The online media love to pad their schedules with ‘Best of’ articles – known as ‘listicles’. But I pay more attention to the far-fewer, often more informative ‘Worst of’ lists. And speaking of which, there’s an intriguing new ‘listicle’ rating Cheeseburgers…
Worst Burger in the worst way: Five-Guys’ Cheeseburger with fries and a fizzy drink…
‘Worst of’ listicles tend to focus on consumer preferences rather than practical, quantifiable factors. The latter are preferable because one can draw from them real, objective answers to real questions.
Tweaked my interest
Thus did today’s study tweak my interest. And I’ll admit, it also confirmed my own longstanding opinion as to the worst, greasiest, most unhealthy burger in Fast Food’s upper echelons.
Some fans of higher-profile pop-culture-star burgers may disagree. But this study did not simply rate its subjects by popularity. And I say, the pop-fans have another think coming…
What they did
The study conducted detailed lab analyses on a range of foods from US Fast Food chains. Not only burgers, but fries, chicken sandwiches, and nuggets cam under the microscope.
Healthiness scores were developed using an international standard nutrient profiling method. The higher the score, thee more unhealthy the item.
What they found
To the surprise of many consumer observers, the unhealthiest of all was the Five-Guys Cheeseburger. It contained 55 g of fat – 73 percent more than any other option on the list. It clocked a whopping 1,050 milligrams of sodium, nearly half USDA’s recommended daily limit of 2,300 milligrams.
Furthermore, it weighed in at 980 calories, half the daily recommended limit for most Americans. And that was just the burger, without the usual fries and fizzy drink accompaniments.
The Five-Guys entry scored an even 50 on the unhealthiest scale.
By contrast, the healthiest burger tested was the Butterburger from Culver’s with an unhealthiness score of only 17. It came in at just 11 grams of saturated fat and 610 milligrams of sodium.
Surprise!
McDonald’s tied Burger King for the second-healthiest Cheeseburger. In spite of these high-profile brands being popularly vilified as unhealthy, they each tallied only 18 unhealthy points.
It’s all relative
I feel it’s only fair to point out that some of the burgers tested had more than one patty. (The Five-Guys entry had 2.) And some of the patties were larger than others, ranging from 2 oz. / 56 g to 4 oz. / 115 g before cooking. Some came with more than 1 slice of American (processed) cheese. Toppings and condiments differed from item to item. Most were set-piece recipes offering no choice of additions, but leaving open the option to ‘hold’ any topping.
All candidates in the test array had relatively high fat and sodium levels, which was to be expected, given the kind of food they represent and the cooking methods employed.
My take
Sister Erin and I tried the Five-Guys Cheeseburger once, just after the location in our burg opened, a couple of years ago. We went in without preconceptions. And came out with some strong opinions.
We agreed the thing was greasy and salty. The toppings were nice and fresh, though. And we both noted it was sad that such a highly-touted burger came with plain old American (processed) cheese, rather than real cheese. And we thought the value presented by the IRL item (rather than the advertising images) was a disappointment. We haven’t been back.
Given the fat and salt numbers the burger clocked in the Daily mail tests, We weren’t too surprised it came in at or near the top of the ‘unhealthy’ list…
~ Maggie J.