9 Of The Unhealthiest Items You Can Order At Arby's
Determining what items are healthy on a fast food menu can be difficult. Customers that make assumptions — like thinking that all fast food wraps are healthy — are often led astray. If you opt for certain menu items without taking a closer look, you're going to get burned.
Arby's customers can make these types of mistakes. This chain bucks many fast food trends by featuring a menu that, by and large, focuses on roast beef. Because its menu looks different, you might be tempted to think that Arby's is healthier than its competitors. But this isn't necessarily the case.
Like other major fast food chains, Arby's has several menu items that will put you well over your recommended daily intake limits for sodium, sugar, calories, and more. Since consuming too much of these things can be dangerous to your health, customers should be careful. From massive sandwiches to decadent desserts, certain Arby's dishes should be avoided. These are the nine unhealthiest menu items you can order at Arby's.
1. Classic French Dip & Swiss
This menu item shocked us a bit. On the surface, Arby's Classic French Dip & Swiss is an unassuming entrée. Clocking in at 540 calories, this sandwich doesn't seem that unhealthy. However, it contains a surprising amount of salt.
Like a lot of fast food dishes, Arby's French dip is jam-packed with sodium. According to the Food and Drug Administration, a person's sodium intake should not exceed 2,300 milligrams per day. Arby's Classic French Dip & Swiss exceeds this, as it contains a whopping 2,550 milligrams of sodium.
As for where this salt comes from, let's consider the ingredients in Arby's Classic French Dip. For one, its primary sandwich components are roast beef, Swiss cheese, and bread. We don't think these three foods are the reason why it's so salty. We instead think the au jus — the side of sauce that comes with Arby's French dip — is responsible. Au jus is a gravy-like mixture made from ingredients like meat drippings and Worcestershire sauce, both of which contain a good amount of sodium. Since this sandwich wouldn't be complete with the au jus, we won't tell you to skip the dip. But we recommend limiting your dunking if you are trying to avoid salty foods.
2. Half Pound Beef 'N Cheddar
At every Arby's, a menu item called the Half Pound Beef 'N Cheddar is available for ordering. With 740 calories in the half-pound size, we don't recommend that you do. The Half Pound Beef 'N Cheddar is one of the most unhealthy items sold by this fast food chain, for a few reasons. As previously stated, the overall calorie count is pretty high. This isn't the best. Consuming too many calories can be bad for your health and cause negative effects such as weight gain.
But there is even more reason to worry about this sandwich's nutritional content. For starters, its sodium levels are off the charts. With 2,530 milligrams, the Half Pound Beef 'N Cheddar exceeds the FDA's recommended daily sodium intake limit.
Additionally, this sandwich contains 130 milligrams of cholesterol. According to the University of San Francisco, a person should not consume more than 200 to 300 milligrams of cholesterol per day. While the Half Pound Beef 'N Cheddar does not exceed this, it contains more cholesterol than many other Arby's menu items. This means that, by comparison, it is less healthy in this department. For these reasons, we do not recommend ordering this sandwich in the half-pound size.
3. Loaded Chicken Bacon Ranch Mac 'N Cheese
As you can probably tell from the name alone, Arby's Loaded Chicken Bacon Ranch Mac 'N Cheese is not healthy. As its name implies, this menu item is a combination of macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets, bacon, and ranch dressing. If this sounds indulgent to you, you would be correct. It is certainly one of the most unhealthy items on Arby's menu.
The fat content of this macaroni and cheese dish is not the best. Approximately half of its calories come from fat. According to Cleveland Clinic, calories from fat should only comprise 25% to 35% of the total calories you consume daily. Since Arby's Loaded Chicken Bacon Ranch Mac 'N Cheese gets half of its calories from fat, eating it will not help you land within this recommended range. Additionally, its cholesterol and sodium levels are high. This menu item contains 100 milligrams of cholesterol and 2,000 milligrams of sodium.
4. Steakhouse Garlic Ribeye Sandwich
If you're tired of hearing about sodium-heavy items on Arby's menu, you'll be pleased to learn about the chain's Steakhouse Garlic Ribeye Sandwich. It contains around 1,000 milligrams of salt, which is not that bad. This is about half as much salt as the chain's other unhealthy menu items. However, this ribeye sandwich is high in fat and cholesterol.
Arby's Steakhouse Garlic Ribeye Sandwich is made using ingredients like Swiss cheese, onions, garlic aioli, and slices of ribeye steak. Since cheese and meat are often mentioned as high-fat and high-cholesterol foods to avoid, according to WebMD, this menu item's poor nutritional content isn't that surprising. It contains 100 milligrams of cholesterol and 38 grams of fat per serving. Additionally, around half of this sandwich's calories come from fat. If you are watching your weight or trying to maintain your heart health, we recommend steering clear of this Arby's menu item.
5. Mozzarella Sticks
The fact that this menu item is one of Arby's least healthy shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Any food consisting of breaded and fried cheese was never going to be that nutritious. But even with this in mind, Arby's mozzarella sticks still managed to shock us. Their poor nutritional content was on par with the chain's meaty sandwiches and chocolate-laced desserts. This is a shame, as Arby's mozzarella sticks are extremely tasty.
All orders of Arby's mozzarella sticks come with a side of marinara dipping sauce. The entire menu item can be ordered in two sizes: four pieces or six pieces. The six-piece size is high in sodium, with over 2,100 milligrams of salt in each serving. This takes up nearly all of one's daily recommended sodium intake. Additionally, the six-piece size contains 38 grams of fat. If you're consuming around 2,000 calories per day, this is going to eat up a major chunk of your daily allotted fat intake, per Mayo Clinic News Network. We recommend skipping this indulgent side.
6. Corned Beef Reuben
Arby's Corned Beef Reuben is another one of the most unhealthy items offered by this fast food chain. Even if you love a good Reuben sandwich, we don't recommend consuming this particular one.
This item is made from a combination of Swiss cheese, corned beef, Thousand Island dressing, marble rye bread, and sauerkraut. It's not particularly high in calories. Arby's Corned Beef Reuben contains around 700 per serving. According to Cleveland Clinic, most adults should be consuming between 1,600 to 3,000 calories per day. We consider this item unhealthy for another reason, specifically, its high concentration of salt. This sandwich has around 2,400 milligrams of sodium in it. This exceeds the daily limit recommended by the FDA.
Even reading about this salty sandwich is making us thirsty. We recommend steering clear of Arby's Corned Beef Reuben when patronizing the fast food chain. If you can't stay away, maybe consider splitting it with another person.
7. Crispy Chicken Club Wrap
Wraps can seem healthy. These foods are often made with thinner-looking carbohydrates such as tortillas, and appear to contain more vegetables than your typical sandwich. On the surface, this can make them look like a more nutritious option. However, wraps can still contain high amounts of fat and calories, depending on what exactly goes into them. Unfortunately, this is the case at Arby's.
The fast food chain's Crispy Chicken Club Wrap is one of the least healthy menu items available. It is made of lettuce, red onion, tomato, bacon, cheddar cheese, honey mustard, and chicken nuggets. All of this gets folded into a flatbread-like carbohydrate.
Even though this menu item is made with fresh produce, it contains around 900 calories per serving. According to Cleveland Clinic, this is around half of some people's daily recommended calorie intake. Plus, this wrap contains 49 grams of fat. This means it has more grams of fat per serving than a six-piece order of Arby's mozzarella sticks. You might be better off attempting some quick and easy wrap recipes, rather than ordering this unhealthy Arby's menu item.
8. Crispy Buffalo Chicken Wrap
Arby's Crispy Buffalo Chicken Wrap is another item you shouldn't get fooled into thinking is healthy. Just because this item is a wrap — and it's made with chicken rather than a seemingly less-healthy protein like bacon — eating it is not necessarily going to benefit you nutritionally. This is because this buffalo chicken wrap is high in calories and cholesterol.
This menu item consists of chicken nuggets, lettuce, tomato, and red onion. It is given a flavor boost from two sauces: parmesan peppercorn ranch and buffalo sauce. All of the aforementioned ingredients are neatly bound together using a tortilla-like wrap.
We consider it one of Arby's unhealthiest menu items due to its high amount of calories. You will consume approximately 800 calories if you finish the whole thing. We don't think this is the best news since that's about half the calories that some people should eat in a day (via Cleveland Clinic). When combined with all of your other daily meals, this could cause you to exceed your daily calorie limit. This is generally not recommended, since eating too many calories can cause health problems.
9. Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cookie
As a dessert, Arby's Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cookie is something that customers are probably going to get at the end of their meal. This means they might be eating it in addition to other unhealthy fast food menu items. However, even when not combined with other unhealthy Arby's foods, this dessert is not very good for you.
The cookie is made from a dough mixed with peanut butter and laced with pieces of Reese's peanut butter cups. In just one cookie, you'll be consuming around 500 calories. Additionally, you'll be eating around 36 grams of sugar. According to the American Heart Association, this exceeds the recommended daily sugar intake for women. It meets the recommended daily sugar intake for men. We recommend seeing clear of this sugar-filled cookie. Eating too much sugar is associated with numerous negative health effects, such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.