Years before I ever thought about having gastric bypass surgery I always sought out the "real" egg restaurant fare. It all started with one of my children. When we would eat the "other" eggs at fast food places he would have a tummy ache. Moral of this story: look for the real thing. 

So let's talk about breakfast at the golden arches.  Yes, I've done the research...and the eggs in the McGriddles and McMuffins are real eggs, they are not cooked in the McDonald's restaurant, but rather cooked and shaped in the processing plant, then shipped in little squares to the store. The individual restaurants heat the eggs up on the grill before serving. This information came from a store manager.  

The eggs are perfectly round because they are cooked in a ring-shaped mold. The grill is sprayed with margarine to prevent sticking, then the eggs are cracked into individual rings, covered with a lid, and cooked until the yolk is gelled.

Their scrambled eggs are a liquid egg mixture from a carton, no different than what you would buy from the grocery store.  I take this to mean; they are real eggs, just scrambled, then packaged and shipped to the restaurant, so they are ready for fast service. 

Now, this morning was just a McDonald's kind of morning. OK...I know, it's "fast food" but I have a two year old grandson, and breakfast today on the way to preschool was just looking more and more like a good "McDonald's for breakfast" idea.  And yes, this is real life, and sometimes you just have to do these things. Gavin loves to go for hot cakes at "ole McDonalds"! Besides, I had to take along a healthy snack and juice and "good ole, "ole McDonald's" has sliced apples, which I didn't have time to fix either! Breakfast is the only meal I eat at McDonald's, so enough excuses...let's do breakfast.

I looked at the nutrition information on the back of the serving paper that comes on the tray.  "I'm lovin' it" that this information is so accessible.  (By the way, all restaurants will be required to do this soon, or at least calorie counts, I wonder if our food industry will make changes when they have to reveal calorie counts and will honesty prevail?) whoops...back on the topic...breakfast at Mickey D's...

The nutrition information...the Egg McMuffin and Sausage McMuffin are the only items under 400 calories. The Egg McMuffin is 300 calories with half the fat of the sausage, and it also has a little more protein. Don't be think'n about switch'n the muffin, 'cause the biscuit choices run from 410 to 600 calories. Well, if you eat half, I suppose, but for hypoglycemia in my case,  the white flour items wouldn't be a good idea, but then again, neither would the muffin.  

The best choice is the Egg McMuffin with the real egg, canadian bacon, (kraft) cheese slice, and you could remove the bread, or at least half.  And kudos to McDonald's, they have apples slices, which is a great choice, "I'm lovin' it"!

But now, Gavin and I have the Big Breakfast with Hot Cakes and a biscuit for a grand total of 1090 calories. Yep! We go big! 56 grams of fat! uhgggg!  And oh no, I don't eat all that...together we don't even eat all that!

"I'm lovin' it", I didn't have to cook or clean up breakfast and we got to school on time! Gavin gets the hot cakes, that's all two year olds care about anyway!  As a "somewhat" responsible grandmother, I do make sure he gets milk and as much egg and sausage as he will eat.  That, by the way, leaves me plenty of egg. Real egg, and 1/2 the sausage patty. Oh...and I did take a few bites of his potato cake, which he refers to as "chicken". In all the confusion, I forgot to order myself the apple slices...great option instead of the breads...I'm lovin' it!

At home I usually eat turkey sausage, so McDonald's is my rare splurge...but McDonald's has one really big thing going for it in my opinion...their sausage....Oh, their sausage!!! Best I can tell, they get their sausage from Brooks Sausage Company...I wish I knew where it was available to cook at home...well, on the other hand...maybe I don't need that information! By my calculation my breakfast was under 300 calories. The key to having that extra splurge is keeping the portion low (especially with the sausage) and substituting the breads. 

Here are my personal suggestions:

• During my weight loss phase I would have ordered the egg and canadian bacon. Maybe eating 1/2 the bread or a better choice would be the apple slices.
• During maintainance I could eat the bacon or sausage, just less sausage. Maybe half the bread or choose apple slices instead.  
• Because of my hypoglycemia, I avoid the white breads, biscuits and hot cakes and replace with the apples. (not apple juice, too much sugar, and apples have great fiber).  I can have hot cakes, the key for me is keeping my carb count around 15 to 20 carbs per meal, which in this case would be 1/2 of a 3" apple, or 2/3 of a 6" hot cake) 

To make my 8:30am McDonalds breakfast even happier, I didn't have a blood sugar low. I made it all the way 'til lunch at 12:30. Now that is what I call a happy meal.  

 Now, you too can have happy meal at McDonald's...yes we can, we have many more meals to go!