Healthy fast food lacks a crucial ingredient

By JULIE MIDDLETON

Pummelled by perceptions that they contribute to "globesity", New Zealand fast-food chains are trying to woo the weight-conscious by developing lower-fat items.

But according to a dietitian, their attempts have been only partly successful.

The Weekend Herald took Auckland Regional Public Health Services dietitian Christine Cook to four fast-food chains: Wendy's, McDonald's, Burger King and KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken).

We asked her to rate items claimed as lower fat on their presentation (after all, the way food looks is a large part of its appeal), energy value, value for money, and satiety - whether they would fill you up.

Overall, the chains have salads with various meats and dressings as their main lower-fat options.

But Ms Cook said: "The salad presentations at Burger King, McDonald's and Wendy's were boring, like a typical Kiwi salad of 20 or 30 years ago with few tasty ingredients. They were also presented in a very stylised way, which is out of vogue."

Wendy's chicken salad, padded out with iceberg lettuce, was the least appealing and offered no carbohydrate such as bread, meaning it would not fill people up for long.

For the same price, she noted, she could buy food-hall Japanese.

In general, more colourful salads were tastier and more nutritious, she said. "All coloured vegetables contain anti-oxidants, which protect health."

Ms Cook questioned whether fast food chains were making a "realistic effort" to offer lower-energy meal choices acceptable to consumers, "given that taste is the number one driver of food choice, before convenience and price".

"Dietitians believe that food should be enjoyable as well as healthy, and try to get away from the perception that healthy food is rabbit food," she said.

"But the light choices offered by Burger King, McDonald's and Wendy's reinforce this perception. Also, it is unrealistic that a main meal choice has only 200 calories - this is not an adequate meal for anyone, unless you're on a rigorous weight-loss diet, but they are priced as a main meal."

She said the salads perpetuated the idea that healthy eating was virtuous but not enjoyable.

"One wonders whether the salad meals have had sensory evaluation or taste-testing with consumers - where did the creativity go?"

Into the marketing, possibly. Ms Cook said that the McDonald's promotion of its new 99 per cent fat-free fruit smoothie obscured the fact that it was loaded with sugar, and thus still high-energy.

Although barely promoted as a lower-fat option, the KFC crispy chicken salad, introduced last November, was the best attempt to provide a balanced offering, she said.

The appealing salad was "well-integrated", though the potato salad and coated chicken would raise the fat quota.

However, her approval should please owner Restaurant Brands, which says it is planning to join its competitors by launching a new range of low-fat options in mid-year.

FIGHTING FAT

* About 33 per cent of daily energy needs should derive from fat. This is 60g to 75g a day, but manual workers would need more.

* Saturated fat - the predominant fat in fast foods - provides 16 per cent of the average energy intake of adults; the recommendation is 12 per cent.

* About 1560 deaths a year are put down to inadequate vegetable and fruit intake.

* About 3000 are related to overweight and obesity.

* Concern is mounting about child and adult obesity.

(Sources: Nutrition and the Burden of Disease New Zealand 1997-2011: Ministry of Health, Wellington, 2003; Christine Cook, ADHB).