Restaurant Review: Chick-Fil-A

Last night, my husband and I had some errands to run, and our main stop was in the same parking lot as a Chick-Fil-A. Being that I had recently researched online - and didn't find anything on the main web site (that's changed now and ingredients are easy to find), but found an ingredients list elsewhere - and discovered that, while their breaded chicken had enriched flour in the breading (of course) and the wheat bun for the chargrilled sandwich also contained enriched flour, supposedly their chicken salad sandwich was on whole wheat bread.

Can it be true?

I ordered the chicken salad sandwich, then saw the little folded-up brochures containing nutrition information and ingredient lists, so I picked it up and read through it, only to discover that despite the appearance of whole wheat bread, their chicken salad sandwich was most certainly NOT on whole grain bread. It was a "multi-grain" bread, but unfortunately, these days, "multi-grain" means it might have two or three types of grains (or what I like to call "bird food" as it can sometimes have seeds or nuts, too) mixed into the enriched flour. It gives the illusion of being healthy, while it is not actually.

The damage already being done - that is to say, the order placed, the payment made and the food already arrived - I decided to just go ahead & eat my mistake. Unfortunately, the Chick-Fil-A chicken sandwich also contains a higher amount of high fructose corn syrup than I would like - it's in the mayonnaise and pickle relish in the salad, and it's in the bread itself. High fructose corn syrup, coupled with the enriched flour - both things that my body is not used to any more - really did a number on my poor stomach last night.

It honestly saddens me that Chick-Fil-A claims to have "nutritious choices" while most of their menu items are anything but. Not only is there no option for those of us wanting to avoid enriched flour - excepting the cost-prohibitive salads, who wants to pay so much for a salad when you can get a combo meal for about the same price? - but then you also have to deal with other additives to the salads. Croutons are easy to pick out, but the sunflower kernels they have include high fructose corn syrup.

Another down side to Chick-Fil-A's food is that most of their chicken contains another questionable ingredient: MSG. It's in the seasoning. (Ingredients in Chick-Fil-A seasoning: Salt, monosodium glutamate, sugar, spices, and paprika. Sounds like a winning combination?)

All in all, I'm afraid to say that I will just not be eating at Chick-Fil-A very much any more. If I do, perhaps I'll get a chargrilled sandwich, minus the bun, and put it on a side salad. Or something. It pains me that something so simple as "whole wheat bread" isn't even available on something that has the image of being whole wheat.