McDonalds Wants Your Angus Business

Ronald, Grimace and Hamburgler might soon have a new product to push. Anaheim McDonald's franchisee, Scott Frisbie, convinced the Golden Arch suits to test a new bigger, better and unhealthier burger--The Third Pound Angus Burger.

McDonald's competitors, Burger King and Carl's Jr., have featured big burgers on their menus for a couple of years, and their increased same store sales may suggest that Americans prefer Angus.

(shame on you and your high school-aged humor if you laughed at that last line...it's not our fault that the name of this high quality beef is one letter removed from the butt of many jokes...pun intended.)

Currently, 600 Mickey D's throughout SoCal are offering three versions of the 6oz red meat sandwich--one with mushrooms and swiss cheese, one with bacon and american cheese and one with lettuce, tomatoes and crinkled pickles.

I decided to subject my arteries and stomach to a taste test for purposes of this blog. I drove through my local McDonald's, ordered the Deluxe without mayo or cheese, and drove away. At home, I opened the bag and box to find that my "Deluxe" was missing lettuce, tomato, pickles and onions, but had mushrooms instead. It's the first time I've been to a McDonald's in years and the messed up order immediately brought to mind flashbacks of many similar experiences during my childhood--glad to see this McDonald's is not breaking with tradition.

I added catsup to my 6 ounces of Angus and mushrooms and bit in. The burger was juicy, the bun wasn't bad, but after chewing a few times I could tell that this sandwich was SALTY! I purposefully did not look at the nutrition information before my taste test, but I learned later that my buds are accurate--this burger has 1760 mg of sodium!!! That's 73% of your recommended daily intake!!! And, if I went with the bacon and cheese version I would swallow 2210 mg of sodium (92% RDA). After finishing the burger, i downed a bottle of water to quench my sodium-induced thirst. All in all, it tasted pretty good, but now it was time to learn exactly what came with that Angus.

The nutritional information of the Third Pound Angus Burger shocked me like a scene from 24. Along with most of my sodium for the day, this single sandwich carries 760 calories (Big Mac is 540), 17 grams of saturated fat (that's 85% of your RDA), 140mg of cholesterol (50% RDA) and 2g of Trans Fat. I'm not really lovin' that!

Anyway, I'm not quite sure why, with all of McDonalds recent success from rolling out healthier menu items, it is contemplating serving a heart attack on a bun. I can just hear the orders now..."I'll have a Bacon and Cheese Third Pound Angus Burger...and, um, a diet Coke."