Unhealthiest Thing You Can Order At Your Favorite Fast Food Chain

If you were going to pick the unhealthiest item off the McDonald's menu, what would you choose? Probably one of the chain's burgers, right? But, actually, for the unhealthiest McDonald's menu item, you'll want to look to the breakfast options, specifically the Big Breakfast Platter. Order this heaping plate of breakfast-y goodness and you get a warm biscuit, sausage patty, multiple hash browns, three pancakes with syrup and butter, and a mountain of scrambled eggs. It all adds up to 1,340 calories and 63 grams of fat — that's almost your entire allotment of fat per day, according to the FDA's recommended daily intake of less than 78 grams of fat per day, for the average adult on a 2,000-calorie diet. Not to mention, that's more than half of your caloric allotment for the day.

If you really want to stick to healthy options on the McDonald's breakfast menu, you'd be best going with the fruit and maple oatmeal, which clocks in at 320 calories, or the classic Egg McMuffin, which clocks in at 310.

KFC is a restaurant that you probably expect to be relatively unhealthy. It's fried chicken, after all. But you might think your unhealthiest option on the menu would be a piece of that fried chicken ... right?

Wrong. The most calorie-laden item on the KFC menu isn't any of the brand's original fried chicken. Instead, it's the KFC Famous Bowl, which doesn't even really feature traditional fried chicken. Rather, it includes a kids-sized serving of popcorn chicken nuggets, alongside mashed potatoes, gravy, shredded cheese, and corn, all in one dish. If you don't like your food to touch, this is absolutely not the dish for you. This bowl comes with 740 calories, 35 grams of fat, 45 grams of cholesterol, and 2,530 milligrams of sodium.

A close contender is the KFC chicken pot pie, which is a bit of a sleeper item. Who would think something so wholesome would be so bad? But it is, with 720 calories, 41 grams of fat, and 1,750 grams of sodium. So, maybe the next time you're trying to eat healthier at KFC, just go with the fried chicken?

First things first — no one's going to Taco Bell and only ordering one item or even one combo. You go to Taco Bell and you order something along the lines of two burritos, three tacos, one serving of nachos, and some mini churros. It's Taco Bell. But who knew that the unhealthiest item in your sagging bag of sloppy Mexican fast food was actually one of the sides? Taco Bell takes the top spot for unhealthiest fast food side dish with its Nachos Bell Grande, aka the larger tray of nachos covered in taco meat, cheese sauce, and sour cream that you probably order intending to share and then end up absolutely not sharing because it's just that good.

So, what can you expect from the Nachos Bell Grande? You'll get 740 calories, 38 grams of fat, and 1,050 milligrams of sodium. While that's not all bad compared to some of the other menu items on this list, it is still pretty high for a side dish, so unless you're planning on enjoying only your nachos from Taco Bell and nothing else, you might do best to go with another side/appetizer item to go alongside your quesadilla or tacos.

"Subway?!" you ask. "But Subway is supposed to be healthy! That Jared guy lost so much weight! I saw it on a commercial!" Yes, while Subway has done its part to form a reputation as one of the healthier fast-food options, that doesn't mean you can walk into your favorite sub shop and order anything off the menu, then expect it to be chockfull of health. In fact, you can find one item in particular on the menu that's going to leave you swimming in salt: the turkey and bacon guacamole wrap.

It's innocent-looking, sure. You have a tomato-basil wrap filled with a heaping serving of turkey, bacon, cheese, guacamole, some veggies, and then some ranch dressing. Maybe the ranch dressing and guacamole are a little fattening, but overall, this looks like a safe bet — until you see how much sodium it contains. Somehow, this deceiving wrap contains a whopping 2,570 milligrams of sodium, just over your daily recommended intake.

If you grew up in the 1990s, chances are, you remember getting a personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut in exchange for reading a few books. Nothing tasted as good as that cheesy, pepperoni-topped, cute lil' personal pan pizza earned via your own hard work. But did you know that Pizza Hut makes personal pan pizzas for adults, too? You can relive the nostalgia of your childhood by ordering your favorite pie in a personal pizza pan size, so long as you don't mind the calories. Just because a personal pizza is smaller, that doesn't make it healthier than a serving of Pizza Hut's normal-sized pies. If you go with a Meat Lover's personal pan pizza, you'll be treated to 830 calories, a surprising number for something so small, especially when you consider that, if you purchased a Meat Lover's medium pizza, you could eat nearly eight pieces all on your own before you reached 830 calories.

Whether you love or hate Arby's, if you find yourself dining at this fast-food chain sometime soon, go ahead and skip over the spicy Greek gyro meal. You might not normally think of gyros as particularly unhealthy, but when it comes to Arby's, the gyro meal is the most unhealthy option on the menu. A pita is stuffed with gyro meat (piled high, Arby's-style), tomatoes, lettuce, onion, tzatziki sauce, some spices, and a spicy chili sauce — which all sounds pretty tame at first glance. 

However, this meal, if you include a small drink and small serving of fries, comes out to 1,640 calories and more than 75 grams of fat. That puts you nearly at your daily fat threshold for the day, according to the FDA. If you're wanting to save on the calories the next time you go to Arby's, you'd do well to stick with a classic roast beef meal, chicken tenders meal, or select chicken sandwich meal, all of which are under 1,000 calories.

If you thought Dairy Queen's unhealthiest dessert was bad, just wait until you see what's at Sonic. Sonic's shakes come in some truly tasty flavors, but there's one item in particular that you may want to avoid — if you value not ending up with a mouthful of cavities, that is. The Oreo Peanut Butter Shake doesn't necessarily sound lavishly sweet and sugary (and the ingredients list is pretty tame, too, only including vanilla ice cream, peanut butter, Oreos, whipped topping, and a cherry), but it is. At 1,720 calories for a large, it outranks the Dairy Queen large Royal Rocky Road Trip Blizzard by a few hundred calories. In terms of sugar, it comes with 107 grams of the good stuff, alongside 106 grams of fat and 1,130 milligrams of sodium. So, while the Blizzard still reigns supreme for overall sugar content, it just can't stand up to Sonic in terms of overall calories and certainly not fat content.

Like Hardee's, Checkers isn't really known for its healthy options. It specializes in big, messy burgers dripping with cheese and bacon — which is perfectly fine according to its fanbase. But if you want to eat the unhealthiest item on the Checkers menu, you'll want to look past the burgers, to the boneless wings. According to the Checkers menu, the chain's 20-piece boneless garlic parmesan wings are just about as unhealthy as it gets, at 1,870 calories for the lot. The sodium, at 3,100 milligrams, is pretty impressive, too, though there are other items on the Checkers menu with a higher salt content overall.

Just looking at Checkers' nutrition content makes one wonder if it's even possible at all to order something slightly healthy on the menu. Your best bet? Go as plain as possible, with either a grilled hot dog or All American Cheeseburger, two options that are below 400 calories.