Fast Food Calorie Content
Fast food is a very popular type of food eaten all around the world, and taken to denote food that is prepared and served quickly. The image of fast food typified by hamburgers, fried chicken, French fries, and pizza has been reinforced by the many large fast food corporations of the twentieth century, but as a matter of fact, fast food has existed for even longer.
“Fast food” has long existed in various forms in many cultures around the world like the ubiquitous noodle shops of East Asia, or the bread stalls of the Middle East. However, here we will consider the nutritional properties of popular commercial fast food such as the fast food you get from McDonalds or Kentucky Fried Chicken. Let’s take a look at the calorie and nutritional content typically found in such fast foods.
Calorie wise, fast foods have relatively high calorie content. There are some quarters who label fast food as “junk food.” To be fair, junk food is food with hardly any nutritional value in them. But, at least fast food scores points on some aspects of nutrition.
Fast food is in fact similar in nutritional value to home cooked meals, but of course, they pack a lot more calories than most foods, plus they come with a lot of added “ingredients” which are not within your control, like additives, salt, sugar, and fat, especially trans fat (trans fatty acids). Notwithstanding a typical hamburger with cheese inside actually provides about a quarter of an adult’s daily nutritional needs for protein, iron, calcium, and zinc!
The danger in fast food is consuming too much of it coupled with their high levels of trans fat. Not that it bothers the majority of people. Fast food has become the norm today, and most people do not care too much about the drawbacks of fast food, or their high levels of trans fat. In recent times, many major fast food corporations have announce plans to phase out, reduce or totally eliminate the amount of trans fat from their products.
Here is a chart showing the approximate calorie and nutritional content in standard servings of some hamburgers/sandwiches from McDonalds, a leading fast food corporation.
As can be seen from the sample of McDonalds hamburgers above, fast food is usually pretty high in calories. The Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese weighs in at a whopping 740 calories per serving. Clearly, if you eat a lot of fast food everyday, your daily calorie intake will skyrocket.
Despite all the bad press about fast food, why do people continue to throng fast food restaurants? The reasons often given by people are:
- Convenience
- Cleanliness
- Friendly service
- Delicious food
- Value for money
- Speed
In conclusion, it can be deduced that nutritional concerns rank very low on most people’s priorities when it comes to choosing food. Some fast food eaten now and then, is OK. But for weight watchers (and people with sensitive physiology, allergies, high blood pressure, and weak digestion), the high calories, salt, sugar, and additives of fast food can inflict health problems, and are therefore best avoided.