McDonald's has declared today to be National Egg McMuffin Day and they're giving away free Egg McMuffins to celebrate.  But there's an ulterior motive behind it.

Wendy's is launching its nationwide breakfast menu this week to compete with McDonald's and other quick breakfast spots, and McDonald's has not-so-coincidentally decided to give out some of its breakfast menu items today for free.  Here, have one everybody.

But you've got to order the Egg McMuffin on the McDonald's app to get it for free, and the offer is only valid today from 6 am to 10:30 am our time.

McDonald's said that today is intended to celebrate the "best" fast food breakfast sandwich as it turns 50 this year. It just so happens that today is the same day Wendy's takes its new breakfast menu nationwide.

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The breakfast sandwich war is getting intense.  McDonald's recently added two chicken breakfast sandwiches to its menus trying to better compete with Popeye's and Chick-fil-A. Chicken used to be mostly for lunch and dinner, and now it seems to work as a 6 am kickstarter.  And bacon has grown from primarily a breakfast thing, to around the clock too.

Don't even get us started on that new KFC Chicken and Donuts creation.   The breakfast war has spawned some crazy food inventions, and we probably haven't seen the last of those sweet-savory, fat-on-fat, sugary inventions.  Wendy's has a chicken biscuit sandwich on its new breakfast menu too, plus nine other sandwiches, including a Bacon Egg and Cheese sandwich and a morning version of the Baconator.  It's all launching this week.

Can you eat right when you wake up or does a waiting period have to pass before you're ready?  My middle schooler has no interest in food when she wakes up, and I'm a slow-starter too.  I've got to let the coffee kick in first and then add food three or four hours later, and that makes it easy to miss the breakfast windows at restaurants.  But they know that our schedules are all over the place, and more of them are adding all-day breakfast menus because of it.

If you missed the McDonald's freebie today, we have a feeling there will be more chances soon.  This breakfast war could work out well for all of us.

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