Is McDonald's Filet-O-Fish Actually Healthy?

For over six decades now, McDonald's customers have had the option of skipping the beef and opting instead for a Filet-O-Fish sandwich. Fish is widely considered to be one of the healthiest protein sources, making it a tempting offer for health-conscious diners. But just because the center of the sandwich is a block of pollock doesn't mean that the sandwich itself should be considered healthy. 

The world of nutrition is full of fads and shades of grey. Aside from things like raw organic vegetables, it is nearly impossible to label a food as indisputably healthy. When it comes to McDonald's famous Filet-O-Fish sandwich, however, things don't look so good. The classic Filet-O-Fish consists of a square patty of fried pollock with half a slice of American cheese and tartar sauce on a steamed bun. Fish might be good for you, but fried fish less so, and none of those other ingredients are showing up on a list of healthy foods anytime soon either.

Another element that has come to define health food in recent years is the absence of highly processed ingredients. Short ingredient lists consisting of whole foods are the new gold standard, and unfortunately this is an area that the Filet-O-Fish falls short. The fish patty itself is made with pollock, yes, but there are more than 15 ingredients in that small square of fish, including various starches, flours, oils — including hydrogenated oil — sugar, cellulose gum, and whey. The bun is grocery-store-style industrial bread with another long, multi-syllabic ingredient list — and no one is going to argue that American cheese or mayonnaise-based sauces are particularly healthy choices.

From a purely qualitative perspective, McDonald's fish sandwich looks as unhealthy as any other fast food. To really understand how it compares to other drive-thru offerings, though, we need to delve into the quantitative side as well.

A Filet-O-Fish sandwich contains 380 calories with 16 grams of protein, 38 grams of carbohydrates, 19 grams of fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 4 grams of sugar, and 580 milligrams of sodium. The most concerning numbers here are probably the fat and sodium, each of which are about a quarter of the recommended daily value. Really, though, those numbers are not too bad. A Big Mac, for comparison, is 580 calories with 25 grams of protein, 45 grams of carbohydrates, 34 grams of fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 7 grams of sugar, and 1060 milligrams of sodium. If the choice were exclusively between those two items, the Filet-O-Fish sandwich does come out as the healthier option.

We would certainly hesitate to call McDonald's fish sandwich healthy overall, but the numbers aren't too shocking. To some extent, what qualifies as healthy really depends on your personal goals and lifestyle. For many people, the main aim is currently choosing the highest protein items at McDonald's, though truthfully the average American diet already has too much protein in it. Fiber may be the next nutritional trend, seeing as the vast majority of people in the U.S. fall short of daily suggested fiber intake. Until that really lands, though, the Filet-O-Fish will continue to have just 1 gram of the stuff, or about 5% of the recommended daily value. In the end, the healthiest meal choice certainly isn't at McDonald's, and we figure that most folk know that. But if you're already there, the Filet-O-Fish isn't too bad.