www.nutritiondata.com
Many people do not know how many calories they consume when they eat at fast food restaurants. The Web site www.nutritiondata.com gives people nutrition information about the fast food meals they love.

The skinny on fast food – what are you eating?

Lindsay Law LAW05002@BYUI.EDU Scroll Staff

Arby’s, Wendy’s, McDonald’s and other fast food restaurants dot the city of Rexburg, offering students many choices for getting a quick fix of fries or other foods.

However, such restaurants do not always offer the healthiest food, and sometimes students do not realize the nutritional value of their favorite meals.

In a recent poll of 300 people about the number of calories in their lunches, McDonald’s customers underestimated the calorie content by about 40 calories. Subway customers believed they had eaten 225 calories less than actually consumed, according to an article in Prevention magazine.

One Web site, www.nutritiondata.com, has a solution to this problem. It contains the nutritional facts for food served at many popular fast food restaurants and also has graphs and charts about the content of the food.

In Rexburg as in many other places, most of the most popular orders at restaurants are loaded with calories, fat and sodium.

Arby’s: A regular roast beef sandwich has 320 calories and 13 grams of fat, but squirting mayonnaise on adds 100 calories and 11 grams of fat. A small order of curly fries to snack on contains 336 calories and 18 grams of fat.

McDonald’s: A quarter-pounder with cheese contains 530 calories and 30 grams of fat, and a small order of fries has 209 calories and 10 grams of fat.

Dairy Queen: A Brownie Earthquake contains 740 calories and 27 grams of fat. Watch out for the chicken strip basket with French fries, Texas toast and gravy meal: It has 1,000 calories, 50 grams of fat and 2,510 milligrams of sodium, exceeding the recommended daily quota of salt.

Taco Bell: A seven-layer burrito has 520 calories and 22 grams of fat, and adding guacamole and salsa creates a combined total of 75 calories and 7 grams of fat.

Cold Stone Creamery: A ‘like it’ size of sweet cream ice cream contains 394 calories and 24 grams of fat, and a mix in of M&M’s adds 170 calories and 7 grams of fat.

For those students who can’t quite give up their favorite fast foods, the Web site has another solution. It offers healthier food choices at the same restaurant with less fat, sodium and calories.

Cold Stone Creamery, for example, offers a “sinless sans fat” line of ice cream, several flavors of non-fat frozen yogurt and various types of fruit and nuts that can be mixed in.

McDonald’s, once condemned for its fattening burgers and fries in the 2004 documentary Supersize Me, has begun offering healthier foods, including a line of salads, premium chicken sandwiches and fruit options.

McDonald’s has also improved its children’s meals, giving kids the option of milk or juice instead of soda and apple dippers as a substitute for French fries.

Elaina Law, a sophomore from Teton, Idaho, and manager at the Rexburg Dairy Queen, said Dairy Queen has healthy choices as well and provides customers with pamphlets that show the nutritional value of each item.

“We offer applesauce for kid’s meals and milk. We also offer side salads, so if [customers] don’t want fries or onion rings, they can have a side salad,” Law said.