Is There Any Delicious Low-Carb Fast Food? Know More

You would have often wondered if you have any low-carb fast food options that do not mess with your diet. So, to answer it is a YES as many low-carb¹ fast food options are not only healthy low-carb options but are also delicious. As everyone tries to achieve a certain shape, we often check our carbohydrate intake to help our weight loss goals.

You need to know a lot of information about all the options available when you decide to have meals at a fast food restaurant as most of their meals are high-carb foods which would not be what you are looking for. Many people follow the keto diet, which suggests a low-carb or no-carb diet.

A keto diet focuses on consuming little to no carbohydrates and more proteins and fats. The keto diet is mostly used by people who wish to lose weight, but others have other medical conditions like cancer, acne, heart disease, epilepsy², or diabetes. The keto diet also has some side effects, so be careful when you practice it or consult a doctor before starting the keto diet³.

Now, we know what a keto diet is and its types: low-carb and carb diets. So, now let’s see the various low-carb fast food options available and the number of grams of carbs and protein we get after consuming them. Many fast food restaurants like Taco Bell, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, In-N-Out, Panera Bread, and Chick-fil-A.

Types of Carbs Fast Food

There are a lot of options available for fast food restaurants that have low-carb diet food. The outlets have made these changes to accommodate the changing fitness trends. These low-carb fast-food options can also be made at home if you wish to not eat in a restaurant. These low-carb fast food dishes help to keep in check the net carbs consumed in a day.

Low-carb fast food can be a satisfying meal, but you should be careful, too, as having more fast food will not be good for your health. So. you should be cautious as the fast food industry, even if they introduce healthy choices, still try to tempt the customers to try their other decisions, which may mess with your diet plans. The 7 different types of low-carb fast foods

1. Grilled Chicken Sandwich

The grilled chicken sandwich or grilled chicken club salad would be a low-carb meal option for either lunch or dinner. A grilled chicken sandwich is a better and healthier choice than a fried chicken as a low-carb fast food.

Many sandwich shops offer grilled chicken with a salad bowl as a low-carb diet. To make the grilled chicken even healthier, we can use green beans, sour cream, onion rings, romaine lettuce wrap, ranch dipping sauce, or blue cheese salad dressings.

The grilled chicken can also be eaten with Panera bread or chicken breast as a chicken salad with grilled chicken. The various fast food joints offer grilled chicken as a sandwich or club salad. The net carbs in a grilled chicken are about 1-2 grams. 

2. Buffalo Wings

Buffalo wings are a way of eating low-carb meals, and it is a low-carb option that is delicious low-carb meal as a chance to eat fast food. The buffalo wings are typically consumed in a bar, and the buffalo wing sauces are mostly hot, but there are also sweet sauces.

Buffalo wings are a low-carb fast food option as traditionally buffalo wings were only covered in a hot sauce and deep fried; the carb intake was around 1 – 3 grams of carbs with 25 grams of protein. To eat low-carb, you can have 3 pieces of buffalo wings, which are typically better than fried chicken tenders or a cheese dog.

While ordering buffalo wings, be sure to ask if the wings are deeply fried while coated with a batter or bread crumbs, as the buffalo wings deep-fried with bread crumbs are healthier than battered. You can have buffalo wings with grilled onions, carrots, or ranch dressing, but the sauce should be without honey mustard. The net carbs are about 3 grams without vegetables and with vegetables about 5 grams of carbs.

3. Lettuce Wrap

A lettuce wrap is a better choice than a burger with buns, and it is also a low-carb fast food option. Even though the cheese sandwich or burger is more mouth-watering and a cheat food, you should skip it and opt for a lettuce-wrapped burger.

The lettuce-wrapped burger can be a cheeseburger with 1 or 2 patties. With lettuce-wrapped burgers, you do not have to worry about messing up your diet for weight loss as they are loaded with proteins⁴, which helps maintain the diet. Also, lettuce acts as an added benefit for the burger. The lettuce wrap has meat like grilled chicken breast, beef, or bacon.

The net carbs we get from a lettuce wrap are about 2 – 3 grams of carbs and 1 gram of protein. The protein-packed burgers have net carbs of 11 grams of carbs and have 2 to 3 patties of meat. You can ask for roast beef, roast turkey, or grilled chicken. You can try the lettuce wrap with different sauces like mayonnaise or hot sauce to add flavor to the burger.

4. Burrito Bowl

A burrito bowl is a low-carb option of food that is also delicious among all the other low-carb fast food. A burrito bowl consists of rice, green beans, chicken tenders, guacamole, and salsa. You can add a charbroiled chicken salad with grilled chicken in the burrito and serve it in a bowl instead of a tortilla to make it gluten-free and have a low-carb diet.

A burrito bowl⁵ is one of the low-carb options that not help in weight loss but also helps to have a filling meal. The burrito bowl can be considered a keto salad bowl, and you can add various veggies to the bowl along with corn salsa. One serving of the burrito bowl gets 50 grams of protein, called a protein-packed food.

You can customize the taste of the burrito as you like it. You can have Ken’s ranch dressing or any of it, as it adds more flavor to the burrito. You can also have a burrito bowl with roast turkey farmhouse salad dressings for more protein. The net carbs in a burrito bowl are 52 grams of carbs.

5. Breakfast Sandwiches

If you ever crave a sandwich for breakfast but are trying to avoid bread, you can try the breakfast sandwiches without the buns or slices of bread. Breakfast sandwiches are a low-carb diet food that is more filling and healthier than a cheese sandwich or a Swiss sandwich with more carb intake and calories.

A sandwich from a sandwich shop has buns, but you can request them to give you a whole wheat bun or wrap, which is a healthier choice. You can also have a side salad dressing with the sandwich if you want it. If you like a cheese sandwich, try the hummus sauce, as it is healthier and more delicious.

A filling breakfast helps to lose weight, and nothing is better than a sandwich. The net carbs in a sandwich are around 15 to 25 grams of carbs and about 15 grams of protein. It is a keto fast food option that goes well with an egg and many veggies. You can make it as a chicken salad bowl and a basic sandwich for breakfast.

6. Eggs And Salads

Eggs are the one which is high in protein and have low carbs in them, and salads or pico de gallo are rich in various vitamins and minerals, so it considered a good choice for low-carb fast food. Many fast food restaurants serve egg combos and salads on their menus. These dishes are a part of low-carb options in a portion of fast food. The keto salad bowl is also a very good choice for the diet.

You can have the eggs and salads separately or toss both in one to get a more filling breakfast or lunch. The egg and salad are keto fast food available in many options. You can have a low-carb diet by having sous vide egg bites or a salad with green goddess dressing loaded with more veggies.

You can have eggs in many forms and a chicken salad, bacon salad, or blue cheese salad dressings to make a salad more delicious. The net carbs in sous vide egg bites are less than 15 grams of carbs and 19 grams of protein. Having an egg and salad will help to achieve the goal of losingweight.

7. Coffee And Tea

Beverages like coffee and tea can be considered a low-carb diet that helps lose weight and has other health benefits. Coffee and tea have low carbs as they are beverages with advantages and are keto fast food. The coffee and tea should be taken with half or no cream to not mess with the keto diet.

Caffeine is the main ingredient in coffee and tea, which helps to improve mood, metabolism⁶, athletic performance, and staying awake. Caffeine is present more in coffee than in tea, so you need to know your caffeine tolerance to not mess with your digestive system and cause other health problems.

The net carbs in plain black tea are zero, and in black tea with milk, around 30 grams. The net carbs in coffee alone are none, but with milk, the net carbs are about 6 grams. You can have your tea or coffee with heavy cream as it has little to no carbs and is also the unsweetened milk of choice.

Takeaway

We learned that many low-carb fast food options are available in many fast food restaurants like taco bell, burger king, Panera Bread, Chick-fil-A, and in n out. We also got to know the various fast food but healthier options like the grilled chicken sandwich, buffalo wings, lettuce wrap, burrito bowl, breakfast sandwich, egg and salads, and coffee & tea.

Fast food is not a healthy meal choice, but you can have it once in a while. There are also other options that one can have, but the mentioned ones are the most prominent among them and have low carbs compared to the other fast food options. The restaurants may have other high-carb foods, but you must try and ask only for low-carb fast food.

So, even if you need to follow a diet and keep in shape, you need not only to stick to boring meals but also to have some fast food that would not mess with your diet and help you enjoy a meal. But you need to take care of yourself in achieving these goals, as you may lose direction and give in to your cravings.

FAQs:

1. Bolla, Andrea Mario, et al. “Low-carb and ketogenic diets in type 1 and type 2 diabetes.” Nutrients 11.5 (2019): 962. ↩︎
2. Thijs, Roland D., et al. “Epilepsy in adults.” The Lancet 393.10172 (2019): 689-701. ↩︎
3. DIET, KETOGENIC. “The ketogenic diet revisited: back to the future.” Epilepsia 38.7 (1997): 743-749. ↩︎
4. Hepler, John R., and Alfred G. Gilman. “G proteins.” Trends in biochemical sciences 17.10 (1992): 383-387. ↩︎
5. Spencer, Molly, et al. “Student consumer acceptance of plant-forward burrito bowls in which two-thirds of the meat has been replaced with legumes and vegetables: The Flexitarian Flip™ in university dining venues.” Appetite 131 (2018): 14-27. ↩︎
6. Fell, David, and Athel Cornish-Bowden. Understanding the control of metabolism. Vol. 2. London: Portland press, 1997. ↩︎

Last Updated on July 26, 2024 by Sathi Chakraborty, MSc Biology