicken Caesar with Bagel Chips (No Dressing) 0.9% Seared Classic Chicken Caesar with Bagel Chips (No Dressing) 1.1% ● Balsamic Salad Dressing 9.4% Apple Slices 11.5% ◕● Tick Approved Filet-o-Fish, Garden Salad and Italian Dressing 2.5% ●● Tick Approved McChicken, Garden Salad and Italian Dressing 2.4% ◔●● Tick Approved Hamburger, Garden Salad and Italian Dressing 3.6% Tick Approved Chicken Tandoori Wrap, Garden Salad and Italian Dressing 2.6% ◑●● Tick Approved 6pc McNuggets, Garden Salad and Italian Dressing 3.7% Tick Approved Lean Beef Burger, Garden Salad and Italian Dressing 3.4% ◑●●●● Tick Approved Chicken Sweet Chilli Wrap, Garden Salad and Italian Dressing 5.0%

Condiments While many of the meals above a very low in sugar, a sugar avoider can come undone in the condiment department. A low sugar lifestyle means learning to eat a Macca’s meal without smothering it in any of the following. If you can stop at one serve (one little packet) you might not do too much harm but remember each sachet contains the number of teaspoons of sugar you see in this table:

Teaspoons of sugar Condiment Percentage Sugar per sachet ◔ Creamy Ranch Dipping Sauce 4.5% ◑ Ketchup 20.5% ◔● Mustard 20.3% Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce 34.1% ●● Barbeque Sauce 31.2% ◔●● Tangy Plum Dipping Sauce 38.1% ◑●● Sweet & Sour Sauce 35.8% ◕●● Sweet Thai Chilli Sauce 39.6%