The Least Nutritious Fast Food Fries Are Also The Freshest

While people like to believe that fresh is equal to healthy, that isn't always the case, especially when it comes to the way that one fast food chain makes its fries. While Five Guys prides itself on making its fries in-hour daily and only from specific potatoes, the restaurant chain's fries also contain the most calories when compared to other fast food restaurants.

Five Guys, in fact, is very specific about how it makes its fries. The potatoes are purchased from Idaho. But not just anywhere in Idaho — they must have been grown north of the 42nd parallel, which means the spuds are dense and are of superior quality for eating compared to other potatoes. Every year, Five Guys buys about 140 million pounds of potatoes from the mountainous state.

After arriving at a Five Guys location, the potatoes are washed and then put through a slicer. They then get another wash to remove the starch before being placed in a water-filled bucket. When it comes to frying them up, peanut oil is used. The potatoes are fried twice and then shaken 15 times with salt before being served to guests — all to create a freshly fried potato.

The end product is a fry that is crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, but also heavy in calories.

Ranging from 526 calories for a small container of fries to 1,314 calories for a large size, Five Guys' fries come in with the highest amount of calories for fries made by a fast food restaurant. That's also not including how often extra fries are tossed into the bag by workers.

By comparison, a large order of McDonald's fries has 510 calories, but the portion sizes are much different. On average, a large order of McDonald's fries is 178 grams versus Five Guys at 568 grams. Other factors to take into consideration when judging Five Guys fries is that a large order of their fries includes 68 grams of fat and 1,327 milligrams of sodium.

To put this into context, an active woman should consume about 2,200 to 2,400 calories per day based on age, while an active male should eat about 2,600 to 3,000 calories daily. The amount of fat a person should ingest is about 44 to 78 grams per day and no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium should be consumed each day.

So clearly, freshest doesn't always mean healthiest.