As chicken continues its takeover of fast food, a spicy chicken sandwich has become a staple of menus nationwide, offering several choices when looking for a healthier option. Popeye’s spicy chicken sandwich got too much hype when it was released, kicking off the trend. However, if you want an alternative, Chick-fil-A and Wendy’s have long pedigrees of their own. Wendy’s popularized the spicy chicken sandwich among major fast food chains, debuting its version back in 1995, and Chick-fil-A’s sandwich is just a spiced-up version of the same tried-and-true formula that has kept the operation growing since 1967. If choosing between the two, you may as well go on taste since there is not a clear choice regarding which is healthier.
Most of the nutritional info for both chains’ spicy chicken sandwiches falls in roughly the same range, so the healthiest choice for you is going to come down to what specific nutrients you care about. On the fat front, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) recommends limiting your saturated and trans fats, making Chick-fil-A slightly better. One spicy chicken sandwich there contains 4 grams of saturated fat, compared to the 4.5 grams at Wendy’s. However, neither level is too high. Considering the standard nutritional recommendation to stay under 20 grams per day, each one is only around 20% of your daily value — not bad for one meal. While trans fats have no healthy level of consumption, neither sandwich has them.
Read more: McDonald’s Vs Wendy’s: Which Chain Has The Better Breakfast?
Wendy’s spicy chicken sandwich has a bit more fat, while Chick-fil-A contains more sodium
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Per the FDA, the other nutrients you should be limiting in your meals are sugar and sodium. Regarding sugar, the two chains are quite comparable. Wendy’s spicy chicken sandwich has 7 grams of sugar, while Chick-fil-A’s boasts only 6 grams. Sodium is also really close, but here, Wendy’s is a bit better. The Chick-fil-A sandwich contains 1,730 milligrams of sodium — that’s 75% of the entire daily recommended sodium serving in a single sandwich. Wendy’s isn’t great here either, containing 1,500 milligrams per spicy chicken sandwich. Still, that’s slightly more reasonable.
If you’re less concerned about limiting fat and sodium and more interested in maxing out the good stuff, Wendy’s is narrowly the better choice. If you’re looking for ways to add a protein boost to your favorite meals, then don’t worry either way, because both have exactly 28 grams. When it comes to fiber, neither does much for you, though Wendy’s offers more at 3 grams compared to Chick-fil-A’s single gram. Those white bread fast food buns are simply not the place you go for fiber.
On a case-by-case basis, Wendy’s does have a little bit of an edge, especially since the sodium levels in Chick-fil-A’s spicy chicken sandwich are the one genuine place where one is clearly worse. But this is a real case where the difference isn’t so huge that you should change what you’re eating if you prefer one fast food spicy chicken sandwich over another. In both cases, these sandwiches can fit into a balanced diet totally fine, so long as you aren’t pounding one every day.
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Read the original article on Tasting Table.
