Fast Food Nutrition Explorer

This is a website where you can look at 16 well-known menu items from 8 major fast food chains, two per chain. The goal of this website is to give audeince an chance to compare what you actually get for the calories, the fat, the nutritons, and the price, in a simple glance.

How To Use This Page

The table below is sorted from highest to lowest Calories which is the core column highlighted in orange.

Top Items By Calories

Signature items from 8 fast food chains(2 from each), sorted by calories from high to low
Restaurant Item Calories
A unit of measurement for energy/the amount of energy released when your body breaks down food.
 Protein (g)
Large, complex molecules that do most of the work in cells and are required for the structure, function, and regulation of the body’s tissues and organs.
 Total Fat (g)
The complete sum of all different types of fat found in a serving of food.
 Sat Fat (g)
A type of dietary fat that stay solid at room temperature, usually from animal foods or plant oils.
 Trans Fat (g)
An artificial fat a type of dietary fat that raises bad cholesterol, lowers good cholesterol, and harms your heart.
 Total Carb (g)
Measure the complete amount of all carbohydrate types—including sugars, starches, and fiber—found in a single serving of food.
 Fiber (g)
a thin, thread-like piece of material, a plant nutrient that helps digestion, or the inner strength of a person's character.
 Sugar (g)
A sweet, soluble carbohydrate extracted mainly from plants like sugarcane and sugar beet, used to flavor food and provide energy.
 Price
Burger King WHOPPER w/ Cheese 760 33 47 16 1 53 3 11 $7.49
Sonic Sonic Burger W/ Mustard 640 31 37 14 2 43 2 7 $5.49
Burger King Original Chicken Sandwich 630 24 39 7 1 46 3 4 $5.99
Sonic Crispy Chicken Sandwich 570 23 33 5 0 47 4 6 $5.99
McDonald's Big Mac 540 25 28 10 1 46 3 9 $5.99
Chick-fil-A Spicy Deluxe 540 34 25 8 0 43 2 6 $6.05
Dairy Queen 1/4 lb. GrillBurger with Cheese 540 23 30 11 1 44 3 13 $5.99
Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme 540 16 21 6 0 71 7 7 $4.49
McDonald's Quarter Pounder with Cheese 530 31 27 13 1.5 41 3 10 $6.49
Arby's Beef 'n Cheddar Classic 450 23 20 6 1 45 2 9 $5.99
Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwich 440 28 19 4 0 40 2 5 $5.15
Subway 6" Italian B.M.T. 410 20 16 6 0 46 5 8 $6.99
Dairy Queen Original Cheeseburger 400 19 18 9 1 34 1 8 $4.49
Arby's Classic Roast Beef 360 23 14 5 0.5 37 2 5 $5.49
Subway 6" Turkey Breast 280 18 4 1 0 46 5 7 $6.49
Taco Bell Crunchy Taco 170 8 10 4 0 12 3 1 $2.19
This data table is adapted from published restaurant nutrition information location from Kaggle.

Item Summary

Click product names in the table above. This will build a short summary about the information in the table.

Click an item name in the table above to see its summary here.

what are we able to get out from the data

What affects the calories

One of the clear patterns is that the high calorie foods also tend to have very high fat. For example, Burger King's Whopper with Cheese has the highest calorie count at 760 calories and also the highest total fat at 47g. The Sonic Burger with Mustard follows with 640 calories and 37g fat.

However, protein does not increase at the same rate. The Whopper with Cheese has 33g protein, while Chick-fil-A’s Spicy Deluxe actually has slightly more protein at 34g, despite having only 540 calories and 25g fat.

This suggests that there might be some correlation between fat and calories while not between calories and protein. In this dataset, high calories do not necessarily mean that the customer receives proportionally more protein or nutritional value.

is there a correlation between price and the amount of trans fat

Trans fat has mostly been phased out of fast food, but not completely. In order to find if there is an correlation between the price of the food and the amount of trans fat in each item, we can generate a dot-plot graph.

Figure 1: Relationship Between Price and Trans Fat

A similar pattern appears among products containing 0 g of trans fat. Their prices vary dramatically. Taco Bell’s Crunchy Taco has 0 g of trans fat and costs only $2.19, while Subway’s 6” Italian B.M.T. , which also has 0 g, costs $6.99. This shows that having little or no trans fat does not necessarily make an item cheaper.

Glossary

Calories
A unit of measurement for energy/the amount of energy released when your body breaks down food.
Protein
Large, complex molecules that do most of the work in cells and are required for the structure, function, and regulation of the body’s tissues and organs.
Total Fat
The complete sum of all different types of fat found in a serving of food.
Saturated Fat
A type of dietary fat that stay solid at room temperature, usually from animal foods or plant oils.
Trans Fat
An artificial fat a type of dietary fat that raises bad cholesterol, lowers good cholesterol, and harms your heart.
Total Carb
Measure the complete amount of all carbohydrate types—including sugars, starches, and fiber—found in a single serving of food.
Fiber
a thin, thread-like piece of material, a plant nutrient that helps digestion, or the inner strength of a person's character.
Sugar
A sweet, soluble carbohydrate extracted mainly from plants like sugarcane and sugar beet, used to flavor food and provide energy.