Craving Buffalo Wings? Go Naked.

If you haven’t heard…McDonald’s has a new menu item. I heard about them today by one of my patients who was pretty excited.

Yep. McDonald’s now serves Mighty Wings. Chicken wings that is.

Confession: when I first heard about wings at McDonald’s, I was picturing buffalo wings. The kind you get at a bar or with a pizza. These seem to be more a KFC type of chicken wing. Who knew!

I couldn’t help but do some investigating and find out more about the nutrition. Don’t worry…this blog isn’t meant to be totally depressing. After I shed the light on the Mighty Wing nutrition info, I will share a good alternative for a meal such as this.

For a 5 piece order of wings, 480 calories. In all honesty..not as terrible as many things on the menu. However…I don’t believe this takes any sauce into account. Waaaah wahhh.

I also calculated of those calories, what percentage was coming from fat. 31 grams of fat is a lot. But it’s important to remember one fat gram has more calories than one protein gram or one carb gram. It has NINE calories per 1 gram.

What does that mean? It means even though the protein and the fat look like they are the same. They aren’t. 58% of an order of Mighty Wings is fat. Not cool. Then you dip it in something loaded in sugar.

Well that was a Debbie Downer. I mean, we all have our guilty pleasures…but let me propose to you another idea if you feel the need for some chicken wing.

Buffalo Wild Wings has Naked Tenders on their menu. Un-breaded and seasoned chicken breast that you can order with any of the sauces on the side. The Buffalo Wild Wing website did not list the nutrition information on their Naked Tenders. But if you take those sauces a little easy…I guarantee your meal won’t be 58% from fat. Lean protein to fill you up and the flavor of your sauce of choice. If this can curb your craving, do it!

There are moments in our life when a certain food just sounds too good to turn down. Call it a guilty pleasure, call it a craving, call it what you will. The best case scenario is you can distract yourself and forget it ever happened. The second best case scenario is to find something that can do the trick without going all out. After that? Just keep those big time splurges to a very rare occasion.

One last thing to note: Buffalo Wild Wings didn’t pay me to say this and McDonald’s does have some options you can make work if you are in a rush. But now you are informed what I say when someone asks me about the NEW Might Wings ; )

What about you? What’s your guilty pleasure??