McDonald's testing bigger burger

CHICAGO, April 11 (UPI) -- McDonalds, the giant fast-food chain, began testing its new one-third-pound Angus burgers in Chicago last week, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

McDonald's restaurants in southern California started testing the bigger burgers last month.

The $4 cheeseburgers are apparently selling well in the Windy City, where one restaurant manager told the newspaper it had to stop selling a mushroom and Swiss variety on Sunday because it ran out of mushrooms.

Ron Paul, president of the restaurant and food research firm Technomic Inc, said hamburgers are in fashion.

"We seem to be back in a wave of burger sandwiches where they're more popular than they were in the past," Paul told the Sun-Times. "(McDonald's isn't) too late. They're on trend."

The heavier hamburger packs more calories and fat than its siblings.

A McDonald's regular hamburger has 250 calories and 9 grams of fat, while an Angus has between 720 and 860 calories and between 36 and 48 grams of fat.