Healthy Fast Food: Tips and Recipes

It's so tempting to choose fast food... and not having to wait just to be served ... It has long been the ideal option for young people who go out with friends and have a low budget and little desire for a more formal environment ... Fast food began with a selection of sandwiches loaded with sauces, greasy burgers, double cheese pizzas, giant servings of chips and soda. All nonsense at the health level. From the health sector was alerted to its risks and fast food was automatically associated with unhealthy food.

Healthy fast food alternatives and improvements

For some time now, among the offer of establishments with this type of food, more salads, more vegetable sandwiches, greater care for the raw material, greater possibility of choosing products without sauces to dress them to the taste and criteria of each. one, and that has improved these types of options. But nevertheless, they still do not offer enough variety of healthy products as so that it can be a usual option. Faced with these improvements in lifelong fast food restaurants, we now also have other possibilities to eat quickly that have nothing to do with this list.

Salad self-service

This has possibly been the first healthy fast food option to become popular and although this type of establishment has undergone modifications, it still stands. The offer is based on a great variety from , mostly raw, pasta, rice and boiled legumes, and different possibilities for seasoning. They also usually offer one or two varieties of vegetable cream and / or soup and some offer some other somewhat more elaborate dish. So in a jiffy we can choose a cream and fill our plate with a lentil salad with tomatoes, green beans, brown rice, bean sprouts and pumpkin seeds, and let's eat!

Healthy prepared food establishments

Is about establishments in which everything is already done. They are like a supermarket but only food that can be consumed at the time and in the same place. They have a variety of dishes already prepared, mostly already distributed in individual and packaged servings, which you simply have to choose, go through the box, heat in microwave oven if necessary and to the table. In these types of establishments we usually find steamed vegetables, meat or fish prepared in a simple and healthy way and we also have the option of choosing fruit or yogurt for dessert. And all in a few minutes! It is done!

The thousand options in oriental food

In many places in Asia it is common to sell fast food on the street, as it is often eaten anytime and anywhere. This gives way to a multitude of preparations that are made very quickly and are also usually easy to consume. We can opt for preparations such as Vegetable wok or vegetable and noodle wok, They are made in a few minutes in establishments where everything is already clean and chopped, ready to mix, cook and put in a box ready to eat. Another option is the Ramen type soups, with soba noodles, udon, etc. Although the broths for these preparations require a long preparation, these establishments have everything ready to offer a delicious bowl of soup in just a few minutes. They are complete soups that include noodles, vegetables and meat and / or egg and / or fish or seafood, so they are a perfect unique dish. Finally, we can also choose healthy snack options by opting for sushi or the typical dim sum "sachets", such as baozi or dumplings.

Fresh pasta at the moment

Another type of food that easily leads to quick preparations is Italian food. Despite the fact that many sauces take a long time to prepare and the preparation of fresh pasta the same (if it is handmade, let alone), there are establishments where we can find all of this already done. You just need to boil and mix (remember that Italian pasta is eaten "al dente"). These types of places usually offer some choice of salad and / or vegetable cream, so you can choose between a couple or three of starters and then the variety of pasta and sauce that we want. In some places they also have a couple of dessert options to finish the meal.

Other multicultural food options

Returning to the outdoor kitchen, we find a diversity of fast food places, or at least agile, that can offer very good options. One of them is the, some bowls filled with vegetables and fish typical of the hawaiian cuisine which are usually also served with a rice base. Another possibility closer to sandwiches comes from the Middle East with pita breads, but in several establishments there is the option of filling them with a variety of vegetables, with hummus, falafel, etc. A whole world of flavors. And another option here and there is to eat an empanada. We know the Galician empanada and at the same time it is a very common preparation in Argentina and Chile. The fillings are very varied and are a good alternative depending on what type of sandwiches and pizzas. And we can also eat quickly based on skewers or montaditos, but it is true that we must have expertise when choosing if we do not want very fatty and / or unhealthy options.

• From the concept of fast food associated with unhealthy food from the beginning, to the current one, which has adopted other more “healthy” variants, it has rained a lot.
• Now we can find healthy fast food in establishments that offer self-service salads, oriental food, fresh pasta at the moment ...
• Options that also allow us to discover flavors and forms of preparation from other countries that, otherwise, we would not even know (poké, udon, empanadas, pitas ...)

Mercè Gonzalo

Bachelor of Food Science and Technology Diploma in Human Nutrition and Dietetics