Healthy Fast-Food Meals. Really.

Looking for something healthy from the drive-through? Here's a list of "seriously healthy" fast-food meals, courtesy of Prevention Magazine:

Guacamole Salad at Chipotle

1. CHIPOTLE: Barbacoa and Guacamole Salad
"Make your own salad with no-hormone-added barbacoa, which doesn't use unnecessary antibiotics (chicken, pictured here, is also a great choice). Add romaine lettuce, guacamole, a little sour cream, and tomatillo-green chili salsa. It's definitely a sodium splurge, but full of MUFAs and quality ingredients." [Note from the Healthy Foodie: No surprise here, as Chipotle is my #1 favorite fast-food chain, and I can't even think of what might come in second place.]

2. DOMINO'S PIZZA: Veggie pizza with gluten-free crust

3. STARBUCKS: Protein bistro box (with herbal iced tea or coffee) -- Not sure all Starbucks have this option, but the box contains hardboiled egg, cheddar cheese, multigrain bread, peanut butter, apple slices, and grapes. [I'll have to look for this one, although I'm not a fan of hardboiled eggs.]

4. MCDONALD'S: Premium Southwest Salad

5. WENDY'S: Sour cream and chive potato. [I've never eaten at Wendy's, as far as I can recall, but Prevention says this is a healthy, filling and yummy dish.]

6. PANERA: "Power chicken hummus bowl." Apparently, this is available if you ask, from Panera's "hidden menu." 

Go here to see the entire list of ten healthy dishes.

Soft tacos at Chipotle

This is my favorite fast-food meal -- OK, my only fast-food meal. I either get chicken or the vegetarian version like this one, with guacamole, two kinds of salsa, lettuce and a little cheese.

Chipotle -- A Healthy Foodie's Hero

I've always liked Chipotle better than any other fast-food restaurant, and now I've learned that they are leaders in supporting sustainable, humane, organic food production methods -- going against the grain of our industrial food system and accepting lower profits as the cost of taking this stand.

From Time Magazine's cover story dated 8/31/09 ("The Real Cost of Cheap Food") --

"[T]he Mexican fast-food chain Chipotle...now sources its pork from Niman Ranch*and gets its other meats and much of its beans from natural and organic sources. It's part of a commitment that Chipotle founder Steve Ells made years ago, not just because sustainable ingredients were better for the planet but because they tasted better too--a philosophy he calls food with integrity. It's not cheap for Chipotle--food makes up more than 32% of its costs, the highest in the fast-food industry. But to Ells, the taste more than compensates....'We put a lot of energy into finding farmers who are committed to raising better food,' says Ells."

Bravo and three cheers, Chipotle!

By the way, early in this decade McDonald's was a majority owner of Chipotle, but it pulled out in 2006. The company has thrived since then and now has more than 500 locations, including more than 15 in metro Cincinnati.

* Niman Ranch "has knitted together hundreds of small-scale farmers into a network that sells all-natural pork, beef and lamb to retailers and restaurants. In doing so, it leverages economies of scale while letting the farmers take proper care of their land and animals."