McDonald’s Double Cheeseburger Is The “Cheapest and Most Nutritious Food in Human History”
McDonald’s is constantly getting slammed for its fatty fast food, but according to Stephen Dubner, the co-author of Freakonomics, the McDonald’s Double Cheeseburger could well be “the cheapest, most nutritious, and bountiful food that has ever existed in human history.”
The statement was made during a debate on Dubner’s blog, where a reader suggested you get more nutrition per penny than any other food. According to The Times, the Double Cheeseburger will supply you with 390 calories, 23 grams of protein (half a daily serving), about 7% of your daily fiber, 19 grams of fat, and 20% cent of your daily calcium. All this for less than $5.
“For the average poor person, it isn’t a great option to take a trip to the farmers market to puzzle over esoteric lefty-foodie codes,” added Kyle Smith, a New York Post columnist. “Facts are facts – where else but McDonald’s can poor people obtain so many calories per dollar?”
A not so appetizing version of the Double Cheeseburger, courtesy of Wikipedia.
In terms of pure calories, a study by the University of Washington backs this up as well. In the US, it’ll cost you just $1.76 to get 1,000 calories from fast food, while fresh vegetables and organic produce will be almost 10 times that amount for the same energy.
In contrast, Tom Philpott, an organic farmer from North Carolina, said there are actually better ways to eat cheap and nutritionally. “You can get a pound of organic brown rice and a pound of red lentils for about £1.30 each,” he said. “A serving of each of those things would be around 48 pence […] In order to present to us all that burger, you’re talking about a vast army of working poor people.”