5 healthy fast food meals
Fast food has gotten a bad name over the years. Let’s face it – it’s mostly deserved. Many fast foods are loaded with saturated fats that do your body more harm than good. In most cases, you’re probably better off fasting than eating fast foods. But most fast food has a couple of nearly irresistible traits when you’re hungry: they’re ready quickly and, if you haven’t eaten them too recently, actually taste pretty good.
So, if you’re addicted to the occasional fast food meal, why not make it as inexpensive and as healthy as possible? Most fast food restaurants have at least one item on their menu that is not nearly as bad for you as the others. Let’s take a look at five fast food meals you don’t have to feel guilty about eating afterward, per a recent USA Today article:
- Taco Bell 7-Layer Burrito ($2.50). Featuring 16 grams of protein, 7 grams of fiber, 16 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat and a total of 430 calories, this classic menu item is a tasty treat. To make it even healthier, ask them to hold the cheese blend.
- McDonald’s Grilled Chicken Snack Wrap, Side Salad and Fruit ‘n Yogurt Parfait ($4). If you ask them to hold the cheese and dressing for the snack wrap, this well-rounded meal will contain a total of 430 calories. The wrap has 16 grams of protein, while the parfait has 4.
- Chick-Fil-A Chicken Minis and Small Fruit Cup ($5). The chicken contains 280 calories and the fruit cup adds about 50 for a total of 330. The fruit cup provides additional fiber and Vitamin C.
- Subway 6-Inch Sub on 9-Grain Wheat ($4.25). As long as you refrain from loading up your sub with cheese, mayo, bacon and other fatty items, you can enjoy a variety of different subs featuring ham, turkey or veggie delight.
- Wendy’s Small Chili and Side Salad ($3.60). The chili contains 170 calories, 5 grams of fat, 4 grams of fiber, 15 grams of protein and 15 percent of your daily value of iron. The salad provides additional protein, iron, potassium, Vitamin A and Vitamin C.
Which other fast food items have you found to be healthy and inexpensive? Please let me know so that I can add them to the list.
Nobody ever talks about people who can consume very little sodium. I recognize that we all need some sodium and probably a lot more in disaster situations, still sodium is a sticky problem for many. Your thoughts?
I like Wendy’s apple pecan chicken salad, com is grilled and a variety of greens along with the pomegranate dressing.
It’s been known for years that if you get constipated, just go to Taco Bell and eat anything with their taco meat in it, you’ll get moving along real quickly. In the last 5 years, Subway is known for the same. The last 3 times I ate at Subway, all at different stores, I got really sick. Never again.
I have to eat gluten and dairy free so am limited to salads with no cheese and some kind of vinegarette dressing. I generally drink water or tea.And that’s it. I hate fast food restaurants.
There is a reason they call it fast food – it is prepared quickly and they hope it is habit forming. They never promised you that it was healthy to eat or good for you. They only promised that it is fast and it is food. They realized that if they add a certain amount of fat and over load it with food that use to be a special treat to eat (back in the day) then you will enjoy treating yourself to another heaping mouthful of their extra sodium, carbohydrates, hidden sugars, and fats.
If you really saw how your food was truly prepared from start to finish you would never eat fast food again.
I haven’t had a decn’t peach from a store in 25 plus years, all this large market and transporting food thousands of miles and across borders has not made our lives better. I also have not seen lettuce without lettuce rust in 20 years and the list goes on.
I use to live in Georgia when I was a kid. We would get peaches as large as softballs. They were so juicy and they smelled so good, you would know what it means when they say, “as sweet as a peach” when you took a bite of one, the nectar would be running down your cheeks. Then we would go to the store and see the peaches that they had for sell then laugh in the grocer’s face because his peaches were very small, very tight and tough to the touch. They didn’t even smell like a peach. We were told that they came from California. Well, Georgia pride would take over, if you wanted a peach you need to get a Georgia peach. A peach that you can sink your teeth into and your taste buds would rejoice and thank you for the first bite. One day, I began to think, what about all those peaches that Georgia produces, I would wonder how come I wouldn’t see any Georgia peaches in the stores. I was wondering if someone was hoarding all these delicious peaches for themselves or were they canning them? I never could found out the answer to my questions.
As the years pass, I still see those California small, hard, don’t smell like a peach, peaches in the store. I have yet to come across a true Georgia peach in a store. It is only a fond childhood memory now, which I look back on from time to time.
If I could afford a Chick-Fil-A franchise, I would open one asap here in rural Nevada. I like the company model and I’ve had their food while in Texas. The other fast food outlets leave a great deal to be desired, especially taste and nutrition.
like carls jr. they grill there meat, not fried. also ,hambuger habit. they also grill there meat 100% usda. if i eat at mc donalds , i order the chicken wrap with no cheese.
Don’t eat Wendy’s chili!Employees have reported that it’s made from the burnt burgers and scraped pieces,frozen,soaked in water THEN added as chili meat.Yuck! That CAN’T be. Healthy!
NONE of those foods are healthy. While they may SEEM nutritious, they are loaded with salt, sugar, fat, and MSGs. Most of the nutritional value of any of that stuff is lost during processing. Let’s not forget how much meat is recalled each year due to contamination in mass processing. On top of that, the animals bred for meat products are given vaccines, antibiotics, and feed additives. Regardless of what the label says, garbage that’s more healthy than other garbage is still garbage, and it may take a little longer, but you’ll still end up fat, sick, and dead. If you want real nutrition, eat a nutrient-rich diet of organic produce, beans, seeds, grass-fed meat, wild-caught fish, eggs, and healthy fats like avocado, coconut and olive oil, and stay away from any kind of fast food garbage.
PerFICTION evades me. When traveling, you get hungry & you do the best you can. – Everyone cannot afford to eat “organic” every meal. – We do organic gardening on a small scale & don’t eat “junk” as a general rule. – Bottom line is we’re human beings and no matter what we do, if we live long enough, we eventually die. That doesn’t mean throw caution to the wind & be careless; but living fanatical isn’t living.
Wanda, that needs to change wouldn’t you say? There use to be dinners all over the place that would cook some form of decent meal. However, the fast food restaurants put most of them out of business. you still have a few chain restaurants like Red Robin, Norman’s, the Waffle House; but restaurants like Big Boys is gone as well as others like it. They just couldn’t compete with the five minute cooked food and out the door routine.
It is for that reason I follow the ole sage advice, “Eat where the truckers eat.” The food is good and it is usually a nice meal for a decent price.
As far as I know, Chick-Fil-A doesn’t have any franchises near me, but I am familiar with the others. I always get the 7-Layer Burrito at Taco Bell. At McDonald’s I like the new artisan chicken sandwich. The bun is sweeter than I would like, but you can get the chicken grilled, without all of the gunk they usually put on their sandwiches. At Wendy’s a friend of mine likes the chili and side salad, but I usually go for one of their large salads without the chili. At Subway, it’s a veggie patty when they have it, or otherwise chicken, on one of the whole grain rolls or a wrap. I get it with all of the vegetables, which makes the sandwich juicy enough that it doesn’t really need mayo or other dressing. I just ask for salt and pepper and oregano for a little additional flavor.
Was in a hurry one day, grab McDonald’s Grilled Chicken and fries. Fries were so salty could not eat them, turn around back to store. When in ask for manager, told about fries, she tasted them, took my ticket went to register, give me all my money back and 2 free coupons to use if I came back. Yes I did go back a few days later and fries were just right. Point is sometimes mistake can be made and most people will try to fix problem.