RANKINGS

60 chains, by the numbers.

The health and dietary-fit questions people actually ask, answered from official nutrition data. Every ranking links back to the primary source — no aggregators, no estimates.

01

Lowest sodium

Sodium is the most-asked-about concern for fast food fries. Chains ranked from lowest to highest per-serving.

30 chains ranked
02

Lowest saturated fat

Saturated fat varies dramatically by frying oil. Chains using beef tallow rank highest; peanut and sunflower-oil chains rank lowest.

30 chains ranked
03

Lowest calorie

Calories per serving across all 60 chains. Note: serving size varies — smaller chains often have smaller "medium" orders.

30 chains ranked
04

Highest fiber

Fiber content in fast food fries is mostly a function of serving size and whether the skin is left on. Here's who delivers the most.

30 chains ranked
05

Vegan-friendly

Only eight major chains cook fries in a dedicated fryer with no animal-derived ingredients. These are the chains where "vegan fries" actually means vegan.

8 chains qualify
06

Gluten-free-friendly

Chains whose fries are both gluten-free by ingredient and cooked in a dedicated fryer. Critical for celiac disease, where shared-fryer cross-contact triggers reactions.

8 chains qualify
07

Vegetarian-friendly

The wider net — almost every fry passes the vegetarian bar except the five chains using beef in their preparation. Same calorie ranking applied to all 49 qualifying chains.

49 chains qualify
08

Alpha-gal syndrome safe

For the ~450,000 Americans with alpha-gal syndrome (a tick-borne mammalian-meat allergy), beef tallow and beef flavoring are the fast-food fry's two triggers. Five chains to avoid, dozens that are safe.

8 chains + 41 safe-by-ingredient
09

Halal-friendly

Halal-by-ingredient vs halal-certified — two different standards. The Cold Eight pass unanimously. Burger King, Layne's, Chick-fil-A, and the other chains people search for most often broken down here.

8 chains + ingredient notes
10

MAHA-Friendly

All 60 chains scored 0–10 against the Make America Healthy Again criteria: seed oils vs traditional fats, dedicated fryer, ingredient-list length, and clean label. Elevation Burger scores a perfect 10. Steak 'n Shake, the chain the movement publicly crowned, scores 7. The chain the movement didn't name wins the test the movement wrote.

Elevation Burger: 10/10
A note on ranking methodology Serving sizes vary across chains — Five Guys' "Little" (227g) is not the same as McDonald's "Medium" (111g). Where possible, rankings use the chain's published "medium" or closest equivalent. Each ranking page shows serving size alongside the nutrient value so the comparison is transparent. For apples-to-apples comparisons, we also compute per-100g figures where needed. Where nutrition data isn't published, we say so explicitly.