Fast food

Fast Food Slow to Decompose
Here's a slow food project guaranteed to boggle the mind: How long does it take for a McDonald's Happy Meal to decay? New York artist Sally Davies is trying to figure that out. After six months, she still doesn't know the answer.

Davies' burger and fries combo sits on a shelf in her apartment where it has resisted decomposition for half a year, a fact documented daily by Davies on Flikr. No word yet on how long the toy lasted.

Waiter, I Don't Want What He's Having
Food photographer Neil Setchfield has made a living out of photographing the food that other people really DON'T want to eat. The British-based photographer has a new book out, profiled here, called Yuck! The Things People Eat. Crickets? Check. Hog eyes? You betcha. Fried sparrow? Well, you get the picture.

The book may work great as coffee table fare, but you probably want to keep it off the dinner table.

Halloween Candy Survival Guide
As a kid-focused holiday, Halloween is supposed to be fun. So why do people like Men's Health Editor David Zinczenko have to spoil all the fun? Seriously, before you have to squeeze your kid into king-sized white sheet ghost costume, review his high-calorie Halloween candy no-nos.

Here's a quick quiz: Which McDonald's item has more calories - a Quarter Pounder or a grilled chicken sandwich?

The answer, which I'll get to in a minute, can be found right in the restaurant. But customers rarely, if ever, seek out such information, according to research published in this month's American Journal of Public Health.

In the study, observers recorded how often customers accessed nutritional data available at four chain restaurants: McDonald's, Burger King, Au Bon Pain, and Starbucks. Of the 4311 customers seen making purchases, only six - a measly one-tenth of one percent - bothered to look at wall posters, pamphlets, or computer screens in the restaurants that displayed calories, fat, and other facts about menu items.

For the authors, the take-home message is that the information needs to more visible - displayed, for example, on menu boards, as is now required in New York City.

Perhaps. But the study may also reveal something else: Customers at fast-food restaurants may not look because they're afraid of what they'll find. Some people assume that any place whose offerings include a Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino or Triple Whopper with Cheese can't be paragons of nutritional virtue. If you're going to eat fast food, the thinking goes, why fret about fat and calories?

In fact, there are plenty of relatively healthful items available. And some that appear to be better for you actually are not. To make good choices, you need to be armed with information, which you can find - if you look - at many fast food restaurants or on their Web sites.

You can also get calorie counts and other nutritional information for popular menu items through searchable databases such as those provided by the USDA , the American Cancer Society, and calorieking.com.

As registered dietitian Carolyn O'Neil reminds us in this video segment on navigating the mall food court , the more you know, the more you can eat.

OK, now the answer to the question: The grilled chicken sandwich actually has a few more calories (420) than the Quarter Pounder (410), though the QP has more saturated fat. For a lower-calorie option, go for the regular hamburger. It has 250.