A Low Carb World: I devoted my lunch hour to blog research today, and went and got an adult happy meal. For those of you who haven't heard of the latest McDonald's innovation, it's a salad in a cardboard box with bottled water and a "stepometer." The box lists the calorie counts of each salad as well as the salad dressings. It also has a picture of Oprah Winfrey's personal trainer on the side (he "wrote" a small booklet -i.e. user manual - that comes with stepometer), and the words "Shopping is Now an Official Sport." Men are not their target market, evidently.

You can choose one of four salads - three with chicken and one with hamburger - Caesar Salad, Bacon Ranch Salad, California Cobb Salad, or the Fiesta Salad (a taco salad.) Choosing crispy chicken over grilled chicken adds one hundred calories to the chicken salads. I opted for the Cobb salad with crispy chicken. Total calories = 370. It came with a creamy vinaigrette dressing with Paul Newman's picture on the package - 120 calories. All for $5.25. I would have been ahead to have a cheeseburger with a small iced tea for 330 calories and a price tag of around two dollars, but I wouldn't have gotten the stepometer.

The "stepometer" is a cheap pedometer, but it works OK. I wore mine at the office this afternoon and discovered I only walked one mile seeing my afternoon patients. According to Oprah's trainer, I should try to get up to five miles a day if I want to see any health benefits.

It wasn't a bad meal, but if you really want a salad, you'd be ahead financially to buy it without the packaging ($3.99 per salad at my McDonald's) and drink your water from the tap.