One Brick Short

Welcome to Breaking News Break where we break into the news with all the news that’s broken and speaking of broken, JOAN LOWY of the Associated Press tells us that healthy kids’ meals at top restaurant chains are hard to find.

Hellsbelles, a, healthy adult meal is hard to find, why should kids be any different? What, they’re special because they’re young? We already give them food, shelter, and hundreds of dollars in school supplies and ask nothing of them other than to go to school, learn a few mental tricks and not do drugs. Geez, you’d think they were our future, or something.

Anyway, according to a report by the Center for Science in the Public Interest “nearly every possible combination of the children’s meals at Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, Sonic, Jack in the Box, and Chick-fil-A are too high in calories.“

Ms. Lowry writes that the center found 93 percent of 1,474 possible choices at the 13 chains exceed 430 calories — an amount that is one-third of what the National Institute of Medicine recommends that children ages 4 through 8 should consume in a day.

Wait a minute: If that amount is one-third of what kids should eat and they eat three meals a day, doesn’t that make 100 percent of what the kids are supposed to consume? 

Anyway, the report says that Chili’s Bar and Grill has 700 possible kids’ meal combinations, far more than their adult meals, but that 94 percent of those are too high in calories. The country-fried chicken crispers, cinnamon apples and chocolate milk contained 1,020 calories, while the cheese pizza, homestyle fries, and lemonade contained 1,000 calories.

Burger King’s Big Kids meal with a double cheeseburger, fries, and chocolate milk had 910 calories, and Sonic’s “Wacky Pack” is packed with 830 calories worth of grilled cheese, fries, and a slushie.

How many calories the free toys stuck into some of those meals was not measured.

The report notes that eating out now accounts for a third of children’s daily caloric intake, twice the amount consumed away from home 30 years ago.

The report also found that 45 percent of children’s meals exceed recommendations for saturated and trans fat, which can raise blood cholesterol levels and increase the risk of heart disease, and 86 percent of children’s meals are high in sodium.

The report recommends restaurants come up with new menu items to reduce calories, saturated and trans fat, and salt, and add more healthy items like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and make fruit or vegetables and low-fat milk or water the default sides instead of French fries and soda for children’s meals.

Yeah, that will sell. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard kids whining to the mommies at Hardees’s “but momma, I want my tofu and sprouts on a whole grain pita!

“Parents want to feed their children healthy meals, but America’s chain restaurants are setting parents up to fail,” CSPI nutrition policy director Margo G. Wootan said in a statement. “McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, and other chains are conditioning kids to expect burgers, fried chicken, pizza, French fries, macaroni and cheese, and soda in various combination at almost every lunch and dinner.”

Yes, those damn food industrialists are killing our kids by not including green beans or grilled salmon and asparagus in any of those meals. Of course, parents could cook more meals at home and control kids’ food intake that way, but that would take work and planning and parental involvement.

It’s a lot easier to blame the restaurant industry for giving us what we want.

Associated Press photo by Don Ryan