It’s lunchtime and you’re driving down the road and need something quick.
You see the exit sign displaying a plethora of options. You better angels are suggesting a healthy option while your demons are begging for a cheeseburger. You want to satisfy both, but how do you do that?
PlushCare, a telehealth platform providing virtual primary care appointments through their browser and mobile app, researched the nutritional value of typical fast-food items – collecting the calories, sugar, saturated fat, and sodium values for the available products – then used the Department of Health’s nutrient profiling method to score the relative unhealthiness of each item on the list.
While customers don’t hit the drive-thru at fast-food joints for healthy options, some restaurants are better than others. Here’s a look at their results.
Healthiest fast-food cheeseburger
In PlushCare’s research, the healthiest cheeseburger was Culver’s Butterburger with an unhealthiness score of 17. However, the closest Culver’s to Delaware is in Ohio. It’s a shame too because Culver’s is fantastic – especially its frozen custard. Second place is available in Delaware – the McDonald’s cheeseburger and Burger King’s cheeseburger, which have an unhealthy score of 18. Realize, this isn’t the Quarter Pounder with cheese or the Whopper with cheese, but rather just the cheeseburgers.