Is Fast Food Chicken A Healthy Choice?

Skinless white chicken is one of the best meat choices we have. It’s high in protein and low and fat that’s why it comes so highly recommended. And that’s why the Fast Food industry has been quick to jump on the band wagon and present healthy choices by offering up chicken. But is the fast food chicken really a healthy choice?

Everywhere you look fast food is offering chicken. Chicken subs, chicken sandwiches, chicken salads, and chicken burgers. Heck recently Burger King even introduce chicken fries. And then there is the new McDonalds premium chicken sandwich that has been bombarding the television. Note the use of premium to imply healthy.

If chicken is such a healthy food choice why is it when fast food gets a hold of it, no longer a healthy food choice? What happens?

Let’s pick on McDonalds first who now offer three different chicken sandwiches each available in crispy or grilled. In the fast food world crispy actually means fried but who would buy a fried piece of chicken these days?

McDonald’s newest addition the premium grilled chicken sandwich can be an acceptable choice as long as you hold the mayo, mustard, and ketchup. Its counterpart the crispy version is a no go. Remember crispy is actually another word for fat, but how well would the premium fat grilled chicken sandwich do?

If sodium is a problem for you then you need to avoid all of McDonald’s offerings because all of their food is heavy on the sodium.

Ok let’s not just pick on McDonalds, after all how much fun would that be. Let’s have a look at what Subway has to offer. According to their commercials they can shrink the waistline of any man, woman, or child. After all didn’t Jared loose a whopping 245 pounds by eating at Subway?

But before ignoring all your other fast food chicken choices and heading to Subway there’s a couple of things you should know. The 6” Chicken and Bacon Ranch sandwich at Subway has 530 calories and 25 grams of fat while the McChicken only has 370 calories and 16 grams of fat so how the heck can they say they offer the healthiest choice?

Oh yes and then there is Burger King’s Chicken Fries where a 6 piece order will get you 340 calories for your trouble. The KFC Snacker has also received a lot of advertising hype with its low price tag but really all you are getting is a crispy aka fatty piece of chicken with some lettuce and mayo on a bun. Not such a good choice.

But wait let’s not get too discouraged yet. There are actually a few healthy chicken choices in fast food. Burger King’s Fire-Grilled Chicken Garden Salad, Quizno’s Small Honey Bourbon Chicken Sandwich, and Wendy’s Ultimate Grill Chicken Sandwich are all good choices.

If you know anything about dieting you already know that you need to do your own math before heading out for fast food. What appears to be low fat may in fact land up being not so low fat at all.

Some tips to remember to keep the calories down is to replace mayo with mustard which still adds some zip but doesn’t have the calories. Use raw veggies like lettuce and tomato as your sandwich fillers. Feel free to load them up there’s no calories in these choices. Forget the fries and choose a garden salad instead. There is just no way to removed the calories from fries. And just say “no” to the ever popular “super sizing.”

We are all going to have fast food at one time or another. The trick is to choose smartly and understand the true fat and calorie content of the item you are ordering. There is in fact some healthy chicken fast food choices.


Deon Melchior is the Editor and Publisher of Article Click. For more FREE articles for your ezine and websites visit ArticleClick.com. Article Click is a free content article directory. This means that as a publisher you may reprint the articles that are included in our site, as long as the article is unedited and the author box is included with it's live hyperlinks.