This Is The Least Nutritious Breakfast You Can Order From McDonald's
No one really expects to go to McDonald's and chow down on a nutritious, good-for-you meal, but you might not expect your breakfast combo to be higher in calories, fat, trans fat, carbs, and sodium than your fast-food dinner. Sure, there are pretty "okay" breakfast items on the McDonald's menu, and even a few items that are borderline nutritious, but that's not what you get when you order the least nutritious breakfast meal on the menu: the Big Breakfast with Hotcakes.
With eggs, sausage, a biscuit (or other bread item), hash browns, and hotcakes slathered in butter and maple syrup, this breakfast combo delivers it all — along with quite a few calories and carbs. The breakfast racks up a whopping 1,340 calories, 63 grams of fat (including some trans fat), 525 milligrams of cholesterol, 158 grams of carbs, and 2,070 milligrams of sodium. If you're following the government recommendation for daily caloric intake, that means your breakfast accounts for over half of your calorie allotment for the day, and you're already far above the American Heart Association's ideal limit of 1,500 milligrams of sodium per day. For all this, you could simply skip your Big Breakfast with Hotcakes — breakfast is, after all, intended to be the healthiest meal of the day — and go straight for dinner, with the Big Mac and its 550 calories, 30 grams of fat, and 1,010 milligrams of sodium.
How does the Big Breakfast with Hotcakes stack up to other items on the McDonald's menu?
If you're going for breakfast, you'd do well to choose the classic Egg McMuffin, with its 310 calories, 13 grams of fat, 250 milligrams of cholesterol, 30 grams of carbs, and 770 milligrams of sodium. While it's still a little high on the sodium side, you're saving a ton of calories, cholesterol, and carbs. According to McDonald's online Nutrition Calculator, the sausage burritos also aren't a bad idea, at 310 calories, 17 grams of fat, 25 grams of carbs, and 800 milligrams of sodium. Likewise, the fruit and maple oatmeal isn't wildly healthy, as you might expect, but it's still not terrible, with 320 calories and only 4.5 grams of fat.
If you absolutely must have a bigger, better breakfast versus a sandwich or burrito, though, try opting for either the Big Breakfast platter or the hotcakes, rather than both of the options together. With just the Big Breakfast platter, you'll clock in 760 calories, while the hotcakes on their own add up to 580 calories.