Do you trust fast food nutrition on their websites?

Well owing to the fact that the employees are not using a scale in the kitchen to measure out how many fries they put in a carton, or how much ketchup they're squeezing onto your burger, you'll have to accept that the nutritional guide is just an average.
You can bring your own scale and measure (and get weird stares from every patron in the establishment), or you can play it safe and add 15-20% to their published values (better to overestimate than to underestimate in weight loss.)

That's what I do. And just remember that it's not the end of the world if you want to go out to eat and have to go over your calorie budget for the day. Just so long as you balance it out over the week.

i trust the website's info.

I trust fast food nutritional information more than I trust restaurant nutritional information. The reason is that fast food margins are very very thin, they *have* to get close and consistent to their defined servings, and the food products themselves are far more standardized.

I know back when i worked at Mcdonalds we had dispensers for all the ketchup and sauces and such in the kitchen. One trigger pull put the same measured amount out each time. I am assuming most "fast food " places have the same type of thing.

No one is going to be able to tell you exactly how many calories are in their food, but fast food chains produce food that is about as uniform as you can get.

I trust the website then trust my exercise will cover the difference, which is why I don't eat back my exercise calories.

Provided the rest of my day is pretty accurate and I don't eat fast food more than ones a week, one under logged meal won't hurt my progress. Even if it's 200 calories off,.. what's 200 calories extra in a week?

I worked at arby's. We weighed the roast beef every time and any other meats came in pre-weighed portions. (Otherwise you run the risk of putting on too much meat which equals less profit.) However, the fries were more willy nilly. Just whatever fits into the certain sized container. So I'd trust the sandwich info as accurate and the fries as pretty inaccurate (which is one of the reasons I tend to stay away from them).

tmauck4472 wrote: »

I trust the website then trust my exercise will cover the difference, which is why I don't eat back my exercise calories.

That's an interesting thought, but even the most accurately weighed food can vary in calories by as much as 20%. Given that fast food meals have about 1000 calories, that could easily be 200 calories over. That's a lot of calories to make up for by not eating exercise calories.

When I worked at McDonald's the ketchup on the burgers are calibrated so is the hotcake batter. Everything is made the same everytime. I trust it, but don't eat it anymore.

WickedPineapple wrote: »

I worked at arby's. We weighed the roast beef every time and any other meats came in pre-weighed portions. (Otherwise you run the risk of putting on too much meat which equals less profit.) However, the fries were more willy nilly. Just whatever fits into the certain sized container. So I'd trust the sandwich info as accurate and the fries as pretty inaccurate (which is one of the reasons I tend to stay away from them).

I f'n LOVE Arby's, and I know that's a minority opinion. My go-to, since I can't squander calories on anything but the best, is to get 2 regular roast beef sandwiches, throw away one bun, and have a gut-busting mega beef burger. It's so much fat and protein that it'll satisfy me most of a day and you know what, it's not that bad on the nutrition-o-meter.

500 kcal, 36 carbs, 24 fat, 37 protein.

My question is... how the heck do you make that beef? It's obviously processed and industrialized somehow, it doesn't look like any beef I've ever purchased. Did it weird you out "cooking" that stuff?

Zedeff wrote: »

WickedPineapple wrote: »

I worked at arby's. We weighed the roast beef every time and any other meats came in pre-weighed portions. (Otherwise you run the risk of putting on too much meat which equals less profit.) However, the fries were more willy nilly. Just whatever fits into the certain sized container. So I'd trust the sandwich info as accurate and the fries as pretty inaccurate (which is one of the reasons I tend to stay away from them).

I f'n LOVE Arby's, and I know that's a minority opinion. My go-to, since I can't squander calories on anything but the best, is to get 2 regular roast beef sandwiches, throw away one bun, and have a gut-busting mega beef burger. It's so much fat and protein that it'll satisfy me most of a day and you know what, it's not that bad on the nutrition-o-meter.

500 kcal, 36 carbs, 24 fat, 37 protein.

My question is... how the heck do you make that beef? It's obviously processed and industrialized somehow, it doesn't look like any beef I've ever purchased. Did it weird you out "cooking" that stuff?

Have you ever been to a grocery store deli and seen the big packaged meats in the display cases? The beefs are received at the stores like that, except frozen (if I remember correctly) and not as nice looking. They actually roast the beefs in an oven for three hours in the morning and then slice it to order. So pretty standard and not too weird.

I also used to work at a grocery store deli. The beef at Arby's is comparable to the cheap turkey/ham they have in grocery store delis. However, those grossed me out more than the meat at Arby's because the meat was slimy.

_tierachanel wrote: »

Occasionally I will enjoy fast food and always log what I eat. I get my information off the restaurants website. Do you trust that information? It bothers me to think I could be thinking the calories are "this" but really is "that". Like, the small fry I ordered may have been more closer to a medium..

Do you know a better way to get a more accurate count of calories? Scale? Just wanted to see what you guys think.

I trust it. I don't have the patience to fuss about over it.

To an extent, especially for places like McDonald's who are pretty thorough about using the same measurements of foods each time. That's why you generally get the same thing every time. However, all it takes to add a hundred calories is to add an extra tablespoon of mayo. Some places will be more particular than others.