This is NOT Permission to Eat at McDonald's

A colleague of mine told me that McDonald's is putting on a new promotion trying to cater to people who want to eat healthier. I went to their web site to check it out, and what a promotion it is!

McDonald's is now selling "Go Active! Happy Meals" for adults. The meals include a salad, water or other drink, and one of four 15-minute workout DVDs: yoga, cardio, strength or core, led by a computer animated "virtual" trainer.

Sounds really great, huh? McDonald's promoting health... Giving people healthy fast food options...

There are 4 reasons I don't think it's a good idea for consumers to buy into this.

1. You still have to know what you're doing to get a healthy salad. One of the salads is a bacon ranch salad. With "crispy" (fried) chicken, bacon and ranch dressing, it has a whopping 540 calories and 32 grams of fat. That's 53% fat!!! A hamburger and small fries has 510 calories and only 22 grams of fat (39%). More nutritional info here.

The idea behind a salad being healthy is that it's low in calories and full of high-nutrient veggies. Many salads contain bacon, fried chicken or noodles, butter soaked croutons, cheese or other foods that are high in calories or fat. Also, unless the salad dressing says it's low-fat, it's not. Iceberg lettuce has virtually no vitamins in it, so if your salad is mostly light colored lettuce, you're out of luck for your vitamin dosage for the day.

2. Keeping salads fresh is real a challenge. when is the last time you tried a salad at a fast food place? Last time I did, the lettuce was wilted and brown, the tomatoes flavor-less, the shredded carrots dry and the chicken was rubbery. (That was all that was left of the salad after I picked the cheese off it, since I wasn't willing to open the bacon and crouton packets.) By definition, salads need to be prepared ahead of time to be "fast" food, so freshness is nearly impossible.

3. The smell of french fries. Would you really be able to hold your resolve once you walked in? Need I say more?

4. It's still McDonald's. Even if you do eat a salad, with the light dressing and only a water, you're still supporting a restaurant that serves about the worst food for you on the planet. Have you watched "Super Size Me" or read "Don't Eat This Book" yet? Until they start serving truly healthy salads, offering even more healthy choices, and offering less super-sized artery-clogging foods, I'm not going to become a regular.

Yeah, I might have to go and check out the DVDs, but since they only work on PCs, PlayStations or Xboxes and not Macs, there's another reason they won't make a convert out of me!

Committed to you health,
Maren

P.S. As I dug deeper into the program online, I learned they have a link to a menu plan for certain calorie ranges. I thought for sure it would be a menu of McDonald's foods, but there weren't any. Although beer, goldfish crackers and doughnuts were options, I was pleasantly surprised to see quite a variety of foods you could prepare at home. They also have some great family fitness articles and other resources.