When you go to a Chick-fil-A, you probably plan on ordering chicken. It's practically
a foregone conclusion given that chicken is right there in the fast-food restaurant's
name. And chicken is chicken, right? Maybe not. Here are a few of the things you're really
eating when you stop at Chick-fil-A.
It shouldn't come as a massive surprise that some Chick-fil-A products include sugar. Obviously,
they sell sodas and shakes, fruit cups and cookies, all of which are rife with sugar
content. Plus, sugars are commonly found – both naturally and as additives – in breads,
fruits, and vegetables. But what may throw you for a loop is the fact that Chick-fil-A's
chicken includes added sugars.
And it's not just the breaded chicken that has sugar in it, which makes sense given that
breading adds carbohydrates to the food you're eating. It's Chick-fil-A's grilled chicken
that includes sugar listed as an ingredient in the chicken.
Take, for instance, an order of grilled chicken nuggets. Theoretically, it should only include
chicken as an ingredient. But if you look at the list of ingredients included in an
order of grilled chicken nuggets on the Chick-fil-A website, you'll see 25 different items included,
such as spices, preservatives, and, you guessed it, sugar.
Granted, the total sugar content is just one gram, so it's not like they've added a massive
amount of sugar to their grilled chicken, but it's something to keep in mind. Especially
when ordering some of their other sandwiches. For instance, the Grilled Chicken Sandwich
and Grilled Chicken Club both contain 9 grams of sugar, according to the company's nutrition
information web page.
It may seem strange that Chick-fil-A's grilled chicken has so many ingredients, but if you
think about it, it's not that weird. When you prepare chicken at home, do you ever prepare
it completely plain without any added spices or marinades? Probably not.
Really, the 25 ingredients included in Chick-fil-A's grilled chicken are there as part of the brine
used to give the chicken the delicious flavor you just can't get enough of. And what's at
the base of that brine? Apple cider vinegar.
Apple cider vinegar – along with a slew of other flavorings, including molasses, dehydrated
onion, sea salt, lemon juice, and paprika, among others – help to give Chick-fil-A's
chicken the consistent moist and full flavor you've come to expect. And let's be honest
— grilled chicken nuggets without a tangy brine would be pretty bland. Prepped and cooked
like this? It's something you're actually willing to pay for.
Chick-fil-A waffle fries should just consist of potatoes, salt, and oil, right? Welp, that's
where you're wrong. Chick-fil-a’s list of ingredients for this side dish includes potatoes,
three different oils, dextrose, sea salt, and a chemical for color-retention. All more-or-less
benign, until you notice that the canola oil is actually listed as high oleic
canola oil with, wait for it, dimethylpolysiloxane added
as an anti-foaming agent.
What's an anti-foaming agent, you ask? Great question. When the late former Mythbusters
host Grant Imahara dissected McDonald's use of 19 ingredients in their
french fries, he explained it's an additive in oil that helps prevent the oil from splashing.
Again, it seems fairly benign.It’s worth noting that the FDA has approved its use in
small amounts, so this seems like one of those things where people see an 8 syllable word
in the ingredients and get concerned. .
Chick-fil-A's Kale Crunch Side Salad is arguably one of the healthiest items the quick-serve
restaurant has on its menu, and most of the salad's ingredients are exactly what you'd
expect — kale, green cabbage, almonds, and apple Dijon dressing.
But wait a hot second before you chow down and take a full look at the ingredients in
that "apple Dijon dressing," as listed on the Chick-fil-A website. After oil, apple
juice concentrate, maple syrup, a few different vinegars, salt, and other seasonings, white
wine appears inconspicuously at the end.
To be fair, it's hardly unheard of for salads or dressings to include cooking wines, but
for a restaurant with a highly conservative, Christian ownership and reputation, it might
catch some people off-guard. Those who abstain for personal reasons, or those who subscribe
to a Christian faith that eschews the use of alcohol in any amount, may want to ask
for the apple Dijon dressing to be switched out for a dressing without a dash of wine.
But good luck knowing which dressing that might be — none of the other dressings feature
ingredient lists on the Chick-fil-A website.
While you can't find Chick-fil-A's "Icedream" cone listed as an option on their website,
the company notes that this frozen treat is one of their most popular menu items. To be
clear, this is Icedream, not ice cream. Which is perplexing. Why did they decide to call
it something different instead of the usual "soft serve", or just plain ice cream?
The ingredients – which can be found listed on their site as part of their Frosted Coffee,
Frosted Lemonade, and milkshakes – sound awfully close to regular ice cream, including
milk fats, sugar, and a lot of preservatives, flavorings, and additives to create the soft-serve
consistency. All-in-all, it's a "no harm, no foul" type of ice cream-adjacent offering.
And if they were just looking for a catchy name to draw interest to their product, it
looks like they've succeeded.
You know the golden stream of "buttery topping" that gets pumped on top of popcorn at the
movie theater? That's "butter oil." It's basically just a bunch of different oils and salts and
flavorings mixed together to taste like butter, but it's not really butter at all. For companies
like Chick-fil-A, this "butter oil" — which is listed as an ingredient in their menu items
like the Hash Brown Scramble Bowl and the Chicken Biscuit – is cheaper to buy, easier
to preserve, and has a melty consistency that is just so dang addicting.
Chick-fil-A's butter oil includes soybean oil, palm kernel oil, soy lecithin,
natural flavor, and beta carotene (for that buttery yellow color). Nothing overly concerning
here, except when you note that the menu items that include butter oil also include lots
of other fats and oils as part of their ingredient lists.
This means that the fat content is borderline obscene. For instance, the Sausage, Egg, & Cheese
Biscuit contains 43 grams of fat, 19 of which are saturated. If you're trying to keep your
fat and calorie intake under control, you might want to steer clear of this 630 calorie
biscuit meal, and other similar items. Still can’t resist? Just imagine someone making
your food with a giant glob of movie theater "butter." Sure, it tastes good, but it looks
pretty nasty. And it's not exactly a health food item.
“A bunch of butter and oil."
"I’m sorry, did you say 'butter and oil'?"
"No, Seth, butter and oil.”
Arguably, one of the least healthy items on the Chick-fil-A menu is a relatively new item,
the restaurant's mac 'n cheese. If you've ever made mac 'n cheese from a box at home,
you know it's not exactly filled with fresh ingredients. So if you were hoping Chick-fil-A's
dedication to high-quality ingredients would ensure their mac 'n cheese would be free of
processed cheese, it's time to set those hopes aside — after macaroni, processed cheese
is the second listed ingredient on the company's website.
Granted, it's still probably better than the made-from-a-box option you buy at a grocery
store — Chick-fil-a does include other cheeses, like cheddar, bellavitano ,
Romano, and grated Parmesan. And to be fair, it's hard to get the creamy
consistency of a delicious mac 'n cheese without using a processed cheese. But if you're the
type who steers clear of "fake foods," you might want to make your mac 'n cheese at home.
During the "fat backlash" of the 1980s and 1990s, the saturated fat in real butter, as
well as the saturated fat in other solid fat products, like Crisco, received a drubbing
in the media — people were terrified of eating too much fat, especially saturated.
In response, companies started promoting margarine, which was solid at room temperature, like
butter, but had fewer saturated fats, because it was made by altering the chemical makeup
of oils so that the oils would be solid.
The world rejoiced. The total fat content was more-or-less the same, but with lower
saturated fats, margarine was considered "healthier." Unfortunately, it took several more decades
to prove that in the process of changing the chemical makeup of these oils, trans fats
were created, and trans fats are actually associated more closely with heart disease
than saturated fats are.
Unfortunately, some of Chick-fil-A's products, like their mac 'n cheese, include margarine
as an ingredient, which means they might include trans fats, which don’t have to be included
in nutritional information if they total less than 0.5 grams per serving. That’s a good
thing to know if you’re watching your trans fat intake.
If your kids have been falling all over themselves to order the chocolate milk at Chick-fil-A,
it might be because of a little-known secret for making a thicker, creamier drink — corn
starch. Corn starch is a thickening agent, so whenever you're looking to make a thick,
creamy soup, sauce, or drink, it's possible to add a little corn starch in the process
to achieve the desired result.
Considering that Chick-fil-A's chocolate milk uses one-percent milk – which is lower fat,
and therefore less thick than whole – by including corn starch in its list of ingredients,
your kids get to enjoy a creamier milk texture than what’s provided by fat alone. So maybe
the delicious texture and flavor are due to corn starch, but it's possible they're also
due to a few of the other ingredients in Chick-fil-A's chocolate milk, like natural vanilla, carrageenan
carrageenan, or even salt.
Restaurants like Chick-fil-A have to make affordable food that tastes great to keep
luring customers back to their doors and drive-thrus. And there are a few tried-and-true methods
for making food taste great — salt, fat, and sugar. None of which are particularly
good for you in large quantities.
And while Chick-fil-A does earn marks for sourcing their food more responsibly than
many restaurants, and for trying to offer healthier options, they're still a fast food
restaurant vying for market share in the world of McDonald's. This means many of their products
are loaded with sodium, fat, and sugar, which translates to an obscene number of calories,
sodium, and fats.
Take, for instance, the Chick-fil-A Cobb Salad. It's a salad, right? So it must be good for
you. Well... sorry, but maybe not. This salad has 540 calories, 29 grams of fat 8 of which
are saturated, 7 grams of sugar, and a whopping 1,700 grams of sodium. Considering the FDA
recommends limiting sodium to less than 2,300 grams of sodium a day, this "healthy salad"
practically wipes out your daily allowance.
And that's one of the salads. If your doctor has recommended you keep an eye on your fat,
sugar, calorie, or sodium intake, make sure you do a little research on the Chick-fil-A
nutrition web page before you place your order.
One area where Chick-fil-A shines in the fast food world is the high fiber content in many
of its menu options. An article on Harvard Health notes that most Americans eat between
10 and 15 grams of fiber per day, while recommendations for positive health benefits indicate that
adults should consume between 21 and 38 grams of fiber per day, depending on age and sex.
That's a pretty big discrepancy between recommendations and actual intake, so when restaurants make
a concerted effort to offer foods with higher fiber content, that's a good thing.
Almost all of Chick-fil-A's food items include at least a gram of fiber, but many include
much more. Take, for instance, the two different grilled chicken sandwiches listed on the company
website, each of which provides four grams of fiber. Or, if you want an excuse for a
more tantalizing treat, the strawberry milkshake and chocolate milkshake each provide four
grams of fiber as well. Pretty impressive, right?
Well, these all take a backseat to the Grilled Cool Wrap, which has an almost unbelievable
13 grams of fiber. It might actually be the healthiest, most well-balanced menu item Chick-fil-A
offers. Pair it with a side salad or fruit cup and you can feel really good about eating
fast food for lunch.
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