Rethinking Fast Food: Top 5 Healthiest Bargains

 

I think we can all now agree that junk food is not always fast and cheap….although it often is.

And that fast, cheap food is not always junk, although it often is.

Case in point, in my part of California you can get a taco made with shredded fresh chicken, fresh tortillas, fresh cilantro and chopped onions for a song. And it is made in less time than it took to read that sentence.  Add a few avocado slices to make it fancy. So it’s a fast food that isn’t high (bad) fat, high salt, high sugar, highly processed or any of that junky stuff.

The fun comes in finding those fast, cheap and healthy foods.

Maybe the data geeks will help us.

Priceonomics, a data research studio with a cool point of view, crunched the numbers to come up with the most nutritious meals per dollar. In other words, the healthiest fast food you can find. And on the flip side, what is the least nutritious meal for the dollar.

First, guess what they would be. 

Okay, now here are the answers.

Start with junkiest for the money. From really bad to pretty bad.

1.     Mac and cheese

2.     Cheeseburger

3.     Meatloaf

4.     Corndog

5.     Hot Wings

Since most of these are fun to eat, in my case, especially the corn dogs at the County Fair, this list is kind of a bummer. But it also suggests these fun foods are kind of a rip-off. They cost too much for the little nutrition that you get. Other cheap, unhealthy foods that are a slightly better deal, nutrition-wise, include fried chicken and Sloppy Joes.  So be advised.

Now let’s look at the smart side of the food list.

The biggest nutritional bargains are these. (and yes, I’m sorry about the kale)

1.     Kale salad

2.     Falafel

3.     Lettuce wraps

4.     Chinese chicken salad

5.     Cobb salad

The winner here, hands down in my view, is falafel, which is like a sandwich with fried “meatballs” made with ground garbanzo beans in pita bread—with greens and yogurt sauce. 

The on-the-go salads are also nice to know about, but we sort of expected that.

The surprise is that some fast, healthy meals are not really a great deal, such as veggie burgers and black bean burgers. Go figure.

By the way, my tacos made the list, but Priceonomics only counted fish (not chicken) tacos, and they came in at number 6. 

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The lesson:  Mac and cheese is basically a rip.  Falafels and Cobb salads (even with the egg, cheese and ham) and are tasty and a heck of a bargain, in every way. 

Falafel Balls

If you can buy falafels at a stand or food truck, buy them.

If not, you can often find the dry mix for falafel balls at your local health food store or favorite food market.

You can make your own from scratch, but it’s actually way too much work, at least for me.

You can order the mix online at 

Walmart  or Ebay

or write in the comments and I'll arrange to get some from my favorite market and sell it to you.

Happy munching!

Joan

(Photos via Unsplash: top by Amie Watson; center by Brooke Lark)

Hacking Our Wasteful Food System—for Fun and Profit

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I have a couple of friends who always eat about half of whatever they order and leave the rest. It seems like their way of controlling their portions, or they just get bored – because they never take any of it home. It just goes in the trash, like $200 billion worth of wasted food in the U.S. every year. I fantasize introducing them to the team over at Misfit Juicery, who proudly make premium juices with discarded and misshapen fruit and veggies.

Like a bunch of new trendy food startups, Misfit is painting wasteful perfectionists as sadly outdated and out-of-touch, (which would probably be a surprise to my hip friends who like to over-order).  In fact, there is a burgeoning movement in the food world to outsmart the old “leftovers” system, which can be pretty fun once you get into the spirit. For instance, you can see what I posted earlier about beer made with old bread.

Now big business is getting into the act, such as a recipe contest from Quaker Oats that encourages us to make soup stock with rescued food like onion and garlic skins.  Good idea, but not exactly earth-shattering. On the beverage front, AB InBev, which sells Bud Light, is funding the startup that just  launched Canvas barley smoothies, made with the spent grain that breweries used to dump. (For more details, see my article.)  

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Most recently, the heirs to the Walmart chain decided to pump money into FoodMaven, a Colorado startup that finds buyers for edible food that has been rejected by stores and restaurants.

As for you and me, we can remember that unwanted food is bad for Mother Earth. It squanders an enormous amount of water and releases a ridiculous volume of unnecessary greenhouse emissions. So it would be a cool idea to mimic what some indie grocery markets are now doing  -- stashing surplus veggies, sauces, noodles, nuts, bread and, yes, even carrot and onion peels in the freezer. Then using them later in dazzling soups and maybe even a grandmotherly pudding.

 Here’s a start—a hearty, healthy recipe for bread and fruit leftovers that I adapted from Decadent Creations, a custom-order bakery in Hillsboro, Oregon.

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1/2 lb. bread

3 eggs

1/3 cup sugar

1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

1-1/2 cup milk (can be almond or soy milk if you prefer)

1-1/2 cup fruit (frozen or fresh, can be berries, bananas or whatever combination you have)

 
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Chop the bread into 1-inch cubes. Set aside.

Mix egg, sugar, milk and vanilla.

Toss the bread cubes in the egg mixture until fully moistened.

Put the bread and egg combination into a baking dish and top with the fruit.

Cover dish with foil. Cook for 25 minutes. Remove foil and cook for additional 25 minutes.

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Perfect with coffee or ginger tea 

(photos from Unsplash: Henrique Felix (top), Caroline Attwood)