The most famous fast food chain in the world, McDonald’s, has tweaked its Happy Meal menu in an effort to cut down on sodium, saturated fat, sugar, and calories that its children customers consume.
McDonald’s is thus taking off cheeseburgers and chocolate milk from its Happy Meal menu. While customers could still ask specifically for cheeseburgers or chocolate milk in their kid’s meal, the company hopes that not listing them would reduce how often they are ordered.
In 2014, the company removed soda from the Happy Meal menu and ever since then there’s been a 14 decrease of Happy Meal orders containing this food type.
According to McDonald’s, at least 50 percent or more of the kid’s meal options on menus will meet new global Happy Meal nutrition criteria by the end of 2022. This means that kids menus will have 600 calories or less out of which 10 percent of calories would stem from saturated fat, no more than 650 mg of sodium, and no more than 10 percent of calories from added sugar.
Happy Meals will continue to offer Chicken McNuggets and Hamburgers, according to the company.
The McDonald’s Happy Meal has long been criticized by health advocates and parents who linked the kid’s menu with childhood obesity. McDonald’s responded by tweaking its menus over the year, including cutting the size of its fries and adding fruit options. A recent change included replacing an apple juice option for one that has less sugar.
According to the company, the new changes will be introduced in the US by June.
The McDonald’s cheeseburger and chocolate milk did not meet the company’s new menu criteria, the company claims. However, McDonald’s has said that it is working on cutting sugar from the chocolate milk and hopes that the new option will be back on the Happy Meal menu eventually.
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Roxanne Briean
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