It’s not often that you get a meal for free, but on Thursday, May 15, 2008, at participating McDonald’s restaurants, between 7 AM and 10:30 AM you can receive a free Southern Style Chicken Biscuit with the purchase of a medium or large drink. Before you get all excited, though, let’s take a look at what this bit of charity from McDonald’s might do to your daily dietary budget. For starters, the words “southern” and “biscuit” might be our first warning!

From their website, the nutritional values for the 5.5 oz breakfast biscuit are: 480 calories, 220 calories from fat, 24 g. fat, 37 % fat, 9G sat fat, 35mg cholesterol, 1,310mg sodium, 47 g carbs, 3g fiber, 4g sugar, 8g protein.

The smaller biscuit, the 5 oz size, is only 60 calories less and there’s very little difference in the other numbers.

The USDA Dieatary Guidelines recommend that we consume less than 2,300 mg (approximately 1 tsp of salt) of sodium per day, so that’s over half in just one meal. And if you’re on a calorie restricted diet, you won’t have much left for the rest of the day, so plan to eat a lot of fiber and drink a lot of water.

I have nothing against McDonald’s and I applaud their marketing strategy in giving away a meal to get us hooked. I think we all have to think about even this seemingly harmless fork in the road and be responsible in making a healthy decision for ourselves. This could be the one thing that makes or breaks our healthy eating habits. So, if you plan to stop by and pick up a free biscuit, drop it off to a friend who can afford the extra calories and feel good about your random act of kindness! Your friend will appreciate it and your waistline will, too!

When a truck in Illinois, hauling about 20,000 pounds of Oreos, crashed Monday (May 19, 2008) on I-80 just east of Morris, the trailer was ripped opened and the Oreos were thrown across the eastbound lanes of the highway. What I wouldn’t give to have been there! I’d help clean up that mess!

As I read the short piece in the paper, my mouth began to water and the familiar memory of milk and cookies passed through my brain signaling a need to race out the door in search of double-filled Oreos and a gallon of whole milk.

Then I remembered…the diet, the calories, the fat, etc. So, I resisted the urge, closed my eyes, drifted back into childhood memories of cooking healthy dishes in the kitchen with my mother; then baking those seven layer chocolate cakes with creamy chocolate icing between each layer………and we’d have Oreos with milk…….uh oh!