Image courtesy of Rob Wiltshire.

Is healthy fast food really healthy?

Many of us feel better about choosing a ‘healthy’ takeaway option instead of the obvious poorer food choices like Big Macs.

However, you still have to be careful about what you choose.

Eating takeaway every now and again is no big deal and definitely falls into the 20% treat part of a healthy diet.

Just make sure you and your family are not eating these foods daily thinking they are a great option.

Here are my top three ‘healthy’ fast foods that I think are not so healthy after all.

1. Sushi. While sushi can be healthy, there are some things you should watch out for:

• Deep fried fillings are more than likely fried in a cheap, nasty vegetable oil.
• Fake crab fillings are high in sugar and salt and are full of artificial ingredients.
• Mayonnaise can contain artificial ingredients, including MSG.
• Tuna can contain high levels of mercury.
• Soy sauce  is really high in salt, can contain GMO and wheat.
• Sushi rice can contain high levels of sugar.

When choosing sushi for takeaway, I try to stick to plain vegetable and avocado fillings. Better still, make sushi at home using quality organic ingredients (it tastes better too!)

2. Subway. You only need to check out the ingredients list at the Subway website to see what I think is wrong with Subway! There are so many artificial ingredients and numbers (including preservative 282 which is a known problem for kids), soy, canola, palm oil, sugar and hydrogenated oils.  It is actually scary looking at all this list! If you have to go to Subway, stick with a plain salad, no meat, cheese or dressing or condiments.

3. Healthy Pizza. The ‘Good Choice’ range from Dominoes with 97% fat-free pizza sounds pretty good right? And didn’t the Biggest Loser, Shannon Ponton advertise them?  Well, Dominoes won’t actually give you an ingredient list. They give out nutritional information, allergy advice (yep, soy is in everything) and an additive list. You can bet on the ‘Good Choice’ range being full of numbers, processed meats, trans fatty acids and sauces full of sugar and salt. They might claim salt reduced, but it’s still high in salt compared to fresh foods. I think the only way to get a truly healthy pizza is to make it yourself or find an old-fashioned pizzeria that makes them from scratch.

Have you come across any fast food that claims to be healthy but isn’t really?

 Check out Vegie Smugglers at my affiliate shop link.