Theresa Albert is a nutritionist, best-selling cookbook author, and Food Network personality, and we're thrilled to have her with us for the next few weeks to provide her unique brand of cooking and nutritional knowledge. Let’s face it, fast food and drive-thrus are here to stay. They are convenient, relatively inexpensive and, well, fast.  Avoiding them altogether isn’t always possible. It is a worthwhile effort to ask for the nutrition facts or go on to the websites of some of your favourites to assess your choices.  Make your decisions in advance armed with this knowledge. For instance, I found no reasonable meal at any of the common spots that would allow me to control my sodium intake. If I am having one of these meals, I simply know that I must compensate by having very low salt meals the rest of the day. Here is a list of Do’s and Don’ts to guide you:

Do:	Do Not
Choose the salad as often as possible	Use all the dressing in the packet (1 tsp only!)
Choose the grilled chicken for protein	Choose battered or fried chicken
Eat the croutons, corn chips or crispy fried noodles
Find other vegetables or fruits for sides	Count fries as a “vegetable”
Have grilled (not fried) chicken on a bun
Choose whole grain buns if available
Drink water, black tea/coffee or milk	Drink soda or milk shakes
Compensate with more activity/lighter meal	Default to fast food too often

Following this simple process can save hundreds of calories and fat that really do add up over a lifetime.  You don’t always have to have the undressed salad and watch others eat their burgers and fries but the more often that you do, you will be the better for it. When I went through each and every major fast food website to discover the most nutrient dense but low cal options I could, I was pleased at how these outlets are coming along. Most now have salads and, if you use the dressing sparingly you could do quite well.  Salads, though are not great on the go eating (although one could argue, as I often do, that we really ought to make time for a meal and cut out all this on the go-ness anyway) so it is important to make a mindful hand held choice. I could find the odd veggie burger that hit the right spot without landing on my hips (or lap while I am driving) but most of the beef burgers were way over on fat levels. The best choices I could make were most often some kind of wrap (a few even offer whole grain!) with grilled chicken.  If I asked for the wrap loaded up with extra tomatoes and lettuce, this choice felt like the satisfying meal that was looking for but without the guilt. So this is the way I solve my drive through dilemma most often.