McDonald’s kids meal puts focus on the fiber

CHICAGO – Under pressure from health and children’s advocacy groups, McDonald’s Corp. is making changes to its famed Happy Meals.

The fast food chain will add a serving of fruit or vegetable to all of the meals, which are aimed at children, and shrink the portion of french fries.

The changes, announced Tuesday, will take effect in September in some markets and then roll out to all 14,000 McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S. by April.

McDonald’s said it first experimented with cutting fries entirely from the Happy Meals, but children and parents rebelled.

“People come to McDonald’s and, first of all, they want the choice and the control to be theirs, but their expectation of a Happy Meal does include a fry,” said Jan Fields, president of McDonald’s USA. “When we did it without fries, there was a huge disappointment factor.”

The new french fry holders in Happy Meals will contain 1.1 ounces of potatoes, down from 2.4. Apple slices will often be included as the healthful side dish, but it could also be carrots, raisins, pineapple slices or Mandarin oranges, depending on the time of year and the region in which they’re being served, Fields said.

Although subject to variation depending on what’s ordered, the new meals will represent, on average, a 20 percent decrease in calories, the chain said.

Fields said Happy Meal prices will not go up as a result of the changes. But the chain has raised prices this year as a result of soaring commodity costs.

As the world’s largest restaurant chain by sales, McDonald’s has been under intense scrutiny for the nutritional quality of its food and its marketing to children. Critics have strongly challenged the chain’s practice of selling kids’ meals that include a toy, connecting it to the nation’s obesity crisis.

McDonald’s revamped its Happy Meal choices in 2004 by offering soda alternatives, such as 1 percent milk, with a meal of hamburger, cheeseburger or chicken nuggets and fries. It also offered an option of replacing fries with sliced apples served with low-fat caramel sauce.

In 2006, McDonald’s began advertising a version of its Happy Meal that included chicken nuggets and the apple slices, marketed as Apple Dippers because of the caramel sauce. The result is that 88 percent of McDonald’s customers know about the fruit option with Happy Meals, according to the company. But only 11 percent of kids meals are ordered with apples instead of fries.

In the revamped Happy Meals, the caramel sauce will not be offered.