Sometimes we just can’t avoid buying our children a Happy Meal at McDonald’s, but soon I guess we'll be able to feel less guilty about it.
They just announced plans to make Happy Meals healthier by the end of 2022. The goal is to have at least 50% of all Happy Meals contain no more than 600 calories, with 10% coming from saturated fat, 10% coming from added sugars and with each meal having only 650 milligrams of sodium.
As for whether your kids will be happy with the changes, that’s another story. To meet their goals, McDonald’s plans to only put a cheeseburger in a Happy Meal at a customer’s request, plus they're cutting the size of a French fry order that comes with Chicken McNuggets, and reducing the added sugar in chocolate milk, with bottled water promoted on the menu board as the featured beverage for the item.
- Plus they may start offering new, healthier food options in the meals, like a Junior Chicken, which is a grilled chicken sandwich.
- And while the goal is to have all the changes made by 2020, we'll see some improvements as early as this summer. McDonald's says that 100% of the changes, with the exception of the sodium decreases will be adapted by June, with 78% of the sodium goals met by then as well.
Source: USA Today