McDonalds\\\' Healthiest and Least Healthy Meals

McDonalds Corporation is the leading fast food restaurant across the globe and has continued to experience tremendous growth and profitability since inception. This fast food chain restaurant provides different food items that range from snacks to breakfast meals. In the past few years, the restaurant has faced significant attention in relation to the health and nutrition of its fast food items. Consequently, the McDonalds has introduced new food items and discontinued others in attempts to address health concerns. However, the fast food restaurant still has healthy and least healthy meals. This paper compares two meals provided by McDonalds i.e. Fruit and Maple Oatmeal (healthiest meal) and Big Mac (least healthy meal).

Fruit and Maple Oatmeal and Big Mac are two meals at McDonalds that vary in terms of nutritional value as shown by their nutritional information. The difference in the nutritional value of these food items is evident in their caloric value, fat grams, carbohydrate grams, protein, and sodium levels. Based on the nutritional information sheet for McDonald's menu, Fruit & Maple Oatmeal (9.2 ounces) contains 290 calories whereas McDonald's Big Mac (219g) contains 563 calories. McDonald's Big Mac contains more calories than a Fruit & Maple Oatmeal despite weighing less i.e. 7.6 ounces.

The total fat of a McDonald's Big Mac is 33g, which accounts for 50% of daily value based on a 2,000 calorie diet as follows:

• Saturated fat 8g.

• Trans fat 1.3g.

• Polyunsaturated fat 0.7g.

• Monounsaturated fat 8g.

On the contrary, the total fat of McDonald's Fruit & Maple Oatmeal is 4.5 g, which accounts for 6% of daily value based on a 2,000 calorie diet as follows:

• Saturated fat 1.5g.

• Trans fat 0g.

The carbohydrate grams for Fruit & Maple Oatmeal and McDonald's Big Mac also vary in terms of nutritional value. The difference is as shown below:

Fruit & Maple Oatmeal

McDonald's Big Mac

Total Carbohydrate 49g

Total Carbohydrate 44g

Dietary Fiber 5g

Dietary Fiber 3.5g

Sugars 18g

Sugar 9g

The protein for Fruit & Maple Oatmeal is 6g whereas protein for Big Mac is 26g, which accounts for 12% and 52% respectively. On the other hand, the sodium levels for McDonald's Fruit & Maple Oatmeal are 160mg whereas those of Big Mac are 1007mg.

As previously mentioned, this nutritional information about McDonald's Fruit & Maple Oatmeal and Big Mac are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. This calorie diet is utilized to determine the percent values of each of these elements in order to show the nutritional value of the two meals. This implies that any changes to the level of calorie diet will in turn change the level of calories, fat, carbohydrates, protein, and sodium levels. The levels of these various items are usually dependent on the calorie needs in each diet. Therefore, changes on the serving size will in turn contribute to changes in AMDR calculations and calories. Consequently, an individual's choice on nutritional and healthy meal when choosing between these two will be affected by changes on the serving size. The nutritional value of a food item is slightly influenced by the serving size, which has an effect on the level of calories, protein, sodium, carbohydrates and other nutritional elements.