Not all fast food is created equal

One of my readers recently commented that he considers In-N-Out to be the healthy choice, while McDonald’s, Burger King, and Jack-in-the-Box are the unhealthy choices. My first response was that while In-N-Out is my preferred choice, I didn’t know if it was any healthier than the other fast food. I got busy researching.

I looked up what I thought was comparable burgers from each fast food restaurant and checked the nutrition data posted on the companies’ websites. Here is what I found:

RESTAURANT	SANDWICH	CALORIES	FAT	SODIUM
McDonald’s	Big Mac	540	29	1040
In-N-Out	Double-Double	670	41	1440
Burger King	Whopper	720	44	1240
Jack-in-the-Box	Ultimate Cheeseburger	875	61	1489

There are other factors, of course, like the use of trans fats and freshness of the food. In-N-Out wins the fresh-food contest hands down since they don’t freeze their meat. They even cut your fries from a spud while you wait. Regarding trans fats, In-N-Out, Burger King, and McDonald’s all claim to be trans fat free, even though they all have small amounts of hydrogenated oil in their foods.

Jack-in-the-Box is the loser from every angle. The latest research I could find indicates that trans fats are still going full force in their food. (Some Jack-in-the-Box restaurants are now deep-frying their fries in non-hydrogenated oil, but not all.) This restaurant also happens to have the fattiest foods on the menu. Anything that can be deep-fried, is deep-fried. Even their tacos!

So while McDonald’s gets the bad rap on fast food, there are plenty of others that offer even worse choices. My advice is this: eat fast food only sparingly and never go to Jack-in-the-Box.