Kids Cuisine

OK, I confess. I’ve done it, more than once in fact. I’m not proud, but I’ve succumbed to the irresistible allure of the Happy Meal. It’s just so tempting: fast, easy, cheap, beloved by kids.

The downside is most children’s meal options at fast food restaurants are among the worst when it comes to nutrition with items like greasy french fries, fattening burgers, and Chicken McNuggets. Just what is in those things anyway? A McNugget description on Answers.com isn’t terribly appetizing:

“The McNugget is a small piece of minced chicken and mechanically separated meat held together with phosphate salts. The pieces are coated with batter, lightly fried to set the batter, individually quick frozen, packaged, and sent to stores. At the McDonald’s stores, the McNuggets are deep-fried and sold.” Mmmm… tasty!

Fortunately, some fast food joints are finally figuring out that moms want their kids to eat better. There’s only a childhood obesity epidemic in this country or something. Compared to even three or four years ago, the number of healthy (or at least less unhealthy) children’s fast food meal options has increased dramatically.

So if you’ve just got to do it (admit it, you know you want to!), here are some of the best of the worst fast food kids’ meal choices:

• The Subway “Kids Pak” is a decent choice. The turkey and ham mini subs have less than 200 calories and 3 grams of fat, the roast beef sub has about 200 calories and 3.5 grams of fat. Just avoid the tuna mini sub, with 18 grams of fat, and fattening extras like mayo. You can choose raisins or apple slices as the side, and 1 percent milk or 100 percent juice.
• The Wendy’s Kids Meal now features healthier choices like a turkey and cheese or ham and cheese sandwich (both around 250 calories with 6 grams of fat). The healthy side choices could use some improvement. The seemingly innocent side of yogurt with granola doubles both the calories and fat the sandwiches contain. The mandarin oranges are just 80 calories with no fat, but not exactly eating-in-the-car friendly as it’s a cup of oranges in liquid. The drink choices include 2 percent milk or 1 percent chocolate milk.
• Burger King does what most fast food joints that claim to offer healthy kids meals do. They offer a semi-healthy side dish and some low-fat milk and call it a day. You can get the 90-calorie strawberry flavored apple sauce as a side. Again, this is a healthy side that is not the best for dining en route, which means many times parents won’t be able to order it and will be forced to get the only other alternative: deep-fried French fries. The main dishes, though, are all the usual suspects: hamburgers (12 grams of fat), cheeseburgers (16 grams), or chicken tenders (10 grams for the 4-piece or 15 grams for the 6-piece).
• And so we come back to McDonald’s. Just how bad is the Happy Meal? A Mighty Kids Meal with double cheeseburger, fries and chocolate milk comes to a whopping 850 calories and 39 grams of fat. Ouch! And what about Chicken McNuggets? Even in the smaller Happy Meal size, getting a meal with 4-piece nuggets, fries and low-fat chocolate milk adds up to 580 calories and 26 grams of fat. The best choices at McDonald’s are to get the Happy Meal with nuggets, apple dippers and apple juice box, with 360 calories and 11 grams of fat.

It would be nice if fast food restaurants would really step up. As a busy mom, it is so much easier to breeze through a drive-through window on a hectic day when the kids are screaming for food. But I also want a semi-sorta-healthy main dish, side dish, and drink that can actually be consumed while in a rush and in the car. It’s that simple.

Photo of child eating a McDonald’s Happy Meal, copyright Martin Baldwin.