Natalie: Now before we get started we are going to play a little game. I want you to pass this video and tell me if you are going to go out to a fast food restaurant, what could you choose off of the menu that would be the healthiest option? And seriously, I really want you to do this because I'm going to make a point. So pass the video, really think about some of the options that you could choose from that would be the healthiest. Let me know and then play.
Now I bet a lot of you put salads as your healthy option. Well, today we are going to talk about salads at fast food restaurants and some things that you really need to know. Okay, so the salad that I have chosen to talk about today is the Southwest chicken salad with spicy bites from Jack in the Box and it's accompanied with blue corn tortilla chips, also comes with ranch dressing. You are going to get a Minute Maid Lemonade to go with it. Now I am going to throw of a picture on the screen of the salad, so doesn't that look pretty good? Now that picture is actually with the grilled chicken, not with the spicy bites, however that salad looks pretty good.
Okay, so now let's get into the detail of what that salad really is made of. The salad by itself, the Southwestern salad with the spicy bites has 510 calories. So majority of the calories are going to come from those fried chicken bites. With the ranch dressing, that has 310 calories, 300 of those calories are from fat. The blue corn tortilla chips, they have 70 calories, 30 of those calories are from fat. Then the Minute Maid Lemonade is 160 calories for a 20 ounce drink. So all of those combined that equals 1050 calories for a salad and a drink. In other words, I mean that's equivalent to a big mac meal sometimes or a sandwich, hamburger, French fries and a drink at a lot of restaurants. So don't think just because you are getting the salad, it's going to be the healthier option calorie wise.
Now there are some adjustments you can make by changing the dressing, not getting the condiment sort of the additions like the chips and things like that, but this salad is very common, a lot of people order it this way. That's why I want to present it to you this way because there is lot many people out there that are going choose the vinaigrette over the ranch dressing, over a cream dressing unless they are trying to walk with their eating. So now we have to talk about the grams and the total fat that are in each part of the salad because a lot of people are going to be overdoing their fat if you are eating at a fast food restaurant. So the salad with the spicy bites has 25 grams of fat and 8 grams of saturated fat and 3 grams of trans fat.
Now you don't want hardly any trans fats in your diet. Some trans fats are natural but the majority of trans fats are because of the processing of food. So the salad with the chicken by itself already has 3 grams of fat. Then the ranch dressing has 33 grams of total fat, 5 grams of saturated fat and 1 gram of trans fats. The blue corn tortilla chips, they have 3 grams of total fat. Then the Minute Maid Lemonade, that's not going to have any fat in them, but basically what that equals is 61 grams of total fat and 13 grams of saturated fat.
Okay, now to make a comparison so you really know what those number mean. If the average person is on a 2000 calorie diet, by the way 2000 calories would be for the average person who is not trying to loose weight. If you are trying to loose weight, you are going to have to eat even fewer than 2000 calories. However, if you are on a 2000 calorie diet, you should get no more than about 55 grams of total fat in a day and no more than 20 grams of saturated fat in day. So right here in this one salad with your drink, you are getting 61 grams of total fat. You are getting more than the fat that you are supposed to get in your whole day. Then your saturated fat, you are almost equal to what you need in the whole day. So a lot of people may be choosing the salad because they think it's a better option but you really have to be cautious.
Now I understand that people will still eat fast food. If you are going out with co-workers, everybody has chosen to go to Jack in the Box, so here is a better way to eat a salad at Jack in the Box and not get as much crap as this that we just talked about. So you can still get the Southwestern chicken salad but get it with the grilled chicken, not the fried chicken and not the spicy bites because the spicy bites are breaded. You want to choose a vinaigrette dressing, ideally if they have oil and vinegar, buy itself, that's the best option. Most of the times, they are just already going to have a prepackaged vinaigrette, so that would certainly be a better option, but be aware of the vinaigrettes because of their sweet, they usually will have high fructose corn syrup in them.
But the salad, it has tomatoes on there, it has a few vegetables, it does have corn and black beans which is kind of like a redundancy there because they are both complexed carbohydrates, so I would actually eat half of the corn or not all, you know, none of the corn, that will reduce your calories a little bit, and then just drink water. If they have fresh lemon, just squeeze the lemon in your water instead of getting a lemonade. Then just skip the blue corn tortilla chips, just completely skip those and that may help you, you know, if you are someone like that to know what you can choose and still stay away from some of those stuff.
So there you have it, the facts about our fast food salad. The future videos are actually going to be changing the format a little bit. We are going to be putting on a lot more videos with shorter timeframes and so that you'll be able to watch more. So I'd really love it if you would subscribe because then of course then you will be able to watch more of the videos that we are going to be doing. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave a comment below, I love reading everything that you write. So subscribe, rate the video and I will see you next time, bye.
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