Health

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Fast Food $1 Burgers: Where’s the Beef?

The big three hamburger chains are battling for your buck by offering double cheeseburgers for only 99 cents or a dollar. The ads for these burgers make them look so large and enticing, but the reality is starkly different.

Here are pictures of the promised burgers followed by what MrConsumer was actually served.

Burger King double cheeseburger:

McDonald’s McDouble (ordered without the one piece of cheese):

Wendy’s Double Stack (ordered without the one piece of cheese):

All the burgers that were delivered looked like miniature sandwiches for children. None was really overflowing with meat as the photographs depicted, but the Wendy’s burger came the closest. It appears that fast food restaurants are taking an unreasonable amount of liberty in depicting the size of their burgers.

So how much beef is really in each of these sandwiches? Surprisingly, you can’t find out on the fast food restaurants’ websites except for Burger King, nor is it even listed in their nutritional information.

The PR or customer service folks at the three companies provided the hidden information.

*MOUSE PRINT:

The ugliest burger delivered — the one from Burger King — turned out to have the most beef, and frankly was the tastiest by far.

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Campbell’s (Not) 25% Less Sodium Tomato Soup

As we become more health conscious, we tend to be attracted to products that are better for us. Unfortunately, manufacturers usually charge a premium price when a product offers health benefits compared to similar products.

Here, for example, is Campbell’s Tomato soup — the regular type and the 25% less sodium version. Their regular tomato soup is $1 a can, while the can with less salt is $1.39. A huge percentage price difference. Funny, how we’re charged more for less. But it gets worse. When one checks the nutrition label, there is a big surprise:

*MOUSE PRINT:

The 25% reduced sodium version has just as much salt as the regular version!

Interestingly the mouse print on the back of the label of their regular tomato soup claims that it has 42% less sodium than Campbell’s regular soup — a greater reduction in salt than their so-called reduced sodium product.

How does Campbell’s explain these discrepancies? Consumer reporter Michael Finney (who tipped us off to this story) of the local ABC affiliate in San Francisco asked them [ignore initial 15 second ad]:

(Here is a direct link to the story if you cannot access the video above.)

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Trader Joe’s (Not) “Simply Almonds, Cashews & Cranberries”

You cannot judge a book by its cover, and you cannot judge a granola by its name. That’s the lesson one learns when looking at a box of Trader Joe’s Trek Mix Granola called “Simply Almonds, Cashews & Cranberries.”

traderjoegranola1

Based on the product’s name, one would think this was more of a trail mix, containing only almonds, cashews and cranberries. Yum.

*MOUSE PRINT:

traderjoegranola2

It really has more oats and sugar than any other ingredient, as well as flour and oil. The key ingredients — almonds, cashews, and cranberries — are not even in the order of predominance suggested by the product’s name. In fact, they are in the opposite order, with more cranberries present than almonds.

Just as those old Freezer Queen two pound frozen entries used to be named “Gravy and Turkey” because there was more gravy than turkey in product, Trader Joe’s should simply rename their product more accurately.

Thanks to Willie L. for this submission.