Trade in those burgers and fries? Not so fast

By Patrick May
(Public Access Journalism)

Like millions of Americans, Bob Beliles and his family routinely head for the local fast-food joint when they’re looking for a convenient way to eat out without spending a lot of time or money.  On these almost weekly outings, their table is normally covered with the typical — and fat-filled — fare this fast-food nation was raised on: juicy cheeseburgers and thick shakes, chicken nuggets with a rich dipping sauce, Cokes and ice cream, all stacked around that monolith of on-the-go dining — the super-sized carton of french fries.
 
The Beliles, a family of four living in the San Francisco Bay area, were asked recently to think outside the burger-and-fries box and order lunch with less fat and salt than normal.
 
Results were mixed. In fact, based on the Beliles’ experience, the fast-food chains might want to rethink some of the selections they’re putting in front of customers these days.

At the neighborhood Burger King one Sunday afternoon in March, Ryan Beliles, 10, considers the meal before him. Normally, he’d automatically order eight Chicken Tenders with Ranch dip, medium fries (salted, with ketchup), and a medium chocolate shake (1,340 calories). Today, it’s a Chicken Whopper (330 calories), and a low-fat milk (110 calories).

“I bet this won’t be very good,” he says with a scowl. After a few bites of the sandwich, which he agreed to order without any sauce, Ryan cheers up a bit. “It’s good,” he says. “The chicken is kind of juicy. And I don’t miss the mayonnaise at all.”
 
His sister, Katie, 7, is biting into a BK Veggie Burger (360 calories) she has ordered for the first time in her life. She’ll wash it down with low-fat milk. Unfortunately, there won’t be much to wash down, since Katie barely finishes half the sandwich. Instead, she’s dreaming of what she usually asks for: A Kids Meal with a cheeseburger, regular fries and a shake (770 calories).
 
“This tastes OK, but it has no cheese,” says Katie, under-whelmed by Burger King’s latest attempt at a healthy menu item. Bob, 39, orders a side salad with low-fat Italian dressing (50 calories) and iced tea. Ordinarily, he would have a Double Whopper with cheese (1,120 calories), Up-Sized fries (600 calories), and a large Diet Coke.

Today, he also tries a BK Veggie Burger and, like Katie, he is disappointed.
 
“The bummer is you first taste that lettuce and the tomato like you would biting into a hamburger, but then the taste you’re expecting from the meat doesn’t come,” he says. “This is like a slightly warmed-up lettuce-and-tomato sandwich. It doesn’t do a good job of tasting like a real burger.”
 
His wife, Kristine, 38, is the happiest of the bunch. Instead of her normal Whopper with cheese (795 calories), an Up-Sized fries (600 calories) and a Diet Coke, she is thoroughly enjoying her healthy meal: a Chicken Caesar Salad with dressing (220 calories), a baked potato (310 calories) and a 22-ounce iced tea.
 
“This is a great salad,” says Kristine. “The chicken is moist and the lettuce is fresh.” She’s cheating, though, by using Creamy Caesar dressing (140 calories) instead of the low-fat Italian alternative (50 calories) she could have asked for.
 
While their son polishes off his Chicken Whopper, exclaiming “I’d never give this up for a million dollars,” Bob is unhappy. “I’m finished with the BK Veggie Burger, but I’m not satisfied,” he says. “I miss the french fries.”
 
Katie has finished her milk and left half her BK Veggie Burger in the wrapper. And Kristine digs deep into her baked potato, which she has spruced up with Country Crock, a butter-like substance advertised as a “50 percent vegetable oil spread.”

In the end, the Beliles split the difference: two satisfied customers and two emphatic thumbs-down.

They eat lunch for about $2 less than they would have ordering their usual higher-fat meals, ingest 3,235 fewer calories among the four of them, but ultimately question why anyone looking for healthy food would come to a fast-food restaurant in the first place. It’s an oxymoron, Kristine says.

“When we go out as a family, we don’t think of ordering healthy. This has been a less-than-satisfying experience because you come here expecting to eat a certain kind of food.”

Bob agrees. “This is certainly a good way to lose weight, but this meal makes me crabby,” he says, pointing out all the huge posters of juicy burgers dripping with melted cheese, food he didn’t get to eat this time. “If I want to lose weight, I won’t come to a fast-food place because it’s torture.”

Both believe the fast-food menu of the future probably won’t change much. Says Kristine, “If you start replacing traditional items people like with this healthy stuff that just doesn’t taste as good, they’ll get ticked off.”

The Beliles leave Burger King with Bob promising to take the kids to one more place before heading home: a nearby Fosters Freeze for ice-cream sundaes.
———
Patrick May is a staff writer at the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News.
———

(c) 2003, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.