Eat more Chicken?

A strip of chicken meat that is dipped in tasty breading and then fried, deeply in batter.

The aroma of them when they are blanketed in warm, melted slice of thick American cheese and sandwiched between two toasty buttered pieces of white bread and served with a huge handful of hot, steamy curly fries.

That’s right. Lower’s chicken tender sandwich combo. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm.

Wait…. Ew?

They taste absolutely delicious. Like, really, really good. So, so good. Too good! But let’s take away the adjectives here:

Chicken meat dipped in breading deep fried with several slices of American cheese, butter and white toast. Served with a mountain of deep-fried starch? That sounds pretty unhealthy.

A similar chicken sandwich alone at burger king runs 750 calories and 45 grams of fat and in that includes 70mg of cholesterol and 1560mg of sodium.

I can’t lie, freshman year I used to eat at least three or four lower chicken tender sandwiches a week, but once I began looking at my diet I realized that this simply was not a healthy choice for my lifestyle. As a recreational gym-user and only medium-active student, I realized I needed vary my food choices when grabbing food on the go.

Then I discovered the wraps and salad line at lower. Though it’s changed a bit over my years at Lafayette, this section of lower has provided me with fresh veggies, crisp salads and uncomfortably delicious wraps filled with my choice of meat, cheese, veggies and accessories… all healthier choices than my former chicken tender sandwich. Sure, the line can be a little long and sometimes the toaster is down, but in the end I always feel better about my choice of a veggie wrap or ceasar salad three or four times a week than the calorie-killer sandwich. It’s these minor conscious decisions that I’ve made about my meal choices that give me the confidence to feel healthy and powerful and get through the stresses of college life.