McDonalds Nutrition

Maccas <- read.csv("/Users/charlie/Downloads/Maccas Menu.csv")

The report is based on information from the American Mcdonalds menu. Question 1 assesses the content of sugar in the breakfast, lunch/dinner menu and the beverages menu, comparing them to the World Health Organisations recommended daily intake of added sugar. Question 2 identifies the average salt content of the breakfast, lunch/dinner menu as well as the fries menu and compares them to the World Health Organisations recommend daily intake of salt, to assess whether or not a McDonalds meal fits these guidelines.

The World Health Organisation recommends intake of added sugars be as follows; Adult male 37.5 grams (9 teaspoons), Adult Female 25 grams (6 teaspoons). We analysed the sugar content from the American McDonald’s menu in three categories breakfast, mains and beverages this did not include any sides.

Source for daily intake - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/world-health-organization-lowers-sugar-intake-recommendations/

The breakfast menu containing 42 items had an average of 8.3g per meal. Going off the information from the World Health Organisation this is already a third of the recommended intake for Adult females and a quarter for adult males. This mean is affected by two data points with readings of 32g. It can be seen in the positively skewed boxplot below that 50% of the items on the breakfast menu contain 5 grams or less sugar, therefore the median gives us a more robust mid point of the sugar content in breakfast foods.

mean(Maccas[1:42,19,],horizontal = TRUE)

## [1] 8.261905

median(Maccas[1:42,19,],horizontal = TRUE)

## [1] 3.5

boxplot(Maccas[1:42,19,],main='Breakfast Menu-Added Sugar',xlab='Grams(g)',horizontal = TRUE)

The lunch/dinner menu contains 41 items, these items do not include drinks or sides. These menu has an average sugar content of 7.86 grams and a median of 7.5, displaying a symmetric boxplot as you can see below. This added sugar content is around 30% of Adult females and 20% of Adult males recommended daily sugar intake. The beverages menu which includes cold drinks such as soft drinks and waters had a mean sugar content of 26.86g and a median of 26.5g.

mean(Maccas[43:84,19,],horizontal = TRUE)

## [1] 7.857143

median(Maccas[43:84,19,],horizontal = TRUE)

## [1] 7.5

boxplot(Maccas[43:84,19,],main='Lunch/Dinner Menu-Added Sugar',xlab='Grams(g)',horizontal = TRUE)

The World Health Organisation recommended daily intake of salt is to not exceed 5000mg per day. We analysed salt content in the breakfast, lunch/dinner menu as well as the fries menu to determine on average how much salt is consumed in just one meal at McDonalds and does it fit these guidelines.

From the lunch/dinner menu has a mean of 1173mg and a median of 1140mg, from the histogram below there is one clear outlier of 3600mg (40 piece chicken nuggets). These two mid points of the data are just over 20% of the recommended daily intake for an adult.

mean(Maccas[1:42,13,])

## [1] 1211.071

median(Maccas[1:42,13,])

## [1] 1265

hist(Maccas[1:42,13,],main='Lunch/Dinner-Salt Content',xlab='Milligrams(mg)')

mean(Maccas[43:84,13,])

## [1] 1173.095

median(Maccas[43:84,13,])

## [1] 1140

boxplot(Maccas[43:84,13,],main='Lunch/Dinner Menu-Salt Content',xlab='Milligrams(mg)',horizontal = TRUE)

mean(Maccas[97:100,13,])

## [1] 168.75

median(Maccas[97:100,13,])

## [1] 160

boxplot(Maccas[97:100,13,],main='Fries Menu-Salt Content',xlab='Milligrams(mg)',horizontal=TRUE)

The fries menu has mean of 169mg and a median of 160mg. By using the mean as our measure of middle from the lunch/dinner menu as well as the fries menu we can gauge that the average salt intake from a meal at McDonalds would be 1380mg. This value is approximately equal to 28% of the recommended daily intake for adults in just one meal. Overall the salt content of food at McDonalds follows the guidelines of the WHO.