When you are in a rush and hungry, we’re all guilty of turning to fast food. It is quick and convenient. However, it’s anything but healthy.

People hear the horror stories about fast food chain employees who tamper with food. Just last week, one diner found a finger at Arby’s. Yet, we rarely get to hear about what is actually in our food. Most employees are preparing food in a harmless fashion for consumers. They get to see all the content that goes into a one-dollar hamburger. This isn’t another article about the terrible things employees do to food, instead it is about how people are blinded by marketing tactics and advertisements.

A recent thread on Reddit asked restaurant employees to share what they know about the preparation, ingredients, and processing of the foods they served.
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A commercial for three new sides at Wendy’s caught my attention this weekend. They lead with macaroni and cheese, my “desert island” food of choice; then, chili cheese fries; and rounded out the trio with a baked sweet potato. Now we’re talking!

Baked sweet potatoes are one of my very favorite foods. Particularly, I love them for lunch. In fact, they are a staple around the DietsInReview.com office; someone is always warming one up at noon. I usually bake two or three over the weekend and then take halves to work each day (perfect with my black bean turkey chili). Now, it’s good to know if I forget and really need something healthy and quick, Wendy’s can take care of me.

Leery of even the healthiest foods at a fast food restaurant, I went straight to the restaurant’s web site. There I learned I have nothing to fear, except maybe the cinnamon butter spread.

The potato itself is listed as just a sweet potato, no other additives. They bake this for an hour in each store, and then serve it to you piping hot. It has 260 calories, 0 grams of fat, 9 grams of fiber, 6 grams of protein, and more than 1000% of your daily need for vitamin A. These are the nutritional stats for any sweet potato. The ten-ounce sweet potato that they serve (or .6 pounds) is a whopper of a potato; it’s a full four ounces heavier than what is considered a large sweet potato.
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Finally, some news gluten-free dieters - and pizza lovers – can rejoice over. Domino’s – the world’s largest delivery pizza chain – is announcing today that it’s planing to sell a pizza made with gluten-free crust. This decision comes after many customers began requesting a gluten-free option from the pizza giant.

“We are the first national pizza delivery chain to offer this,” said Domino’s CMO Russel Weiner. He does note, however, that while the crust is entirely gluten-free, it is baked in ovens with pizzas containing gluten, so those who are extremely gluten sensitive should be cautious.

The pizza crust is made from rice flour, potato starch, rice starch and olive oil, and costs $12 – which is about $3 more than their regularly priced pies, as most gluten-free products cost more than their gluten-containing counterparts.

Domino’s reportedly worked with the national Foundation for Celiac Awareness to bring the organization’s standards to their kitchens and employees. Alice Bast, president of the foundation, says that gluten free is becoming a selling point, and that the number one request they get from gluten-free customers is for gluten-free pizza and beer.
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To say Pizza Hut is going a little overboard with their new stuffed-crust trend is a gross understatement. And the gross is implied in more ways than one. 

Still on the wake of rolling out their hot-dog stuffed crust pizza in the U.K., the fast food giant is staying on theme and introducing a entirely new variety of stuffed crust pizza: The Crown Crust, which got its name from its ‘crown-like’ appearance.

This new menu item features the customer’s choice of either mini cheeseburgers or chicken nugget-like ‘gems’ stuffed around the crust. The cheeseburger variety comes with beef, veggies, and Pizza Hut’s special sauce. And the chicken version comes with barbecue sauce and green peppers.

This new pizza is currently only available in the Middle East, and we hope it stays that way. The U.S. doesn’t need another fast food nightmare to fend off. We’re still coming to terms with the hot dog-stuffed pizza and Burger King’s Bacon Sundae – both of which took fast food to new epically disastrous proportions.
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Before you eat that chicken nugget, you might want to think first. Because it may just have sky high salt content, especially if it’s produced in the U.S.

A new study has been released that set out to examine the salt levels for products offered at fast food chains, including Burger King, Domino’s Pizza, Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and Subway.

The objective was formed after several fast food companies made commitments to reduce the salt levels in their food, but later cited ‘technical issues’ as the reason they couldn’t follow through with their promise and make any substantial reductions.

The study – conducted by lead author Elizabeth Dunford, the global database manager for the Australian branch of World Action on Salt and Health - compared the salt content of various food items from fast food restaurants in six countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, France, Canada and New Zealand. Results showed that the U.S. reigned supreme when it came to overly-salty foods. Canada ranked not far after, and France and the U.K. came out on top with the lowest overall rankings.
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