Another "healthy" option on the menu

Ah yes. I suppose it is no shock to any of us in Sara's class (or anyone at large for that matter) that McDonalds is a purveyor of "food". I stumbled across this piece by Mark Bittman on McDonald's oatmeal. opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/how-to-make-oatmeal-wrong/

Bittman's essay is a castigation of McDonalds' attempt to present a healthy option on their menu" Fruit and Maple oatmeal. Bittman makes the excellent point that oatmeal is in and of itself a food, economical and nutritious; he highlights the inconsistency of serving oatmeal that has been adulterated with "11 weird ingredients" that in New York costs more than their double cheeseburger. He credits McDonalds with being able to pull off such a feat of marketing.

Curious about the actual nutritional value and ingredients list, I checked it out here. http:/nutrition.mcdonalds.com/nutrition1/itemDetailInfo.do/

Calorie wise it's not so bad, even with all the fruit and cream. It's got a whopping 32 grams of sugar though, pretty high for a single meal. When you look at the ingredients list you can see why. Refined sugar is added twice to the oatmeal and once to the cranberries. Bittman is right about the weird ingredients, which show up mainly in the "cream".