Is Canada turning into a test market for McDonald’s? It’s possible, given a number of recent new products released here but not elsewhere. There was, of course, the Big Mac Snack Wrap earlier this year (my verdict: blah) and now, the Chicken Parmigiana Snack Wrap.

I noticed the new Chicken wrap walking by a food court McDonald’s yesterday (okay, I lied… I had a Big Mac) and dutifully set to researching it afterward. It appears the wrap is somehow part of an Olympics promotion, and is one of several new items that will be added to Canadian menus, including two new McNugget dipping sauces - spicey szechwan and zesty mango, coming in February - to mark the occasion.

I’m not sure what the Olympics connection is, but the new chicken wrap looks mighty tasty in the photo. Unfortunately, it suffers from the same problem as all of McD’s wraps: it’s too pricey. If you’re like me and conduct a careful return-on-investment, hunger-alleviation-versus-expenditure comparison with your fast food, then the $1.99 price tag isn’t worth it. Consider that a McDouble (double cheeseburger) goes for $1.39 and provides a much more bloated-and-contented feeling.

Of course, then there’s the more complicated price-to-hunger-to-nutritional-abomination ratio. As with many new products, there doesn’t seem to be any nutritional information available for the Chicken Parmigiana. There also doesn’t seem to be an easy way to deconstruct it, like I did with Burger King’s Bourbon Whopper the other day. The closest comparison I can make to an existing McDonald’s menu item is the Caesar Chicken Snack Wrap, which packs about 1/7th of your daily calories, 28% of your daily fat and about one third of your daily sodium intake.

Given those numbers, these snack wraps look like the cheapest possible way - other than downing a can of Spam - to obesity that you can find. Which is very ironic: isn’t it always the way that the thing that fills you up the least is the worst for you?