The Staggering Number Of Filet-O-Fish Sandwiches McDonald's Sells During Lent

Whether you practice Lent or not, one thing's guaranteed — you're going to see a lot of fried fish sandwiches moving at fast food restaurants when it comes around. One of the chains selling them is always McDonald's, whose mainstay Filet-O-Fish sandwich (served year-round) sells particularly well during Lent, when practitioners temporarily give up eating red meat. Just how many Filet-O-Fish sandwiches does the Golden Arches move during the 40-day period of Lent? 

It's a whole lot. As in, around 75 million sandwiches. That would mean McDonald's sells 1.8 million Filet-O-Fish sandwiches on average every day of Lent, which is a mind-boggling amount. Especially because the Filet-O-Fish sandwich isn't exactly the first thing you think of when you think of McDonald's. But hey, people love their fast food, and if it fits into their dietary habits, even temporarily, a restaurant chain as ubiquitous as McDonald's is certainly going to move a big volume of them.

The fish McDonald's currently uses for its Filet-O-Fish sandwich is Alaskan pollock, as it is for many other chains, including Bojangle's, Arby's, and White Castle. Alaskan pollock is popular because not only is it a relatively mild and clean-tasting fish to eat, it's also a cheap and plentiful ingredient. But if the original recipe for the Filet-O-Fish was still around today, it'd be made with halibut.

Filet-O-Fish inventor Lou Groen preferred halibut as an ingredient, but its relatively high cost wasn't friendly for fast food prices, so he eventually settled on cod. in 2013, McDonald's swapped the cod with the square-cut filet of Alaskan pollock we now know. We can thank our lucky stars we have a fish sandwich at all, because at one point, it could have been a ring of pineapple with cheese on it instead, known as the Hula Burger (there was an initial competition to see which sold better). Based off the 75 million sales of Filet-O-Fish sandwiches during Lent alone, it's clear McDonald's made the right choice. We're not so sure a pineapple sandwich would sell nearly as much, nor would it be anywhere near as good.