Chicken Nugget Showdown: Unveiling The Healthiest Fast Food Chains

Yesterday, we told you about the healthiest burgers in the fast food industry according to PlushCare.  You can see the results of the burger study at this link.

The PlushCare folks are at it again, this time determining which fast food chicken nuggets are the most (and least) healthy.

PlushCare:

These are the steps we followed when analyzing the nutrient profiles of equivalent items at America's most popular fast-food chains:

1. We defined a set of products: cheeseburger, chicken burger, regular fries, regular vanilla shake, and nuggets (10 pieces).
2. We looked for the closest possible product at In-N-Out, Burger King, McDonald's, Shake Shack, Wendy's, Sonic, Carl's Jr., Jack in the Box, Five Guys, Culver's, A&W, Steak n Shake, Fatburger, Smashburger, Dairy Queen, KFC, Chick-fil-A, Zaxbys, Popeyes, Raising Cane's, Arby's, Church's Chicken and Bojangles.
3. We consulted each chain's nutritional menu to collect the Calories (Kj), Sugar (g), Saturated Fat (g), and Sodium (mg) values for all the available products.
4. We used the Department of Health's nutrient profiling method to assess the relative unhealthiness of each item on our list. In short, each item receives an individual score for energy (kJ), saturated fat (g), total sugar (g), and sodium (g), based on the weight of these components, which combine for an overall "unhealthiness score." Total nutrient points = (points for energy) + (points for saturated fat) + (points for sugars) + (points for sodium)

The bottom five when it came to fast food nuggets according to PlushCare were Popeye's with an 'Unhealthiness Score' of 30, followed by Arby's (29), Shake Shack (26), Burger King (25) and Jack In the Box (22).

The healthiest chicken nuggets belong to McDonalds! With an 'Unhealthiness Score' of just 18, they finished one point ahead of second-place Kentucky Fried Chicken (19) and Wendy's (20).