Best McDonald's in NZ and our travel diet (February, 2024)

We are avid fans of McDonald's. Both over 50, with a list of health issues common for our age, we love an outdoor and active lifestyle, including car travel, hiking, surfing, and gardening. We've had to seriously consider what we eat in order to continue enjoying our adventures. We're not devoted followers of any specific diets or schemes, and we've made changes to our diets when urged by doctors. Here's what we've had to eliminate or reduce: alcohol, sugar, bakery items, and red meat. This leaves us with a rather limited diet, but then there's McDonald's.

Yes, it's not considered health food, but on the positive side:

• It maintains high and controlled quality.

• It's readily available and freshly cooked at locations all over NZ.

• It offers a standardized menu and portion sizes.

This makes it easy to incorporate McDonald's into our travel diet.

We often stop by the drive-thru on our way back from another hiking trip. Typically, we order plain hamburgers without spreads and pickles, and we've noticed differences in the taste of patties and buns across NZ. In our opinion, the tastiest buns and patties are consistently found in Cambridge and Te Awamutu. We can only speculate as to why, perhaps because they are located in the heartland of cattle farming. The differences are subtle, and we don't hesitate to visit McDonald's in other places.