Though it does pain me to do so, I am alerting you to a pretty cool feature on the McDonald's website. First I will tell you what led me to explore their website today. I had mentioned that I received a coupon book from them in my mailbox (the post office appreciates their business). On one of the pages there was mention of wholesome choices and on this page were pictures of a few items with the caption, "300 calories or less." I took that to mean that they had a line of entrees that were called Wholesome Choices and I wanted to check them out to see if they really were on the lower end of the calorie spectrum. My plan was to make a note of these special items for readers of my blog.
In fact, they do not have that category, but they do have a search feature that lets you see all items that they sell, presented in order of calories (or fat, or sodium, or sugar-you pick the sort feature). After you select the nutrient of interest, a list of the items in order from lowest to highest will appear. They display as icons, pictures, and if you let you mouse hover on the picture, it tells you the nutrient info for the item. Pretty darn neat.
This will not get me into McDonalds and there are three points that should be made - beyond the fact that currently, the people who would be most likely to make use of this resource (like me) don't eat at fast food joints and do not have a weight problem.
That last point is the basis for these important steps:
1) first we have to make the resource relevant - i.e. educate people on the impact of calories and why they should limit them
2) drive people to the resource - and that includes providing access because not everyone has a computer or an internet connection
3) get people to use the resource once one and two are in place (promotion)
The webpage and search feature that McDonald's provides is a tool that allows for informed eating and for that I must give... Kudos! It is called the Full Menu Explorer and can be seen/used by clicking here.
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