That's Fit

Here's a frightening thought -- pretty soon, we'll be able to see the calorie counts on the menu boards of several fast food joints falling under the parent company Yum Brands, including KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, according to recent reports. Don't get me wrong -- I think we all agree that calorie counts on menus are a great idea. What frightens me is knowing how many calories are in a stuffed crust pizza, deep fried chicken thigh or cheesy taco crunchwrap supreme. The horrors.

Still, this is a definitely a step in the right direction for people trying to lose weight. No longer can you plead innocence after downing that bucket of original recipe chicken -- the 'I just didn't realize it had 10 billion calories' excuse won't work anymore. And for those of you who are counting calories, now you'll know exactly how much of your daily intake you've blown in one meal.

What do you think about calorie counts on menus?

A recent report reveals that fast-food kid's meals have too many calories. This would be the point that you say "No, duh!"

Quite unsurprisingly, nearly every combination of the kid's meals at KFC, Taco Bell, Sonic, and Chick-fil-A are too fattening. Restaurants -- like McDonald's and Burger King that offer apple slices or other options instead of fries fared a little better. Subway came out on top, with 12 of its 18 possible kid's meal combinations under a reasonable amount of calories.

The study deemed a reasonable amount of calories as 430 -- based on the fact that the average 8-year-old should eat 1,200-1,300 calories a day.

Check out your knowledge about fast food and calories -- take this AOL Health quiz!

I know that every time that I make an effort to lose a few pounds, the first thing I think is usually not, "Hmmm, maybe Taco Bell for lunch." Fast food restaurants are often trying to change that unhealthy image, and Taco Bell is no exception. They have their "fresco" menu, nine items with nine grams of fat or less. And in Oklahoma City, they're giving away one free taco to residents as a reward for their weight loss efforts.

The restaurant teamed up with the local mayor in a city-wide weight loss challenge. When residents reached 100,000 pounds lost, Taco Bell decided to give everyone one free taco. I initially wanted to be critical of this partnership, since fast food is often loaded with fat, salt, and excessive calories. But I'm starting to think that Oklahoma City residents may have found that happy balance between eating right and enjoying a healthy indulgence now and then... even a free taco.

What do you think?

In this busy world, it's sometimes hard to avoid fast food restaurants. But though you may find yourself in a situation where you don't have a choice of where to eat, you can always choose what to eat. MSN has published this list of the worst fast food offenders, so at the very least, if you find yourself at ones of these eateries, avoid getting:

• McDonald's Deluxe Breakfast weighs in at 1220 calories
• BK's Triple Whopper with Cheese is a hearty 1230 cal, 85 g of fat. That doesn't even include fries
  
• Taco Bell Fiesta Salad. You'd be better off not getting the salad here - it's 860 cal
• Pizza Hut's Stuffed Crust Meat Lovers has 1000 calories, 82 g of fat in two slices
• Cinnabon's Caramel Pecanabon has 1100 calories, 56 g of fat
• Boston Market's Chicken Pot Pie has 750 calories
• Subways Double Meat Classic Tuna has 790 cal, 55 g of fat
• Domino's ExtravaganZZa Feast deep-dish pizza has 860 calories, 46 grams of fat in two slices
• KFC's Mashed Potato Bowl With Gravy contains 690 calories and 31 grams of fat
• If you must have dessert, by all means, stay away from Dairy Queen's Caramel CheeseQuake Blizzard - it has 1290 calories!

For more items to avoid, check out our How Many Calories feature!

And another one bites the dust! Yum Brands, Inc. announced this week that two of it's restaurants -- KFC and Taco Bell -- have switched to trans fat-free oils in their restaurants. KFC and KFC/Taco Bell combo restaurants will be using a soybean oil and Taco Bell will be switching to canola oil. Both restaurants still have items on their menus that contain trans fats -- such as biscuits and baked goods -- but the change in oil will affect several popular items.

Trans fats have been shown to raise bad cholesterol and reduce good cholesterol. Restaurants, food manufacturers, and even entire states have been dropping it like a hot potato. But before you run out for a "healthy" bucket of trans fat-free chicken, don't forget to consider the saturated fat and calories. KFC and Taco Bell have improved the health of their products for sure, but they are still selling fast food after all.

We've seeing cities and restaurant chains ban the use of trans fats in foods -- from New York City to KFC to Taco Bell to Starbucks just this past week. Will we continue to see the banning of this dangerous chemical from all kinds of foods and eateries in the future? You bet.

Frito Lay -- whose fattening products I avoid like the plague -- even advertises heavily on many of its products that there are no longer any trans fats used in -- for example -- potato chips and other snack chips. When other manufacturers start following the lead here (and many have), expect to see "0 grams trans fats" on labels for at least a few years until the marketing panache wears off.

Is this good? While some may argue that they would rather eat trans fats (and clog arteries) given the choice, the move by restaurants and processed food makers is more of a marketing opportunity than a pure move for better consumer health -- but I will take it.

If you've been known to grab a meal or two on the run at your local fast food joint, test your knowledge of the food you're eating with this quiz. The answers to the questions you are given may surprise you. Do you really know how many calories you're adding to your pizza with that dipping sauce? And do you really know which breakfast choices are the best? I got 7/10 -- less than I thought I would get since I research this stuff every day. Some of the answers shocked me, which is hard to do when I'm surrounded by alarming facts every day.

What did you get? What answers surprised you?

This is getting a little serious now -- yet another national food chain has seen possible E.coli outbreaks in the wake of outbreaks in several states where Taco Bell and Taco John's restaurants were located. States like New Jersey, Iowa and Minnesota has had confirmed cases already.

Now, add Olive Garden to that list. Reports state that more than 250 people have reported becoming sick after eating at an Olive Garden restaurant in Indianapolis just one day after an outbreak of E.coli at Taco Bell restaurants was declared over. Oops, mistake about to happen (as in, will the outbreak get bigger?). Is all this connected? We'll have to wait and see.

I still have not seen the specific supplier(s) that are probably responsible for this outbreak named in the mass media. Restaurants that use this unnamed supplier would probably like to know if they are possibly feeding infected food to their patrons, yes? Come on folks -- a little more public detail would be nice!

Well, the ongoing E.coli outbreak that has now haunted Taco Bell for about a week has now widened, as people in six states have now shown the bacterial infection from eating at Taco Bell restaurants. Strangely, I've heard no word from Taco Bell on the specific supplier of what pre-packaged product may have been contaminated and what the chain is doing to limit the damage (which has already been done most likely).

As of noon on Friday, the E.coli outbreak had infected 63 people in six states, and nearly 80% of those have been hospitalized. Seven of the infected have the most feared complication of E. coli infection, a condition called hemolytic uremic syndrome, which is a life-threatening problem that causes kidney failure.

Are we to see deaths as a result of this outbreak? I sure hope not -- but the CDC says the current situation is not over. At this time, Taco Bell's green onion supply is thought to have been the cause of the outbreak.

The recent outbreak of the E-coli bacteria in Taco Bell locations in three states may have been caused by the bacteria's infection in green onions used at the restaurant, according to the company, which removed from its 5,800 U.S. restaurants yesterday to be safe.

Taco Bell said that preliminary testing by an independent lab found three samples of green onions appeared to have a dangerous strain of the bacterium. Result -- the company pulled all green onions from all restaurants.

Taco Bell has not yet named the supplier of the green onions -- also known as scallions -- so at this time, it's unclear whether contaminated green onions reached other restaurants or supermarkets outside of Taco Bell locations.

E-coli -- the food poisoning bacteria that recently received quite a bit of press in the recent bagged spinach scare -- is at it again, and it has forced the closing of a Taco Cell restaurant i New Jersey as a result.

Yesterday, the fast-food chain said it had temporarily closed one of its fast-food outlets and was working with New Jersey health authorities seeking the cause of the bacterial outbreak that has sickened nearly a dozen people.

As of yesterday, eleven confirmed cases -- mostly affecting children -- were reported by the Newark Star-Ledger, and six people remained hospitalized.

We've all been there: we're in a rush, we're hungry and the only way we can get some much-needed energy in the form of food is by visiting a fast-food joint. So you mosey up to counter of the establishment of your choice and are confronted with a variety of options. You're trying to be healthy so you go for the salad. You made the best choice, right? In some cases you did. But as we all know, fast food restaurants spend lots of time and money trying to make their products the best tasting and this usually involves adding fat, sugar, sodium and other unhealthy ingredients. It's hard to navigate your way around menus these days, and it takes time researching what your best options are.

Take Taco Bell's Taco Salad -- do you think it is a healthy choice? Let's review the ingredients. There's beans, cheese, seasoned ground beef, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, sour cream and taco chips. How many calories and fat do you think that adds up to?

a) 650 cal, 14 g of fat

b) 320 cal, 28 g of fat

c) 600 cal, 32 g of fat

d) 360 cal, 10 g of fat

Taco Bell, along with the recent announcement of fast food buddy KFC, will start lowering the amount of transfats in its foods soon, according to the nation's largest tex-mex fast food company.

"This is something we've been working on for over two years, and we just believe it's the right thing and the right changes to make in our products," said Warren Widicus, Taco Bell's chief food innovation officer.

It's great to see that even fast food restaurants and locations are starting to dump unhealthy transfats from products since it makes no sense to use transfats at all when alternatives exist that can allow fried products without adding transfats into the picture.

Even though most fast food restaurants are not exactly serving healthy food, the cutting out of transfats at least makes the picture a little brighter for who that choose to eat at these locations.