Eating Out On Duty Series: Arby's

Arby's is another favorite often seen in substations. Arby's, like Subway, is one of those stealthy 'incognito' fast food restaurants where the food is real, but still you can still make very unhealthy choices at Arby's. 






We will use the same analysis as we did in the Runza review. We want to reduce calories, fat and sodium, keep a close eye on carbs and increase our protein consumption. If you are going to eat at Arby's chances are you are their for their roast beef. Good news is the Roast Beef Classic is one of the best options on the menu. Right now Arby's is offering a roast beef sandwich that has a King's Hawaiian bread as it's bun. If you don't like King's Hawaiian bread, you suck. But if you do then you know it makes a delicious sandwich. Unfortunately like all delicious menu items it is also one of the worst for you.  Not all roast beef sandwiches are created equal, let's compare it in the context of a meal.

King's Hawaiian Roast Beef: 550 calories, 21g fat, 1200mg sodium, 59g carbs, 31g protein.
Medium Curly Fries: 540 calories, 29g fat, 1200mg sodium, 62g carbs, 6g protein.
Medium Pepsi: 210 calories, 0g fat, 40mg sodium, 59g carbs, 0g protein
Meal total: 1300 calories, 50g fat,  2420mg sodium, 180g carbs, 37g protein

Roast Beef Classic: 350 calories, 12g fat, 950mg sodium, 39g carbs, 23g protein.
Jalapeno Bites: 280 calories, 16g fat, 600mg sodium, 31g carbs, 5g protein.
Medium Diet Pepsi: 0 calories, 0g fat, 25mg sodium, 0g carbs, 0g protein.
Meal Total:  630 calories, 28g fat, 1575mg sodium, 70g carbs, 28g protein.

What you'll be saving: 670 calories, 32g fat, 845mg sodium, 110g carbs, -9g protein.

Looking though Arby's nutritional information I was struck by a two things.  

1) Arby's food has a lot of sodium in it. Only a handful of items on the menu are below 1000mg, even the Chopped Chicken Salad comes in at 1000mg sodium. I tried to cut the sodium down more as 1575mg is a pretty high number but I had trouble finding items that weren't off the kid's menu.

2) Curly fries are surprisingly high in calories and fat.

 Large curly fries: 600 calories and 35g fat
 Medium curly fries: 540 calories and 29g fat
 Small curly fries: 400 calories and 22g fat 

 Because of this I substituted the jalapeno bites for the fries. Again typically a side salad would be the best option but people don't really want to eat salads all the time, and the whole point of this is to pick out foods that folks will eat.

Check out http://www.fastfoodnutrition.org/ for more info.