The nation’s newly revised dietary guidelines would ideally mark a turn toward healthier American eating habits, but the temptations from fast-food restaurants keep multiplying.
The government’s new recommendations emphasize smaller portions, less salt and fewer calories. But as the Los Angeles Times reports, when a customer sizes up the offerings at a Carl’s Jr. or McDonald’s, they are met with a bevy of options that would make dietitians cringe.
Take the brand-new Angus Bacon Cheese Wrap. It tips the scales at 790 calories, 39 grams of fat and more than 2000 milligrams of sodium. In each case, that’s a bulky portion of the recommended daily intake — almost 90 percent in the case of sodium. If you add a large order of fries and a large Coke to round out the meal, you can tack on another 810 calories, 25 grams of fat and almost 400 milligrams of sodium.
In short, the Angus Bacon Cheese Wrap is everything that the government is urging Americans to avoid.
Other restaurants’ options, from the All-American Jack from Jack in the Box to Taco Bell’s Beefy Crunch Burrito, are no better. And many of the newest items, such as the three mentioned above, are worse than previous generations of fast-food fare.
“Remember when the Big Mac was considered the bad burger?” Jane Hurley, a nutritionist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, told the Times. “And now it’s the diet alternative to some of these items.”
Fast-food chains were unapologetic.
“The bottom line is we’re in the business of making money, and we make money off of what we sell,” said Beth Mansfield, a spokeswoman for the parent company of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s. “If we wanted to listen to the food police and sell nuts and berries and tofu burgers, we wouldn’t make any money and we’d be out of business.”
