Organic Healthy Fast Food Drive-Thrus

While researching the stats on fast food drive- thrus, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that there are a few successful healthy fast food drive-thru restaurants in the USA.  Wow!  I would have thought there was more of an interest as an owner or patron for this type of establishment.

1.    Evos-Feel Great Fast Food http://www.evos.com/

2.   Better Burger in New York City  http://www.betterburgernyc.com/mission.htm

3.   Burgerville-Oregon  http://www.burgerville.com/about-us/

4.   Nature Express-Berkeley    http://natures-express.com/

5.   Evolution-San Diego   http://www.evolutionfastfood.com/about-evolution

6.   Veggie Grill-Las Angeles  http://www.veggiegrill.com/

7.   Oreans Health Express- http://www.oreanshealthexpress.com/orean.asp

I also learned that it is very difficult to open a fast food restaurant, especially with a drive thru, because most cities and communities feel there are too many fast food places and do not want to add more locations.  The only way that these select healthy few have survived is by taking over defunct drive thrus.   

“The idea of healthy drive-thru chains isn’t ready for the masses.  All that traffic on the road, all those mainstream Americans who are eating their Big Macs, they don't want to eat at Veggie Grill," reflects T. K. Pillan, co-founder and co-CEO of the chain of five vegetarian restaurants located in (you'll never guess!) California. "Hopefully in 10 or 15 years they will be. But not yet."

My goal is to prove them wrong and develop a successful healthy fast food business model in the next few years that will surpass any other currently established non healthy fast food joint.  I’m sure if I am searching for convenient, affordable, healthy fast food, that many other health conscious patrons are doing the same thing.

It is rather astounding that over 25% of the entire American population eat fast food EVERY DAY!  It is estimated that in 2011, $110 billion (with a B!)  was spent on unhealthy obesity-inducing fast food in the USA. 

I have included a very simple and important guideline to eating correctly:

Cow Crap and Pink Slime-Yummy!

I believe it was the movie Fast Food Nation that made such an impact on me regarding ground beef which is why I have not eaten the product in over 5 years and may never eat again.  The movie’s main premise was to inform the public that there is cow crap in ground beef and the fast food companies know it and accept this fact and serve it to their customers every day.  The movie also showed how the cows are slaughtered and how disgusting and dirty the plants are that handle the bulk ground beef that is packaged and sent to major fast food chains.    

Apparently, ground beef has major issues with salmonella, ecolli and other assorted bacteria.  There are many recent recalls found on the USDA website listing ground beef as one of the main culprits. http://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/enteritidis-07-12/index.html.  

Do you know what you are putting into your body when you go to McDonalds, Burger King or In and Out to have a big juicy burger?  Well, it was only until recently when the fast food companies were selling you a big juicy burger filled with pink slime!   Lycogala epidendrum, commonly known as wolf's milk, groening's slime, or pink slime is a species of plasmodial slime mould , according to Wikipedia.   MMMmmm…yummy!    Do you trust your local fast food burger joint now?

Pink slime is the mechanically processed beef product known to the processed meat industry as LFTB or lean finely textured beef.  They take all the beef trimmings that would normally be used only for dog food and treat it with ammonia to kill the bacteria which turns into cow slur or pink slime which is added to ground beef in order to bulk it up and make it more affordable.  There is a very good chance that you have eaten this product already and our children have eaten it at school.

This is a food that I can do without in my life. After all, there are many other risks that we have no control over that affect our health. Why would we knowingly choose to ingest a product with so many negative side effects?