McDonald’s has been working hard to improve the image of its food offerings, wanting to get away from seeming processed or simply bad fast food and I give it credit for those efforts. But sadly I think it’s still missing the point, at least for someone like me worried about salt, fat and sugar in my diet.
The McDonald’s Artisan Grilled Chicken Sandwich is its latest attempt. artisan conveys a sense that this chicken is somehow more special than its regular chicken sandwich. So I was really hoping to see that in its nutrition information. What I saw instead though was a mountain of salt.
The regular variety has 1110 mgs of sodium, half a day’s worth for a healthy person, almost a full day;s worth for someone like me dealing with heart disease. It also sports 7 grams of fat, not all that bad, and 11 grams of sugar.
Order the Sweet BBQ Bacon with Artisan Grilled Chicken variety and the news gets worse, as you might imagine when the magical word bacon appears in the title. That one has 1,930 mgs of sodium, basically a day’s supply for a healthy person, and 22 grams of fat along with 18 grams of sugar.
The Pico Guacamole with Artisan Grilled Chicken variety has 1,540 mgs of sodium, 18 grams of fat and 12 grams of sugar.
If you strip away all the ingredients except the chicken, lettuce and lime, you get 580 mgs of sodium, 2 grams of fat and no sugar. So if you really have a taste for chicken at McDonald’s try that.
I usually get a Southwest salad with grilled chicken and strip out the tortilla chips and cheese, putting that at 900 mgs of sodium.
John
The No Salt, No Fat, No Sugar Journal 
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