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.
what about the ‘Boost Juice’ type smoothies? I think they’re overhyped.
Actually they are not too bad as far as some of the ingredients go. However, there is a lot of hidden sugar in some of the ingredients and the total sugar intake per juice/smoothie is pretty high.
I LOVE boost juice!
Boost is ok in terms of being natural and unprocessed, but some of their options are high in sugar due to the sorbets and yoghurts in them (sorry guys!). Best to ask what’s going in each smoothie.
WOW I’m surprised about subway – just checked out the ingredients list and WOW!
pretty gross huh?
So what do we choose if we’re out and about and we need food?!
that’s a whole other blog post which I will get to!! 😀
Thank you, it’s all so very confusing trying to the best for your children!!
It is and it can be very overwhelming!! I try to provide small bites of info to help out – just do the best you can! I really just wanted to inform people that are eating this every day thinking it’s really healthy!! 🙂
Drats NNAM you wrecked my lunch! Lol. I never have take away and am helping my in laws move house today so they suggested Subway. Looks like a plain salad for me 🙂
Every now and again won’t hurt but some people eat it every day!
I was at a friend’s house with my partner last weekend and they wanted pizza. It was late so when they said that there was a GF base, i stopped fighting it. But i read through the menu to work out which topping were safe and they had a note saying that all topping contained gluten and that all facilities were contaminated with gluten. That was disappointing but really not that hard to accept from a chain pizza place. What really ticked me off was why did they bother advertising gluten free options at all?!
yes, unless it’s prepared in a gluten-free kitchen it’s not really gluten-free either is it? they are jumping on the bandwagon !
Great post Sonia!!! Subway…. You read my mind! It’s just full of rubbish. As for the ‘healthy’ pizza… As for the pizza… Had no idea they were selling ‘healthy’ pizza these days 😉
well they like to think they are 😉
Yeah, I always think that one of the lucky things about being a vego is that it cuts out a lot of options for me when it comes to take outs. Every time I eat sushi though, I always think in the back of my mind that it isn’t as healthy as people think it is, and agreed, home made tastes waaayyy better.
Plus… most of the time, by the time you put in the effort to get it, you could have made yourself something 10x better! lol
we put lots of love in our homemade sushi – that’s why it tastes better 🙂
We usually try for rice paper and noodle rolls if we are out as the healthiest option, and the avocado sushi. I’d love to know what is in the seaweed salad, and squid salad, often also sold at sushi takeaways. Anyone know?
I haven’t seen them here!
Funny you should mention – I bought a frozen pack of the seaweed salad a few weeks back and defrosted it on the weekend. Often I check the ingredients list, but you know how sometimes you just get excited and forget?!
Well, it had 32g of sugar per 100g which included high fructose corn syrup, as well as MSG, and a few numbers.
I was planning on posting about it on my blog soon.
Oh man – I hate it when that happens!
I have never heard of it !! That sucks doesn’t it? arrrghh!!!
There is no way in the world that the green colour in the seaweed salad is natural! It was my favourite but I don’t touch it anymore 🙁
I’ve never seen the appeal of subway but I do love a bit of takeaway sushi. It only happens once a month at the most so, I’m aok with that.
I’m looking forward to post on some decent eat-out options 🙂
Subway always smells weird to me! 😉
I have always thought that!
Yes, the smell around a subway store is so unusual and nothing like anything else I have ever smelt. That in itself makes me stay away from it
it makes me gag a little !
Great post Sonia 🙂
thanks Collette 🙂
I knew there was a reason I never really liked subway. Its never tasted that great to me, or what i thought it should taste like and now I know why. Thanks for sharing the info 🙂
Yeah, it never tastes as good as a sandwich made at home!
We stopped eating Subway a long time ago after feeling ill from eating it (not sick just a bit off!).
My son and I got sick from a chicken sub years and years ago! Could never go back!
I think so many people would be surprised to find out about the sushi. It’s my kids favourite dining out experience. And I let them go for it (limitiing the fried food) cause 80% of the time they eat well : )
Yes, I don’t think it’s an issue every now and again, but a lot of people I know eat this stuff every day for lunch!
Is there are safe soy sauce you recommend?
Great post! XX
Hi Bek, I usually use organic tamari – it has no wheat and the soy beans are guaranteed GMO free if you use organic. Because I only use small amounts, I am not too worried about the ‘soy’ factor too much!
Thanks Sonia! I’ll look out for it 🙂
I have had quite a few Asian friends with families been eating/consuming soy for generations so I’m not worried about the soy thing except for GMO’s of course 🙂 XX
OMG I knew that Subway was dodgy, but this ingredients list is horrifying!!! I especially like the “meat, poultry, seafood” section (I think we’ll use those terms loosely due to the distinct lack of meat in some of them!). Gahhhh, gross! I’ve also heard a rumour that that they use preservatives on their “fresh” salad toppings. Is it possible they can use a certain amount without disclosing? I’d love to know because I sometimes grab the occasional salad when desperate.
OMG – why mess with salad? grrrr!
Great Post ! Sharing this one
Why oh why have they had to mess with sushi we recently went to a sushi train which had chicken Caesar and pizza sushi !! Really why ? Wish they would stick with their healthier origins …
Wish more people realised subway us not the healthy alternative it’s made out to be as well
that is so weird Vanessa! lol – at least stick to asian flavours! 😉
I love sushi if i made my own whats the healthiest way to go?
Making your own is a great idea – just avoid unhealthy fillings! The rice and seaweed is pretty okay.