Healthy Fast Foods, Dream On: After the 2012 Olympics everybody is on a health kick, including McDonald’s. Be still my heart, finally healthy food at McDonald’s!  They offer two, proclaimed to be healthy, breakfast items:

• Blueberry Banana Nut Oatmeal
• Snack Size Fruit & Walnuts

Then you click on their Nutrition tag and discover that the Banana Nut Oatmeal contains 21g (5 teaspoons) of sugar. The second item, Snack Size Fruit & Walnuts, contains 25g (6 teaspoons) sugar. In addition, two chemicals, BHT and TBHQ, are added as a preservative. TBHQ, a chemical preservative, is a form of butane; it is used to delay the onset of rancidness and greatly extends the storage life of foods.

Now, if you were to partake of these two ‘healthy’ breakfast treats, your total sugar consumption would be 46g (11.5 teaspoons) fist thing in the morning. The maximum recommended daily added sugar intake by the American Heart Association (AHA) for healthy children, women, and men is 3, 5, 9 teaspoons respectively. Why is it that the fast food companies can’t leave the copious amounts of sugar out? I don’t believe anyone would consume 11.5 teaspoons of sugar while eating two servings of breakfast foods at home. Remember the recommended maximum daily added sugar consumption by AHA for healthy women is 5 teaspoons, and for children only 3 teaspoons. Would you consider these types of fast food meals healthy?