Fast Road to Fat City

Allison J. Cleary

What price all those cheap burgers & fries? Science starts to find the unsettling answers.

I’ve stepped into the fire-grilled world of Burger King with a mission to order the healthiest meal on the menu. It’s 12:30 in the afternoon, the line is six deep, orders from the drive-thru crackle over the intercom, and nine workers hustle to keep the burgers moving. Glossy posters of golden-crusted chicken and juicy bacon burgers hang everywhere. The unmistakable aroma of French fries and crispy chicken surrounds me.

I am tempted. A cashier dressed in a maroon uniform looks at me expectantly from under his black cap as I peer over his head at the brightly lit menu board.

“Do you have any nutrition information about the meals?” I ask. He raises a brow and silently points to a poster on the wall behind me. I turn to squint at row after row of tiny listings—88 statistics for each menu item with calories, fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, fiber and more. To order lunch, I have almost 5,000 numbers to review. I turn back, confused.

“You probably want the Chicken Whopper,” he offers, “or maybe the Veggie Burger.” Then he flips his thumb at the poster. “If I looked at that poster,” he says, rolling his eyes, “I’d probably never eat here again.”

But people do come back, and in droves. The average American consumer eats three burgers and four orders of fries each week. A typical American child now gets one-fourth of his or her vegetables in the form of French fries or potato chips. Half our nation’s family food budgets are spent in restaurants, with fast-food operations and chains getting the lion’s share of the spending.

According to new studies, those patterns have devastated public health, directly feeding the obesity epidemic and increasing risk of life-threatening disease. Trans fats, massive portions and highly refined carbohydrates along with fast food’s ubiquitous presence and incessant advertising, say health experts, have collectively created a dangerous scenario for unwary consumers.

On the Junk Food Trail

For two months I’ve been on a quest, frequenting fast-food joints from McDonald’s to KFC, from Taco Bell to Quiznos. Over and over again, I confront the same problem: even when healthy options do exist, it’s awfully difficult to decipher the menu to find them. The salad I chose at McDonald’s was laden with cheese and bacon, surprisingly high in saturated fat and calories. The “wheat” bun I ordered at Subway turned out to be refined, not whole-grain, and I didn’t realize that the 410 calories they listed did not include the mayonnaise (another 110 calories) that the girl slathered on the bun. The BK Chicken Whopper recommended to me actually delivers more calories and fat than the classic Double Hamburger from the same menu.