The Dish: Deli chicken dinner has more calories, salt than Big Mac and fries
July 2, 2010
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Megan Ogilvie
HEALTH REPORTER
You’ve worked late and you’re hungry. You opted for dinner at the drive-through last week and know you should avoid another dose of fast-food fare. So you swing into your neighbourhood grocery store to pick up a quick meal from the deli counter.
The quarter-chicken dinner with potatoes and vegetables seems like a healthy choice. After all, the meat is rotisserie roasted, not fried, you’ve chosen white meat versus dark, and the dinner is anchored with potatoes and vegetables, just like Sunday night dinner at mom’s.
But this comforting cuisine is hardly healthy.
With 905 calories, 46 grams of fat and 2,498 mg of sodium, the quarter-chicken dinner has more calories, about the same amount of fat and twice the sodium as a Big Mac and medium order of fries.
“You know, the Big Mac and fries combo isn’t a healthy meal,” says registered dietitian Shannon Crocker.
“But people would assume grabbing the chicken dinner, a quick option for people at the end of the day, is a healthy choice. And it’s so not!”
The dish is high in calories, too many for a single sitting. The 46 grams of fat is double the amount you should eat in one meal.
And, says Crocker, the 2,498 mg of sodium is 160 per cent more than the recommended daily allotment.
“That’s like taking a level teaspoon of salt and dumping it over your food. Or like giving the meal 60 shakes of the salt shaker.”
It is possible to redeem the quarter-chicken dinner if you are a fan of the grocery store rotisserie.
Remove the skin — usually flabby by the time you get it home, anyway — to help reduce the fat. Pass on the potato wedges, which, despite their innocuous name, are indeed cooked like French fries — to cut out even more. Also skip the stir-fried vegetables, likely awash in oil, to make the fat and calorie count even better.
The best option is to pair the quarter (and now skinless) chicken with a fresh green salad and a whole wheat roll.
Here’s my two cents: If I’m going to eat a 900-calorie, high-fat, high-sodium dinner, it had better be severely awesome. Like, say, a luscious, creamy, bacon-filled spaghetti carbonara. In my experience, salty rotisserie chicken, bland potatoes and limp, tired vegetables aren’t worth wasting my calories.
Find out how other popular take-out meals stack up:
Roasted vegetable Bagellini
Ikea cinnamon bun
Cora's breakfast
Meat-lovers' pizza
Vendor hot dog
Lemon Tart
Veggie Samosas
Tim Hortons Hot Breakfast Sausage Sandwich
Spicy Salmon Sushi Roll
Pad Thai
Veal Parmigiano
Peameal Bacon Breakfast Sandwich
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