Little guy had to go to doctor today and I told him we could go play afterwards at McDonald and have lunch. I got a plain Grilled chicken sandwich and a fruit and yogurt parfait.

Question is I went to look up the calories for the sandwich because I couldn't remember if it was 420 or 460 and it says it is 350 calories....is this with or without condiments (it comes with mayo and lettuce or it used to...been awhile since I have eaten it).

Anyone have any pointers for figuring calories on fast food or eating out in general when you alter the food?

If I'm not mistaken, the cals posted are the cals for the way the meal is prepared. So if it usually comes with mayo, the cals posted reflect the sandwich with mayo. Some places list cals for condiments too. McDonald's might but I haven't really looked.

I'm fairly sure that places like McDonald's post their nutritional value for the item as it is prepared. If an item comes with certain condiments then the nutritional value for those condiments is included.

Some restaurants have little calculator-type nutritional information panels where you can add things together and it'll come up with the end number of calories, but usually it's just a chart with basic nutritional information and you just look up the item as/is.

If I need to order something plain, I then do my best to subtract off what most likely would've been used. They probably don't use a whole tablespoon of mayo, but maybe a teaspoon to half a tablespoon is a normal amount they'd glob on there.

Someone at work brought in a bag of sausage mcmuffins today and each wrapper had the nutrtional info on it. I don't remember them doing that, but it was very handy.

spanks

Unless they specify otherwise, it generally includes the amount for the whole item. That isn't too bad for a sandwich! I'll keep that in mind one of these days!

Spanky: I love that they put those on so many food items now. It makes it easy to know calories and a few nutrients quickly.

If you look here, it has the nutrition for individual components of the sandwich broken down (click on "nutrition"). Total for the sandwich including mayo, lettuce, and tomato is 350 calories.

http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/food/...n_classic.html

That was because of a new law passed a couple years ago to make fast food restaurants more accountable. They posted them on the boxes of burgers/nuggets too. Of course, that didn't stop me from indulging every. single. day.

I am not sure how it works. I had a fruit and walnut salad today and it said that the whole thing was 210 cal and 8g fat. Which is so high for so little food. I mean there were about 5 apple slices, three grapes, about ten small walnut pieces and 1/4 cup yogurt, and that totals 8g of fat? What gives? I regret having it because it was not filling and such a waste of 8g of fat!

usam - wow, that does sound pretty high! I prefer their Fruit and Yogurt Parfait. It's 160 calories for about a 5 or 6 oz cup, and I think it's pretty delicious.

Of all the fast food places, I always do really well at Wendy's because they always have the breakdown of what each item on their sandwich is calorie wise. You can also easily check off the boxes of stuff you want to remove to tailor the meal. I also have a huge weakness for McDonald's double cheeseburgers and chicken nuggets and fries... so unless it's a splurge day I usually have to stay away :/

just skip the Mcy D's in the first place... i havnt had fast food in 2 years.... and i think its better that way