Fast food chains have been gearing towards the healthy bandwagon that a lot of people seem to be jumping on. The several cases of people claiming fast food restaurants made them fat caused a lot of negative publicity and a decline in sales, causing them to react. “McDonald’s low-fat beef burger, the McLean, flopped. Pizza Hut’s addition of lower-fat pizza toppings failed. Then, things started to turn around. For example, Burger King’s grilled chicken sandwich, the BK Broiler (now called the Tendergrill), was more successful” (Nerac). Now, they still do have high fat, high cholesterol, and high sodium items on their menus, but they’ve started to add healthier options like salads.

Above are Wendy’s Garden Sensation salads: Spicy Chicken Caesar Salad, Baja Salad, BLT Cobb Salad, and the Apple Pecan Chicken Salad. These actually sound pretty good to me, but I’ve never tried them.

McDonald’s also had their fruit and yogurt parfait that contains strawberries, blueberries, yogurt, and granola.

According to Nerac Food Science Analyst Shanon Trueman, sales for all of these have been strong. However, even though items like these are marketed as healthy, they may not be as healthy as consumers think. For example, below is the nutrition label for McDonald’s fruit and yogurt parfait.

So, 1.9 grams of fat isn’t bad for breakfast. But 19 grams of sugar? That’s basically eating 5 straight spoonfuls of sugar. I don’t know about you but that sounds disgusting to me. 

I rarely eat fast food but everyone craves a burger, salty fries, and a McFlurry every once in a while. Now that seemingly healthier menu items are on the rise, I may opt for those instead of indulging in a cheeseburger (even though most still aren’t healthy, whoops).

Source: https://www.nerac.com/as-fast-food-goes-healthy-what-opportunities-await-food-companies/