Sweetgreen Wants To Make America Healthy Again

Sweetgreen's new Healthy 2.0 menu has left behind bacon and Sriracha and added Portobello mushrooms and steelhead trout to its everyday offerings. The fast-casual salad chain has gone "less sweet and more green," reducing 70 percent of the sugars in its beverages and instead using "a touch of agave or honey to add sweetness."

In a release, the company says, "We wanted to make our menu more nutritious and delicious, but it was important to keep it simple." Avocabbo has been replaced with OMG Omega, and Wild Child with Hello Portobello.

Head Chef Michael Stebner talks about what "farm to table eating" means to him, and how he wants to incorporate this idea of "starting with the best and then leaving it alone" to Sweetgreen's menu. Stebner says, "This kind of food is inherently healthful and nutritious, and your good health is an output of eating natural, simple food like that."

He closes, "We're going to change the way people in this country eat. We're going to change the way restaurants in this country cook. Because of the access and footprint we have, we're on the biggest soapbox there is. That's why I came to work for Sweetgreen, that's why I'm here. Because I want to stop cooking for myself and start cooking for the world. Because it's time to make America healthy again."

See how Sweetgreen fared on our roundup of America's best salad chains.