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Food Court Picks and Skips: What to Eat and What to Avoid at the Mall
If you want to keep both your wallet and your waistline happy this holiday season, don’t shop on an empty stomach. Researchers from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota analyzed the purchases of 81 department store shoppers as they left the store and found that those who were hungry bought more and spent about 64 percent more than those who weren’t famished.
The best advice is to hit the mall fully fortified, but marathon gift buying works up an appetite—and the wafting scent of cinnamon rolls or chocolate chips cookies can lead you by the nose right to the food court. To help you make smart choices, Consumer Reports’ dietitians scoured the menus at 10 popular mall food court chains and found some better alternatives to 20 not-so-healthy dishes.
Au Bon Pain
Small swaps at this food court eatery can make a big dietary difference. At Au Bon Pain, a simple change in salad dressing on the Chicken Caesar Asiago Salad results in a savings of 180 calories and 21 grams of fat. Leaving off the Cheddar cheese on the plain bagel sandwich saves 60 calories and 5 grams of fat. But skip the cheese and choose the smaller Skinny Bagel, and you save about half the calories and 5 grams of fat.
Auntie Anne’s
Pretzels have a reputation for being a low-fat snack, but not at Auntie Anne’s, where they’re slathered in butter. Plus, the savory options are often rolled in salt. Fortunately, the chain gives you the option of ordering many of the pretzels sans butter and salt, which cuts calories and sodium. If you must have a dip, your best option is the marinara. The other savory dips and the sweet glaze and caramel dips from this food court favorite pack in too many calories and too much fat, sugars, or sodium.
Cinnabon
Cinnabon certainly isn’t the healthiest place you could visit at the food court, but if you can’t resist, it’s good to know that there are some better choices. Be sure to say no thanks to the frosting cup that come with the Cinnasticks and Cinnasweeties, though—it adds 210 calories, 13 g fat, 6 g saturated fat, 21 g sugars, and 120 mg of sodium.
Five Guys
Portion control is the secret to having the burger you crave without going overboard. The “little” options are still a satisfying 6 to 7 ounces, compared to 11 ounces for the regular size. Just forgo the fries—a order here will set you back 953 calories, 41 g fat, and 962 mg sodium.
Panda Express
You probably wouldn’t expect a beef dish to have the equivalent of 6 teaspoons of sugars (24 grams). Some of the sugars in the Bejing Beef at this food court Asian restaurant come from the onions and red peppers, but a fair amount is found in the “sweet-tangy” sauce everything is tossed in. The Veggie Spring Roll is actually not such a bad option, but we included it here to show you that the vegetarian choice isn’t always the better nutritional choice.
Sbarro
Our first skip choice here is a bit misleading because a cheese slice is the second lowest calorie and fat pizza slice at Sbarro. But the Skinny Slice is the best pizza option. Strombolis are among the worst choices here; the meat ones are upwards of 1,000 calories and even the spinach one is 900 calories. The Tomato, Broccoli, and Spinach is the best of the bunch. Split one with a friend or go for a Broccoli, Tomato, and Spinach Slice—it’s a little better overall.
Starbucks
Both these sandwiches sound as if they’d fall into the lighter fare category, which just goes to show you that you can’t always choose by the name. In fact, the Chicken Artichoke sandwich has as many calories as Starbucks’ BBQ Beef Brisket on Sourdough—and more fat. As with most fast food fare, both sandwiches are too high in sodium. You shouldn’t get more than 2,300 milligrams a day. The Santa Fe supplies 37 percent of that, but the Chicken Artichoke is worse, providing nearly half your daily maximum.
The Caffe Mocha is made with 2 percent milk and comes topped with sweetened whipped cream. Skip the whip and the calories drop to 290, the fat to 8 grams, and the saturated fat to 5 grams. The Skinny is made with nonfat milk, sugar-free syrup, and no whip. These nutritional values are for the 16-ounce Grande; order a Short (8 ounces) and you’ll slash the numbers in half. Tempted by one of the holiday coffee offerings? Be aware that they can be calorie and sugar bombs, not just at Starbucks, but at other coffee chains, too.
Subway
Depending on what else is piled on, a turkey sandwich can be rather high in calories and fat, as this Turkey Italiano shows. Roast beef is actually one of the leanest cold cut options. Adding Cheddar cheese increases the calories by 60 and the sodium by 110 milligrams. With either turkey or roast beef, though, the simpilier the sandwich, the healthier. Skip condiments if you can—they add lots of sodium and sometimes calories. For example, mustard is practically calorie-free, but it contributes 120 milligrams of sodium to the roast beef sandwich. Add extra veggies for flavor and moisture instead.
Taco Bell
The Fresco Soft Taco’s are on the small side, but as you can see even if you eat two, you still making a healthier move by choosing the tacos over the taco salad. And the sodium count of the Grilled Stuffed Burrito—just 100 milligrams shy of your maximum daily allotment—is a good example of why it’s best to stay away from foods with XXL in their name. We found a hearty alternative that has less sodium along with far fewer calories and much less fat, saturated fat, and sodium.
TCBY
Sorbet Fizz sounds so light, doesn’t it? When you look at the numbers you see it’s anything but. The drink is made with sorbet and Sprite. Nutritional information depends on the flavor of sorbet; what we used here is the best possible scenario. The counts can rise far higher—up to 610 calories and a whopping 111 grams of sugars. That’s 28 teaspoons. Plain sorbet is a far better pick, or if you want something creamy frozen yogurt is OK—just watch what you top it with.
Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers on this website. Copyright © 2006-2015 Consumers Union of U.S.
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