How to Eat Healthy at a Chain Restaurant

I remember a box of salt while working in a restaurant a few years ago. It wasn’t just any kind of salt and it didn’t have the little girl with the umbrella on it. It was a special restaurant-quality type of salt that was crystallized in a special way to make sure that it clung to the food. On the front of the box was a picture of a giant steak sitting on a white plate. The only other thing that was on the plate was a small garnish of some kind of green leaf and a solitary cherry tomato. I remember thinking to myself what a healthy meal this was: prime quality marbled beef with a lot of salt on top.

Chain restaurants had one goal in mind when they started out in the fifties; to offer foods that tasted good and could be picked up quickly before you headed out on the road again. It was an era of Route 66 and America’s fascination with the automobile. Health wasn’t a major concern back then. There was one difference however, from what’s going on today and that was at least the portions were smaller. Coke came in 6 ounce bottles instead of giant 45 ounce plastic cups with a picture from Star Wars on them. Hamburgers were usually the size of White Castles, and an order of fries was about the same as you would get in a kid’s meal today. This bigger is better philosophy is one of the reasons that we became the fattest nation on Earth today.