It all depends on where you get the hamburger for your home made burger.

Buy cheap 30% fat hamburger from a big chain that uses all of the steer in its hamburger, I doubt it is anywhere as healthy as a Wendy’s or McDonalds paty.

Use ground sirloin from grass fed beef, probably a bit healthier.

There are multiple factors in deciding one is healthier than the other though:

1. Quality of beef

2. Amount of salt and sugar seasonings added to the beef

3. What kind and how much cheese are you putting on the burger?

4. What kind of bun are you using – a multi whole grain buns, or white bread bus made with lots of sugar?

Not if you want them to taste good.

No.

Well, they are drowning their “burgers” in their sauce, which are made mostly of sugar.
So at least in that aspect, a homemade burger would be healthier.
In any case, it will taste better.

I put ketchup on my burgers at home @ragingloli. What other “sauce” are you referring to?

the yellow sauce, for example.

And I do not know if you have ever tried their patties by themselves, but the meat they use has zero flavour of its own, and is cooked to fuck.

If you use better meat than that grey stuff they use.

The comparison to cardboard might be overdone, like their meat, but it is apt.

They can be. Use the leanest beef, very little mayo, and bread/buns with a low sugar content.

Yellow sauce? You mean mustard @ragingloli?

No, not mustard. If I meant mustard, I would have said mustard.

What yellow sauce then?

You know, they yellow sauce! The stuff they put on their chicken burgers.

(Secret sauce!)

I do not know what you are referring to. If you don’t want that sauce tell them you don’t want that sauce.

I’ve been buying 85–15 ground rib eye. Great burgers!

Fast food Wendy’s burgers are great.

@Dutchess_III: Some fast food places put a sauce on their burgers which is like an orange color, like Russian dressing – probably made that way too – a combo of mayo and ketchup. I think it’s gross.

I don’t make burgers at home but if I’m at someone’s house, I’ll eat a burger on a plate with just a little ketchup, as opposed to one in a place like McD’s which is on a bun. I never put cheese on it, at a restaurant or at a house. At McD’s I ask for “hold the cheese, hold the onions, add lettuce, add pickles.”

I think mayo or mustard on burgers is gross.

^ Pretty much the same as me. I get tomato instead of pickle.
I’ve never been big on condiments.

Know where your beef is from. There are companies which buy from various countries, and it all goes into the grinder together.

Know your supply source, and choose according to what you feel okay with.

For the curious.

A plain McDonald’s hamburger has about the same nutritional value as one you would make at home though, as @ragingloli says, they are tasteless (try it out). Other types of burgers can have a lot of calories. In some cases over half the calories come from fat. Link

If you want a Burger, make it at home with a selection of good meat.
Fast food burgers contain only a small amount of meat. Most fast food burgers only contain 2%-15% meat fiber.
What’s in it? Tissues, blood vessels, nerves, cartlidge, fillers, and in some ammonia.

I eat mayo & ketchup on my burgers Ducking!!!
It reminds me of hot summers, barefeet, swimming pools, hunting for change in the pay phones, riding horses and Peter Pan burgers.

Fast food burgers tend to be low-quality meat, and they add low-quality crap to them. I think of them as “barely food”, or in some cases “like styrofoam” and/or “worse than starving”.

The burgers I make are 1000x times better than fast food, better than any burger I know of within 2 hours’ driving time, and eaten occasionally, I have no doubt are far healthier than ingesting thawed-out industrial fast food meat pucks.

People can always make more healthy things at home but people eat in restaurants for two reasons: One, they don’t feel like cooking. Two, fast food restaurants are for when you’re out, in a hurry or traveling. Comparing home cooked food to restaurant food is apples to oranges.

Right? People can’t run home at lunch and peel potatoes, slice them, fry them, make a burger and and mix up a milk shake.

Burger sauce. I think it’s a west coast thing. It’s just the other sauces mixed together. Mcdonalds special sauce is the same thing.

A homemade burger patty will retain more of the fat from cooking, as it wasn’t precooked and reheated, and just by looking I assume fast food burgers start out on the lean side.

I won’t compare buns and vegetables and sauces because at home burgers have neither a ceiling nor a floor in these regards. Quality can be good as you choose. I suppose the same is true of meat, but i feel like i couldn’t even buy the grade of meat from burger king if I tried.

In general, yes, a burger made at home will have more fat and thus more calories than the average fast food burger, however, I think calling this less healthy is a bit too far. You aren’t comparing plastic contamination, or the fact that a more nutritious burger (one with more fat and calories) is more delicious, and more satisfying, which may mean you eat less overall.

The only “special sauce” I know of comes on McDonald’s Big Mac. Pretty sure it’s mostly Thousand Island dressing. But they’d leave it off if you ask.
I always specify what condiments I want on my fast food burgers.

@Dutchess_III No, but you can make it the day before and pack your lunch.

@Dutchess_III: Burger King puts some sauce on there, too. I don’t eat at Burger King but I know they have some glop on there.

I love Burger King! They put on only what I ask them to put on. No glop.

The few times I’ve gone there, they put on what they put on, they’re not asking what you want on it, @Dutchess_III. To me, it was totally gross.

They’ve never asked me either. I just tell them up front. But if you don’t say anything you can’t really complain, can you.
If you order a milkshake and don’t tell them what flavor you want you can’t complain about what you get.

@Dutchess_III: When I get a burger at McDonalds, it comes with ketchup.

I don’t complain, I just don’t return. I, as a consumer, have the choice to take my business where i want to.

I don’t understand why you seem to have a problem specifying what you want on your hamburger?

There is no problem with the employees when ordering a burger how you want it. They actually have a button on the register for it, so the grill people notice quickly that there is some sort of change.
Depending on location, it could get you a fresher burger, because they have all the burgers already made, so they have to grill a fresh one. That doesn’t upset them though. That is why they are back there. They know that if they give customers what they want, they will have more customers.
It helps to mention first that you are ordering a sandwich with condiment changes.
I get all cheeseburgers with nothing except lettuce and tomato. At Arby’s, I love the melted cheese beef, but I’m allergic to onions. I ask them to put it on a regular bun. There is never a problem with ordering what I want.

Maybe it would be a problem if at KFC to order a bucket of the chicken without coating.

Don’t know don’t care, I love me some burgers and fries. Home grilled or not, I don’t care. I’m gonna die anyway. Might as well enjoy life while I can. People fret too much. My great granddad smoked all his life and lived to 95. Would probably have made it much longer, but he got kicked in the head by a dang mule on his farm. No body cheats the Reaper. What, me worry?

^^^^He’s baaaack!

LOL Don’t ask me why cuz I don’t know. Hi Ya Dutchy! Fancy seeing you here !

https://youtu.be/6o26HgKCcT0 Here ya go