Are American McDonald's Portions Actually Bigger Than Europe's?

America has a reputation around the world for, well, size. Everything in the U.S. seems bigger, including food portions. And where else but McDonald's could you once hear the phrase, "Supersize me?" The fast food behemoth currently has the largest number of restaurants in the U.S. (which collectively sell an ungodly number of burgers each day). But does the American company really give bigger portions to its American customers?

Surprisingly, this is true — McDonald's portion sizes are larger in the U.S. than those in Europe (in some cases, significantly so). On the isles that make up Great Britain, for example, the largest McNugget count you can order is 20 (as well as lesser amounts of six and nine). However, in the States you can order double that amount to 40 if you're feeding a crowd or just super hungry.

The maximum amount of fries you can get in the U.S. versus the U.K. tells a similar story, too, with Britain's biggest fry order nearly half that of the American size. And the sodas! McDonald's sodas in America start at 16 fluid ounces, while in Great Britain, that's bigger than a medium. McDonald's Great Britain website even addresses the size differences, stating, "In the U.K. we feel that our portion size is great value for money and can be enjoyed as part of a balanced diet." It's a fairly sterile response that manages to avoid giving a concrete answer as to why apart from cultural differences.

McDonald's has been around for a long time (since the 1950s). When it first started, it had only nine food items on its menu. But while the single patty hamburger was actually larger than today's version by 0.2 ounces, there are a variety of burgers available in modern-day restaurants that blow the 1950s 3.7-ounce version out of the water in terms of size — both the Big Mac and Quarter Pounder Deluxe are at least twice as large.

1950s McDonald's also served up only one size of fry which was 0.2 ounces smaller than the small fry today, and 3.5 ounces smaller than modern-day large fries (did they have fewer ingredients than 2020s fries, though?). Finally, the item with the greatest difference between the mid-20th century and today: soda. The '50s featured just one size — and it was only 7 ounces. That's less than half the size of today's small, three times as small as today's medium, and nearly four times as small as today's large.