This is random...and something tells me Burger King might be a new Sugar Network sponsor!

LOL. The thought crossed my mind too, Asche. KFC seems to be another possible sponsor as well. Two unhealthy, unethical fast 'food' places being given a spotlight as if they didn't already get enough with billions of dollars spent in marketing and thousands of stores worldwide (and massive influence of the USDA, FDA and various lawmakers).

Calories aren't the only nutritional measure people should be concerned about, especially with places like Burger King and KFC. What about the sodiums, fats, oils, preservatives, growth hormones, anti-biotics, and whatever else the 'food' is treated with for the sake of mass production and momentary (but non-nutritional) satiation?

Yeah, BK is pretty unhealthy...but realistically, people (like me) don't eat healthy 100% of the time. So, if I go to Burger King or another fast food once a month or so, I'd like to know what on their menu has the lowest calories.

Fit isn't telling us all to go to BK and chow down! She's just saying that if you're on the road, sometimes fast food is the only option. So if you don't want to consume 1,000 calories on one sitting, now you have some choices you know are under 300 calories.

Oh please. Leave your righteousness outside. I'm not a BK fan, but what's unhealthful about the chicken salad? Growth hormones? Are you sure? Are you sure they're in BK and not in chicken you buy at the supermarket But of course you're an organic farmer, Asche, aren't you? Or a vegetarian (in which case no one cares about your opinion of BK).

Oh please, ScottM. My point is that it seems incredibly random to post something solely about Burger King. If Fit is so concerned about us having healthy options for when we have to stop at a rest stop, etc, why not include other companies in the list?

Maybe it's because I work in Marketing, but I would never be so naive as to take anything posted on an website at face value.

And I have to agree with Phil. I could care less about calories. I"m more concerned with saturated fat, sodium, and knowing how much fiber something has to offer. Why isn't that information listed? B/c the readers of this blog probably wouldn't go to BK if we knew the truth! (which can be easily found on the website...and it's scary.)

What's unhealthful about the chicken salad? A quick tangent on Google takes me to the Burger King website which reveals a sodium count of 780mg--680mg of which are from the chicken, and with half a packet of light Italian dressing you can add 220mg for a total of 1,000mg of sodium. RDA for sodium is less than 2,300mg. So, from one chicken salad from Burger King you're consuming almost half of your daily recommended intake of sodium. Not very healthy, is it? Especially for what seems to be the healthiest of the six menu items being showcased. It's no wonder there's an epidemic of heart disease in the US.

It's probable that if you're on a road trip and looking for sustenance, you're better off going to a convenience store to see if there are better options or just getting a garden salad. Considering you're on a road trip, a better option than going to a specific fast food restaurant, or any fast food restaurant, is to ask the locals about their favorite local eateries.

One thing that I wonder about is why Burger King is being showcased at all on a blog that is concerned primarily with fitness? A post on a specific fast food restaurant piques curiosity. As does the omission of options aside from fast food restaurants, considering that it's highly unlikely that on a road trip a Burger King is going to be the only place to eat in town. James Poniewozik just posted somewhat informally in his blog on Time.com about the ethics and economy of blog sponsorships titled "The (Positive, Enthusiastic, Subsidized) Critics of the Future?", which I thought possibly relevant to this post about Burger King on a blog called FitSugar.

As for chickens in general--you don't have to be a free range, organic chicken farmer to know that hormones and antibiotics are pumped into factory chickens, or to know whether the chicken you're buying has been raised without the growth hormones and antibiotics that CAFO's use. In fact, all you have to do is buy a chicken certified organic by the USDA (a regulatory body I'm personally iffy about, whose organic rating system is questionable). Better yet, go to your local co-ops and farmers markets and get to know the people in your region who are producing your food. Chat with them, maybe tour their farms, make a connection with these folks who gift us the quality of food that CAFO's supplying fast food restaurants could never achieve. Many people have a misconception that eating ethically and nutritionally is so inconvenient or difficult or time consuming, when the reality is far from the truth.

Right on, Phil!

Fit, I wish you'd speak up for yourself and tell everybody here that this was just ONE post. Fit posts stuff like this all the time about other fast food places, as well as posts about convenience store foods that are better for you. Y'all need to lighten up. I appreciated this. I'm so sick of everybody being so righteous about how they never eat fast food/only eat organic/always pack healthy foods. It's ridiculous.

Katyharper: It's not about being righteous. It's about full disclosure. People nail magazines all the time for promoting products from their sponsors (which beauty editors would NEVER use). I appreciate food posts on here, but not posts that so clearly have alterior motives.

And, did you once stop to think that maybe the reason Fit never speaks up is because Phil and I just might have a point?

Indeed, there are many excellent posts on FitSugar. But this one is a bit conspicuous, and that Asche, and surely others, notice the same raises an eyebrow (especially for a muckraker like myself).

It's not just one post, the same thing was done in late April with McDonalds (right around the time McDonalds started their $100 million marketing blitz for their coffee offerings). There is deceit in omission. It's quite clear that these posts focus on low-calorie options at fast 'food' places, and that's a positive thing, but there's little more than an ever so subtle disclaimer that the foods aren't actually healthy with minimal explanation why. The post focuses on the positive where there are glaring negatives that are deleterious to health (and other things). What the omission or marginalization of the significant negative and focus on the positive does is create a veneer of healthfulness for a food that is not at all healthy, once again for emphasis, on a blog that is about fitness and healthfulness. If a doctor did the same when prescribing drugs, I'd imagine people wouldn't stand for it. Is it really any different for the food that we eat?

Now why is the omission of the negative so significant? Because healthfulness is not merely about focusing on one aspect of something. In the case of physical fitness the ideal fitness regime addresses the body universally. The same goes for nutritional fitness. You can focus on calories alone, but you leave a glaring gap for other factors like the aformentioned sodium content, as well as fats, sugars, fibers, even the absence of vitamins and minerals that need representation in a healthy diet.

Now in this post about Burger King, it is indeed framed in the circumstance of a road stop with no other options available. But, regardless of circumstance, is it doing more of a service or disservice to marginalize the other nutrition facts that reveal the unsavory reality of the foods being showcased (yes, even the chicken salad)?

Another article worth reading is from the New York Times last week titled "Approval By a Blogger May Please a Sponsor." There is real concern being raised about explicit and implicit sponsorship of blog posts, not only about the ethics of the practice but also of the credibility of the content. I think those concerns apply to this post. As Asche put it, it's about full disclosure.

Phil, you should be a lawyer.

I just can't believe that Fit is posting something like this (regardless of being paid or not). For a blog that has such amazing content, this is just totally off.

I don't care how stranded a person is. It is NEVER okay to eat at McDonalds or Burger King, unless you are drinking either water or unsweeted tea, and eating lettuce with nothing on it. The sodium and preservatives alone will kill you!

But in this day in age, where the international obesity rate outweighs (no pun intended) the rate of people starving, this post is just irresponsible. There are over 1 billion overweight people worldwide. And, if one of them comes to look at this blog, I hope they don't take this post as a sign that is is acceptable to eat fast food.

People seriously need to get off their high horses. Jeez, appreciate the post for what it is and move on.

Check the Burger King's own website to find the Whopper Jr. alone has 370 calories, not under 300.
Big difference, here!
Bottom line...educate yourself, and make your own decisions about your health.