Test of unhealthy fast food chains

Test of Fast Food Chains: Which unhealthy burgers and fries are the best?

08/30/2013

In many cases, the health risks of fast food consumption have been investigated in the past. Often with frightening results. So it is certain that fast food leads to the increased occurrence of allergies, atopic dermatitis and asthma, which affects mental well-being and can promote depression. Stiftung Warentest has now taken a closer look at the quality of fast food products in several chains and found out which ones are least suitable for a healthy diet.

In the course of the investigation, the Stiftung Warentest also wanted to know the conditions under which the checked fast food menus were created. „Where do raw materials like beef and potatoes come from? How are employees paid and treated??“, here were important questions. Every day millions of Germans with appetizing sounding offers such as „Burger with juicy beef, crispy French fries, crispy salad“ lured into the fast food chains, the Stiftung Warentest reported and added: „But as popular and practical as the fast-paced fatigues are, fast food menus are not suitable as a healthy meal.“ They would clearly contain too much calories, fat, salt and sometimes even harmful pollutants.

Pollution loads of fries
The Stiftung Warentest examined menus of burgers, fries and a mixed salad at McDonald's, the big fast food chains McDonald's, Burger King and Kochlöffel. In particular, the fries cut off in this test increasingly bad. Thus, the examiners showed in all tested Pommes acrylamide, which forms during frying and is suspected of being mutagenic or carcinogenic. The limit value for the acrylamide content of foodstuffs specified in an EU Directive from 2011 is 600 micrograms per kilogram for French fries. A value that according to the testers in the fries of the wooden spoon branch was clearly exceeded. For the fries of Burger King especially the preparation is questionable, as for frying a mixture of palm fat and sunflower oil is used. Although this would make the fries particularly crispy, palm oil is often contaminated with harmful glycidyl esters, which can pass over to the French fries during preparation and are also considered carcinogenic. In terms of fries, McDonald's has done the best, as it dispenses with palm fat and instead uses sunflower and rapeseed oil for frying. Although the fries are therefore less crispy, but they also contained less glycidyl esters and also less unhealthy saturated fatty acids, reports Stiftung Warentest.

Even burger partly contaminated with pollutants
According to the tester, Burger King's burgers stood out in particular for both the positive (in terms of taste) and negative (pollutant loading) offerings. Since the burgers are grilled here over the open flame, they could convince by their special flavor, but when grilling over the open flame also pollutants (3-monochloropropane), which are considered as possible cancer triggers, what the evaluation of Burger King burger negative has influenced. Although no critical loads were achieved here, the overall verdict was significantly worse in the face of pollutants than the mere evaluation of the taste.

Significantly excessive calorie content of fast food menus
With regard to the calorie content of fast food products, Stiftung Warentest concludes that none of the menus tested complied with the recommendation of the German Nutrition Society (DGE) that a main meal should not contain more than 720 kilocalories and 24 grams of fat. Most likely, the menu came from McDonald´s with 867 kilocalories and 40 grams of fat close to the recommendation. The Burger King menu reached a whopping 1,014 kilocalories and 50 grams of fat, the spoon menu even 1,226 kilocalories and 63 grams of fat. It should be noted, however, that the McDonald's menus were smaller than those of the competition.

McDonald's scored best in the test of Stiftung Warentest
Overall, McDonald's scored 2.9 in the survey by Stiftung Warentest, followed by Burger King (rating 3.1) and Kochlöffel (score 3.6). However, Burger King was often ahead in terms of taste, but the pollutant content and the higher calorie content lowered the overall result. However, the results of the Stiftung-Warentest also make it clear that the fast-food menus are generally unsuitable for regular nutrition, since the body is given significantly too much calories, fats and salt, among other things. With regard to the quality of the processed food, the Stiftung Warentest stated that high demands were placed on the suppliers. This also applies to the working conditions. In their own branches, however, works councils representing the interests of employees are a rare exception. (Fp)

Picture: CB