Burger King® Whopper® With Cheese, Large Fries and a Large Soda

Eating at fast food restaurants like Burger King® is very popular, but the nutritional value of fast food is questionable at best. Many selections in Burger King® contain large amounts of unhealthy fats and calories.

Because eating at fast food restaurants like Burger King® is so popular, I decided to review a typical meal at Burger King® for nutritional value. For this meal, I selected a Burger King Double Whopper® with Cheese, large french fries, and a large (20 ounce) cola.

Note that the DV or Daily Value is based on a 2,000 calorie per day diet. Nutritional information is also available from Burger King®.

A Big Meal, But is it Big Nutrition?

The Burger King® Double Whopper® With Cheese is made up of a sesame seed bun with two beef patties, two slices of American cheese, pickles, ketchup, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, and mayonnaise.

This sandwich is big at just under a pound in total weight, and that is without the fries. The calorie count for the Double Whopper with cheese is quite large at 990. The Burger King® Whopper® with cheese also has 64 grams of total fat. Of those 64 grams of fat, there are 30 grams of saturated fat and 2.5 grams of trans fats.

For carb watchers, the bun contains 45 grams of carbohydrates and with all the toppings, the carbohydrate total comes to 53 to 55 grams.

The total protein count for this burger would be about 52 grams. The Burger King® Double Whopper® with cheese also has about 1500 milligrams sodium.

There are some vitamins and minerals in the Burger King® Whopper® with cheese. In fact, you could get nearly 25 percent of your DV for vitamin A, 15 percent of your DV for vitamin C, 30 percent of your DV for calcium, and 45 percent of your DV for iron from this sandwich.

A Side of Fries and a Large Cola

The large order of fries contains 500 calories, half of which come form fat. There are 28 grams of total fat, six grams of saturated fat and six grams of trans fat. The french fries also have over 800 milligrams of sodium and 60 grams of total carbohydrates.

Twenty ounces of cola is packed with 300 calories, all from the 80 grams of sugar with no nutritional value.

The Bottom Line on the Burger King® Whopper® With Cheese

• This Burger King® meal has around 1800 calories. That is almost all of the calories you need for a whole day, which for most people is around 2000 calories.
• The amount of sodium in this fast food meal is all that you need for a whole day as well.
• There is a lot of fat, including over eight grams of unhealthy trans fat.

There are some vitamins and minerals, plus the tomatoes may add a bit of lycopene, which helps the nutrition profile a bit, but the nutritional value is overshadowed by the large amounts of unhealthy fats, sodium and calories.

Is this meal worth the hit to your health? You may love the taste of a Double Whopper® With Cheese, but the bottom line is that your "bottom" will get a lot bigger if you eat this meal very often, plus the unhealthy fats and sodium will do nothing to help your heart.

What to Eat at Burger King® Instead

If you choose to eat at Burger King® for lunch or dinner, you can avoid all the fats, sugar, and calories if you choose a salad instead of the burger. The Tendergrill Garden Salad® is a nice combination of chicken, lettuce, and vegetables. Even if you add the light Italian dressing, this salad would still come in at 420 calories. You would get lots of your daily recommendation for vitamin A (200 percent) and vitamin C (60 percent) plus calcium (15 percent). Add a bottled water instead of the soda, or a vitamin C-packed orange juice and you can have a healthy and tasty meal from Burger King®.