Is there really such a thing as “healthy fast food“?
I want to first say Thanks! to the folks at RemedyInfo.com for their inspiring article, 5 Tips for Eating at a Fast Food Restaurant – and shedding more light and attention on what we can do about getting healthy fast food! I’d like to share their tips and expand on them a little bit.
1. Choose Chicken Over Beef
Mostly, the beef burgers are high in saturated fat, and provide a very poor quality protein source.
Instead, go for a chicken breast, but be sure that it is grilled — a breaded chicken breast may actually be a worse choice, than if you had opted for the burger.
If the fast food location you are eating in happens to offer chilli, this can actually be a very good alternative.
The kidney beans in chili mean it has lots of fiber and protein, so it will be both filling and satisfying, without being too heavy on calories. Just take care with your portion size, and your side orders.
- My addition: throw away the bread! Eat the tomatoes and lettuce and pickles but the bread is usually cheap, denatured and devoid of any nutritive value and amounts to nothing but sugar! That’s closer to being healthy fast food.
2. Be Careful With Fish
A seemingly smart option may be fish, but often the fish also comes breaded, and is served with a very high calorie sauce as well.
If you can find somewhere serving plain fish, that would be a great option, just ask them to bring the sauce or dressing on the side.
- My addition: couldn’t agree more! I learned a long time ago to just avoid it altogether!
3. Put Your Own Condiments On
By putting your own condiments on your food, rather than taking whatever the meal is served with, you can save some serious calories, fat and sugar.
When choosing your condiments, stick with mustard, and a very small amount of ketchup, if you have to. Remember that ketchup is also very high in total sugar content, so do keep it limited to a small serving size, to prevent the calorie intake from becoming too high.
- My addition: avoid mayonnaise like the plague! Between mayo and ketchup, these are the two most deceptive ingredients that lead to gout and and have no place in the concept of health fast food.
4. Take Care With Salads
Many people gravitate to salads when eating away from home, as they think they are healthier, but sometimes this isn’t the case.
While salads can be much lower in calories, many fast food restaurants add on ramen noodles, slivered nuts, croutons, cheese, bacon bits – basically the whole works.
This can add up to a lot of calories overall, which you may not notice when you think you are eating something ‘healthy.’
So, unless you specifically request that they make some alterations to the salad, you may be just as safe to avoid them entirely.
- My addition: in this world of GMO frankenfoods, pesticides & chemicals, and industrial agriculture and who knows what that crap is they put on lettuce to make it look green and last forever, even salads are tricky. Spinach is better than Iceberg and use Oil & Vinegar if at all possible.
5. Choose Water
Ditching the soft drinks for plain water is one of the easiest ways to cut down on calories at the fast food restaurant. And, if water was the only drink you consumed, you could probably save at least $20 (or more) per week.
Most soft drinks contain 200 calories or more, obviously water has zero calories… it seems like a no-brainer to me when you are trying to cut down on your calorie intake.
- My addition: this should be obvious; High Fructose Corn Syrup is killing this country and the rest of the world and it is one the biggest culprits of developing gout. HFCS is in everything! Especially sodas and sweet fast food drinks. Just say NO!
It’s hard to get really “healthy fast food” . . .
It really is a much better idea to stop into the grocery store and get some bananas, apples, oranges, and some nuts and redirect those fast food habits. It won’t be easy and that is why I’m so happy that RemedyInfo.com came out with these ideas to at least bidge the gap and make the leap to figuring out how to get a least some sort of “healthy fast food”. But it is a last resort and a temporary measure.
Make your own healthy fast food . . .
Smoothies for breakfast, organically grown ham rolled in red lettuce with good mustard for lunch and grilled chicken breast with steamed broccoli for dinner. All of those things are fast, don’t take much clean up and left-overs are easily thrown into an insulated bag.
Gout is a disease of accumulated toxic waste, it’s easy to get rid of; eat more of the foods that don’t cause acidity and less of the ones that do. Along with a few other habits – breathing and relaxing – you will be able to move yourself away from gout.
. . . healthy fast food . . . is a state of mind . . .
Understanding acidity and understanding that it is not only what we eat that causes acidity, including uric acid, in our bodies is the key. However, eating well and developing good “healthy fast food” habits can make a big difference to reversing chronic gout conditions. Clean food and good water are good places to start.
What Are Your Healthy Fast Food Tricks?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
how can you get kidney beans in chili ?
the bit about the Choose Chicken Over Beef is really good
salad on its own is a snack, its not a proper meal because it lacks essential nutrients
smoothie for breakfast only ? or similarly coffee ? is not proper breakfast.
A proper balanced breaked fast would be brown bread with high fiber ceral and glass of orange juice or milk.
jaffa – thanks for jumping in. It sounds like you are not in agreement with some of the the ideas and that’s great; I’m glad to hear someone is out there with with some lights turned on. But . . . “brown bread”? “High fiber cereal”? “Orange juice or milk”? Where’s the protein? They make bread “brown” just to throw us off if it isn’t whole grain. Bread and cereal are the same thing; carbohydrates. Orange juice . . . is usually sugar. Do you what they do to milk? It’s basically devoid of nutrition in and of itself and full of crap like rBGH. I’m glad your paying some attention but it sounds like you still need to get more education. Thanks.