People on Twitter were outraged when McDonald’s announced it was removing the cheeseburger from their Happy Meal menus in the US.
However the move was slightly lost in translation, as people are still able to order the cheeseburger Happy Meal on request, it just won’t be advertised.
The fast food chain stated that the changes form part of the global fast-food giant’s plans to have at least half of the Happy Meals listed around the world to contain 600 calories or fewer by 2022.
In the UK, cheeseburgers have not been advertised on the menu for more than 10 years. But, parents can still order them for their kids.
A McDonald’s UK spokesperson said in a statement: “We take our responsibility to families very seriously and in the UK we have, for a long time, been committed to evolving our Happy Meal menu to keep in step with what parents want.
“We have pioneered an extensive salt and sugar reduction programme, and subsequently the average Happy Meal consumed in the UK last year contained 19.3% less salt, 9.4% less saturated fat, and 13.5% less sugar, compared with the average Happy Meal sold in 2006.”
The spokesperson told HuffPost UK the move to not advertise the cheeseburger was made to ensure they were offering choice, but also to lead to a “reduction in salt and sugar” in the meals people were buying.
They added that the Happy Meals meals advertised in the chain are all 600 calories or below.
For parents interested in the nutritional value of their kids’ food at McDonald’s, they can use the UK nutritional calculator to find out how many calories are in each meal. A cheeseburger has 300 calories and 1.6g of salt. This is compared to the hamburger which has 250 calories and 1.2g of salt. The nuggets have 173 calories and 0.34g of salt.
Parents can look at combinations of meals to see how much the total calories are. A Happy Meal with chicken McNuggets, small fries and a Fruit Shoot comes out at 420 calories. A Happy Meal with a hamburger, small fries and an orange juice comes out at 595 calories.
However, having a cheeseburger can raise the calorie count. A Happy Meal with a cheeseburger, small fries and an orange juice comes out at 646 calories. You can do your own calculations here.