Hello.

I added up all of the nutrition information for the generic ingredients you used.

If you include a slice of cheese (your recipe excludes this with no comment, though it is included on an Egg McMuffin), you get the following totals:

“Jennifer Savor the Thyme”‘s recipe, plus 16g slice of cheese:
298 calories total
13 g fat total, 6 saturated
238 mg cholesterol
880 mg sodium
22 g protein

Vs. actual Egg McMuffin:
300 calories
12 g fat total, 5 saturated
235 mg cholesterol
840 mg sodium
18 g protein

IT’S THE SAME THING. With cheese added (and not a big piece), your recipe is nearly identical to a real McDonald’s Egg McMuffin. There just isn’t any special weight-loss benefit when making an egg sandwich at home, and there isn’t anything especially horrible about an Egg McMuffin.

If you leave off the cheese and stick with your original recipe you lose 5g of fat and 60 calories, but then you could do the same by asking for no cheese at McDonald’s.

I got the nutrition data from nutritiondata.self.com. I included a 16-ounce slice of cheese (listed there as Hardee’s), which is actually less than a typical 28-gram slice of store-bought cheese. I was also kind enough not to count your ketchup. So in reality, a home-made recipe is likely to be a little bit worse than a real Egg McMuffin if someone can’t resist adding cheese.

One benefit to making food at home is that you won’t be tempted to add fried hash browns to your order. But even with that added, you still only have a 430-calorie breakfast (and even then just barely making FDA guidelines of 33% of the RDA of saturated fat). We should be so disciplined as to limit all of our meals to that.

slice of wheat bread:
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/baked-products/4876/2
1 egg, large (closest to McDonald’s egg in calories):
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/111/2
Ham slice:
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/sausages-and-luncheon-meats/1344/2
slice of cheese, 16g (closest to McDonald’s slice):
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/foods-from-hardees/8693/2

Egg McMuffin:
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/foods-from-mcdonalds/6262/2

Mcdonald’s ingredient breakdown if you want to see individual parts:
http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/food/full_menu/breakfast/egg_mc_muffin.html

Keep in mind that mcdonalds is probably using bread that contains junk like HCFS and enriched white flour instead of 2 slices of whole wheat flour with no added chemimcals or preservatives. I highly doubt that this version of a sandwich is not a better choice than an egg mcmuffin when you consider bacon with highly processed nitrates and salt versus a low-sodium nitrate/ite free slice of ham – to each his own.

Thanks for sharing your family recipes with us