Nutritious Fast Foods

If you are on a diet or trying to eat health consciously, then eating nutritious fast foods may be difficult, if not impossible. In fact, you your doctor or nutritionist may advise you to avoid fast food altogether. However, we all know that circumstances have a way of directing us to unavoidable choices. It seems almost inevitable, for example, to stop in the middle of the night during a road trip and find anything open but fast food places. It is possible, however, to find nutritious fast food if you know where to look and what to avoid.

Bring Food with You


If you are going on a long trip, you may want to just pack some food with you. A nice salad or a couple of sandwiches can come in handy on a trip. You may even want to make burgers or go for a vegetarian option. If the situation is such that you have to stop for fast food, there are nutritious fast food options that you can choose from.
Chicken: The Good and the Bad

Nutritious fast food options are often found in unexpected places. At Carl's Jr., the Charbroiled BBQ Chicken Sandwich clocks in at 290 calories, with only 30 of those calories coming from fat. The Chick-fil-A Chargrilled Chicken Sandwich is 270 calories with 30 calories from fat. Blimpie’s Buffalo Chicken cold deli sub has 400 calories with 70 calories from fat. These are pretty good options if you are trying to avoid fat. Kentucky Fried Chicken offers the Tender Roast Sandwich, which if ordered without the sauce has 270 calories with 45 calories from fat, making the sandwich under 20 percent fat. Also, Wendy’s Grilled Chicken Sandwich has 300 calories with 60 calories from fat, making it 20 percent fat as well.

On the other hand, if you walked into KFC and ordered just one extra crispy thigh, that would be 370 calories with an amazing 240 calories can be attributed to fat. That is 65 percent fat, which is a very fat chicken.

Burger King’s Chicken Whopper, if you order it with out mayonnaise, has 420 calories with 80 calories from fat, but it contains trans fat, and many people are trying to avoid trans fat. In fact, trans fats have been banned in some states.

All of these food choices are high in sodium, however, and should be avoided if you are on a low salt diet. Most fast food is high in sodium, and for people with high blood pressure, that can be very dangerous.
How Fat Is My Salad

When trying to find nutritious fast food, you may be temped to order a salad. Taking a look at McDonald's California Cobb Salad, you'll find that this 160 calorie salad gets 100 of those calories from fat. That means 62 percent of calories are fat related. McDonald's Bacon Ranch Salad has 140 calories, 90 of which come from fat. Blimpie’s offers salads as well. The Blimpie Tuna Salad weighs in at 260 calories, 180 coming from fat, which means 68 percent of the calories are fat. The Blimpie Grilled Chicken Salad is not much better at 360 calories with 240 calories from fat.

When looking to order nutritious fast food, look for salads served with the dressing on the side and ask for the light versions of the dressings. Most of the salads that have a lump of protein on top, such as chicken, bacon, or turkey, have a lot of hidden fat as well. Not all salads are bad. You can find nutritious fast food salads like Wendy’s Mandarin Chicken Salad. This light weight has only 150 calories with a mere 15 calories coming from fat. Although it is low in cholesterol and very low in saturated fat, this salad is high in sodium.
Burgers

The fast food world was built on the burger. Here we have taken a look at the basic hamburger and cheeseburger from several restaurants.
Burgers Restaurant Burger Calories Fat Calories
Burger King hamburger 310 120
Burger King cheeseburger 360 160
Burger King veggieburger 340 90
Carls Jr. hamburger 280 90
In-N-Out hamburger 390 170
In-N-Out Double Double 670 370
McDonalds hamburger 280 90
McDonalds cheeseburger 330 130
Wendy’s Classic single with everything 410 170


Carl’s Jr., McDonalds, Wendy’s and the In-N-Out hamburger all offer moderate nutrient levels and are not very high in sodium, either. The In-N-Out Double Double is high in saturated fats. Burger King’s veggieburger is low in saturated fat and very low in cholesterol, but high in sodium. Burger King’s other burgers, including the cheeseburger, contained trans fats.
Nutritious Fast Foods

Fast food is there for a reason. It is, by definition, fast and convenient, and with all that fat and sodium, it tastes good too. Often we have no choice but to stop and eat at a fast food place. Nutritious fast food is available, however, and can be found by looking closely at the menu to find options that are good for you.

Many people are health conscious today, so many fast food restaurants offer nutritional information right there in the restaurant. Take a little time and read the information available, and you will find that you can make a healthy, nutritious, fast food choice.

Posted in: Food Article