To make up for the absence of fat, the burger was filled with a seaweed extract -- which, unsurprisingly, didn't offer quite as much flavor as a burger jammed with fat. Not a good look for what was at the time far and away the chain's most expensive menu item. It also tended to dry out quickly, which meant that each one had to be made to order. Which in turn meant a longer wait in line than if you ordered literally anything else.
Speaking of which, "anything else" would be just as good of a health choice when you take into account that, at nine percent fat, the McLean wasn't that much better than a regular McDonald's burger, which weighs in at around 20 percent fat. However, that's only based on weight; when you consider the fat content compared to calories, one McLean Deluxe would actually account for 28 of the 30 percent of daily calories from fat that the FDA recommends as a healthy level of intake. If you added cheese, it went way over.
See, what most people don't realize is that McDonald's regular hamburgers aren't all that caloric. Sure, they aren't exactly "low fat," but a McDonald's burger only has 280 calories. Those burgers you pay $37 for at fancy gastropubs have more calories in their highfalutin artisanal buns than most products on the McDonald's menu have in total.
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