The Easier Choice?

There's no question that fast food is an easier option than cooking at home or packing a lunch. But if you're not careful, you can fall into some pretty awful dietary traps out there.

We're all under time constraints in our daily lives. In the morning, there's getting ourselves (and maybe children) out of bed and ready for the day. At work, there are always deadlines, meetings, customers, projects to deal with. Lunch gets wolfed down in a spare moment. Once we get home, there's making dinner, helping with homework, cleaning up, and it seems like once we're really all finished our work, it's time for bed. And that doesn't even include finding time for exercise. As a result, and completely understandably, we look for ways to save time and energy. One of those corner-cutting options is fast food, from a drive-thru or delivery. But what are we really saving? Look at some of the popular food choices, and the few minutes we save are coming at an incredible cost to our health.

Let's look at popular choices. There's always a McDonalds or Burger King around for a quick bite at lunch or to pick up dinner on the way home. You can order a combo in less time than it takes to read a newspaper headline. But what did you order?

A Big Mac combo, with medium fries and medium Coke: 1130 calories, 48 g fat (12.5 saturated, 1.5 trans), 1325 mg sodium, 151 g carbs, 29 g protein

A Whopper combo, with medium fries and medium Coke: 1250 calories, 57 g fat (14.5 saturated, 1.4 trans), 1750 sodium, 154 carbs, 31 protein

Depending on your own nutritional needs, either of the above would likely provide over half the calories you should have in an entire day. The carbs are almost all simple sugars, meaning either meal gives you the equivalent of about 30 teaspoons of sugar. That these restaurants are still selling food with trans fats in them frankly should tell you that their primary concern is with their profit statements, and not with their customers' health. I should note that the numbers above come from the restaurants' websites. The numbers may not be accurate, as they both offer info for the medium coke that is inconsistent. McDonald's medium Coke is 21 ounces and has 15mg of sodium. Burger King's medium is 22 ounces and claims 50 mg of sodium, more than triple. This makes me wonder about the accuracy of their nutritional claims, and makes me think the real picture might actually be worse.

Ok, so maybe the burger joints are out of the question. Domino's is now offering something called a "Pasta Bread Bowl", which is a serving of pasta in a big fluffy bowl made of bread. There are a few different varieties, but let's look at Chicken Alfredo, arguably the "healthiest" option. NOTE: The nutritional info on Domino's website is not helpful because they claim that a serving is half a bread bowl. This item is priced at $5.99. I would find it hard to believe that two people would buy one of these and split it. It's priced like a single serving, and would in all likelihood be consumed as a single serving. I've doubled the numbers from their site to give an accurate picture.

Domino's Chicken Alfredo Pasta Breadbowl: 1400 calories, 50 g fat (22 saturated, 1 trans), 2140 mg sodium, 186 g carbs, 52 g protein. Note that this doesn't include any beverages.

The Whopper still comes out higher in total fat, but the saturated fat is much worse, and neither burger combo can hold a candle to Domino's sodium or carb content. Sure there's 52 g of protein, but it's not nearly worth it considering the rest of the meal.

While these examples are shockingly bad, it should be mentioned that some chains are offering healthier choices. McDonald's, in fact, has a range of salads you can get with grilled chicken breast that are actually quite good. Still, no one is foolish enough to think that fast-food restaurants are paying stock dividends on the back of salads. The burgers are still the mainstays.

I realize that cooking for ourselves is more time-consuming, and can be more expensive (though it doesn't have to be; there are lots of ways to cut costs and still stay healthy, more on that in a future post). But what are you really saving? Dinner can take 30 minutes to prepare. Packing a lunch the night before might take another 10. Those 40 minutes can save you hundreds of calories, thousands of milligrams of sodium, and whole days' worth of saturated fat. Chicken or tuna on whole wheat bread. A thermos of vegetable soup. Some leftover whole grain pasta with meat sauce. A big salad with chicken breast and a bit of olive oil dressing. Any of these ideas can be put together quickly for healthy alternatives to fast food. For dinner, try some frozen fish. You can put it right in the oven, frozen, with some salad dressing drizzled over. Add some vegetables and brown rice, and you have dinner in about 30 minutes. My point is that options are out there, if we actually look around.

We all are in charge of our own lives, and our own health. A huge part of health is the fuel we put into our bodies. The better quality fuel we use, the better our bodies will function. It really is that simple. You deserve nutritious food, and so does your family. I hope you've seen that the easy way out is actually much harder than you ever thought possible.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on quick and nutritious meal ideas. If I get enough, I'll post them on the site with you getting full credit for your creativity. Let's hear from you!