12 Of The Unhealthiest Food Items You Can Order At Wawa
When it comes to gas station food brand loyalty, you won't find more dedicated fans than Wawa's. The regional convenience store franchise has locations in the eastern United States, in places such as Philadelphia and Florida. The chain is known for its made-to-order hot and cold hoagies, as well as a variety of tasty grab-and-go items that are available during breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Additionally, while we are talking about food today, we would not neglect to mention Wawa iced coffee.
While there are healthy options throughout the Wawa menu, there are quite a few extremely unhealthy options sold at the chain. High fat and sodium levels are common, and this is demonstrated in these extreme cases. We looked at the nutritional information of Wawa's items to assess fat, sodium, and calorie levels, and compared them for different products.
Even though many Wawa items share the same unhealthy ingredients, we tried to pick the most unhealthy versions of one particular item type in each category. Here are the most unhealthy items we found on the Wawa food menu.
Read more: The Ultimate American Fast Food Restaurants Ranked
Sausage With Scrambled Eggs Hoagie
If you want a healthy breakfast at Wawa, avoid getting the Classic-sized hoagies. For a smaller serving, consider ordering these sandwiches in the Shorti size. If you go with the Classic size, just one of these 10-inch sandwiches can easily put you close to the average daily limit recommended by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of 2,000 calories. Of the numerous options in the breakfast hoagie category, the Sausage with Scrambled Eggs Hoagie is one of the worst for you.
At 1,520 calories, this single item contains more than nearly three-fourths of the daily recommended caloric intake. On top of that, it contains 101 grams of fat, 35 grams of saturated fat, and 3,050 milligrams of sodium. If you add cheese to the equation, the Sausage with Scrambled Egg Hoagie has more fat than most of the other Wawa menu items.
Eating foods with such high levels of fat, especially saturated fat, can severely impact heart health and raise cholesterol levels, according to the American Heart Association. According to Healthline, the average fat consumption on a high-fat diet should be somewhere between 111 to 167 grams per day, and that's assuming you are eating healthier fats than what is in this sandwich.
Applewood Smoked Bacon Ciabatta
The Applewood Smoked Bacon Ciabatta is another unhealthy breakfast option. You can opt not to get cheese, but since it is on the item by default the nutritional value of the sandwich with cheese is the following: 870 calories, 530 milligrams of cholesterol, and 2,250 milligrams of sodium. If you're watching your cholesterol and heart health, we recommend steering clear of this especially unhealthy version of a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich.
According to the University of California San Francisco, you should limit your cholesterol intake to no more than 300 milligrams a day. If you have risk factors for heart disease, that number is lowered to 200 milligrams. At nearly double that first number, calling this sandwich overkill would be correct.
You may have heard that not all cholesterol is bad for you, or that eating foods high in cholesterol doesn't necessarily make your levels go up. Both of these things are true, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but eating foods that contain both high levels of saturated fat and cholesterol can be unhealthy. In this instance, the Applewood Smoked Bacon Ciabatta contains 15 grams of saturated fats. Combined with its cholesterol levels, this item ends up in red flag territory.
Ham Club
There are many elements to this Wawa breakfast bagel sandwich. The Ham Club is far from the most unhealthy Wawa item, but it lands itself on this list for a couple of reasons. First, in contrast to the various other egg omelet-topped bagel sandwiches at Wawa, the Ham Club is loaded with salty meats. Having both ham and bacon in this decadent sandwich is somewhat excessive.
In addition to those ingredients, the Ham Club has an omelet, cheese, mayonnaise, and other ingredients, totaling 540 calories, 22 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 170 milligrams of cholesterol, and 1,490 milligrams of sodium. Even ignoring the higher-than-average sodium levels, this item is high in both saturated fat and cholesterol, which are bad for your health in combination. If you are intent on getting your protein early in the morning, we might suggest the Veggie Breakfast Bagel as a healthier alternative. It's a similar breakfast bagel sandwich, but swapping out the ham for vegetables makes a huge difference to your daily diet.
Sausage, Egg & Cheese On A Biscuit Sizzli
Sausage and egg strike again, but this time on a biscuit. Sizzlis are Wawa's version of a grab-and-go sandwich and while they are top-of-class quality-wise, these are not the healthiest breakfast option. These egg and protein sandwiches come on a variety of buns including croissants, bagels, and even pancakes. The worst of these for you, though, is the biscuit Sizzli. Specifically, we are talking about the Sausage, Egg & Cheese on a Biscuit Sizzli, which is loaded with a whopping 1,900 milligrams of sodium, only 400 short of how much you should be consuming in a day.
According to the FDA, the recommended daily limit for sodium is 2,300 milligrams. Per the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, high sodium intake can lead to high blood pressure and, eventually and in conjunction with other potential factors, heart disease.
Comparing the nutrition of this breakfast Sizzli to the others, it seems that the biscuit must be the factor that pushes this one onto this list of unhealthy items. This makes sense; the primary ingredient in American biscuits is butter. Butter is high in calories, and often it's the reason for the high sodium and saturated fat content of biscuits. That is proven to be true with this item, which clocks in at a total of 700 calories, 50 grams of fat, and 20 grams of saturated fat on top of sodium.
Buffalo Chicken Personal Pizza
Yes, you can get pizza at Wawa. We cannot speak to their quality, but we can say across the board these pizzas are on the unhealthy side. To ensure this list isn't just every type of pizza sold at Wawa, we won't compare a whole large pizza to a sandwich. Instead, we chose the personal pizza size of Wawa's buffalo chicken pizza to represent why it is the least healthy of its type on the menu.
The Buffalo Chicken Personal Pizza from Wawa clocks in at 750 calories, 36 grams of fat, 125 milligrams of cholesterol, 2,440 milligrams of sodium, and 65 grams of carbohydrates. Like other buffalo sauce products, according to The Low Sodium Foodie, this pizza is extremely high in sodium. When combined with this Wawa item's doughy crust, which adds to the high number of carbohydrates in this Wawa item, this item isn't the healthiest.
Meatball Parmesan Hoagie
Moving on into lunchtime, we have Wawa's meatball sub. This fact may catch you by surprise, but this hoagie is one of the saltiest items on the Wawa menu. Marinara, meatballs, a hoagie roll, and cheese come together to create a salt bomb. Don't go breaking my heart, Wawa.
Unfortunately, that is exactly what the classic-sized Parmesan Meatball hoagie will do to you. This favorite hoagie option contains 3,430 milligrams of sodium per sandwich. According to the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, too much sodium in your diet can damage your kidneys and heart and even lead to high blood pressure. One of these sandwiches won't land you in a hospital, but there are dozens of better options on the Wawa menu, even if you don't want to make healthy choices.
Wawa's classic-sized Meatball Parmesan Hoagie also contains 1,300 calories, 77 grams of fat, 27 grams of saturated fat, and 1.5 grams of trans fat. We've already stated the heart health ramifications of consuming too much-saturated fat, but let it be known that trans fat is an even more serious concern. According to Mayo Clinic, trans fats are one of the worst culprits of cholesterol issues. Trans fats raise "bad cholesterol" (LDL) levels and actively lower the level of "good cholesterol" (HDL) in your body.
BBQ Breaded Chicken Hoagie
Since hoagies are Wawa's thing, we thought it made sense to include another one. Options like the chain's BBQ Breaded Chicken Hoagie are only available as a hot hoagie for obvious reasons -- nobody wants cold chicken strips. Yet despite the sweet, salty goodness therein, it might not be worth it to venture towards this menu item. If you do, spare your body and get a Shorti.
If you are getting this hoagie on a classic white roll, Wawa's BBQ Bread Chicken Hoagie clocks in at a tremendous 1,010 calories, 33 grams of fat, 2,720 milligrams of sodium, and 123 grams of carbohydrates. Containing breaded chicken strips and cheddar cheese on top of that, this hoagie outclasses even the BBQ Cheesesteak in these nutritional categories.
Obviously, the breaded chicken goes a long way to contribute to those high sodium and carb counts, but the secret killer here is the barbecue sauce. According to Verywell Fit, barbecue sauce is high in carbs due to the way it is made and sweetened, which is the other reason this sandwich is so absurdly high in carbohydrates.
All Beef Big Bacon Cheese Dog
If you want to treat yourself on a cheat day, there are worse ways of doing it than by enjoying one of Wawa's hot dogs. However, the All Beef Big Bacon Cheese Dog reigns supreme in terms of calorific value -- and it's not just calories. Of all Wawa's all-day grab-and-go items, this bacon cheese dog is one of the least healthy, due to its high fat and saturated fat content. Saturated fats in particular should be consumed in moderation, and this item has 21 grams of the stuff.
With 810 calories, 47 grams of fat, and 57 grams of carbohydrates, this item isn't messing around -- especially given its size compared to the other items on this list, as most of these are large, overfilled sandwiches or quesadillas. This is a single hot dog, albeit one topped with rich fatty cheese and sodium-rich bacon. A photo of the item posted on Reddit shows that it's one hefty dog, but its size might not be as impressive as you might want for over 800 calories.
Buffalo Chicken Mac & Cheese Bowl
Combine two relatively unhealthy menu items and you are sure to get something extra unhealthy. Two wrongs don't make a right and that is more than true in the case of the Buffalo Chicken Mac & Cheese bowl. While many of the Wawa bowls contain rice, beans, and the option to add as many veggie toppings as you want, the Mac & Cheese bowls are exactly what they say are: a steaming, cheesy bowl of pasta.
This item contains 840 calories, 43 grams of fat,15 grams of saturated fat, 160 milligrams of cholesterol, and a remarkable 3,520 milligrams of sodium. Needless to say, this bowl is a salt bomb. The Buffalo chicken is responsible for raising that number higher than most of the other Mac & Cheese bowls Wawa offers. Even the Wawa Bacon Mac & Cheese clocks in under 2,000 milligrams of sodium. While some of the menu items sold at Wawa -- including a few of the bowl options featuring rice and beans -- could be considered healthy, that's a whole other article. In this relatively nourishing section, this dish sticks out like a sore and unhealthy thumb.
These Two Behemoth Burgers
We could not decide which of Wawa's most gigantic burgers to put on this list because many of them are worth mentioning, as some of the most unhealthy Wawa items. But of all the burger options at the chain, these two were the heftiest by far. Both are extremely over-the-top in terms of sodium and saturated fats. Even worse, they also contain trans fats, making these double burgers another item you should probably avoid if you are at all monitoring your heart health, diet, or calorie intake.
First is the Double BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger, which weighs in at 1,410 calories, 84 grams total fat, 35 grams saturated fat, 3 grams trans fat, and 2,960 milligrams sodium. Its biggest competitor and brother-in-arms is the Double Nacho Cheeseburger has 1,380 calories, 89 grams of fat, 34 grams of saturated fat, 3 grams of trans fat, and 2,760 milligrams of sodium.
Consuming trans fat can spell trouble for your heart, according to Mayo Clinic. There are plenty of reasons for this. Trans fats raise bad cholesterol and increase the risk of heart attacks, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. While the FDA has generally cracked down on artificial trans fats by banning them in the U.S., even a handful of grams of trans fat can be a red flag when choosing a meal.
Chicken Bacon Ranch Quesadilla
Chicken, bacon, and ranch are a match made in heaven, by this match isn't made for heart health. If you love salty foods you are surely familiar with this combo already. Wawa offers it in quesadilla form, with two kinds of melty cheese of your choosing. The default cheese options are cheddar and pepper jack. Weighing in at 890 calories, 51 grams of fat, 19 grams of saturated fat, 2,370 milligrams of sodium, and 180 milligrams of cholesterol the Chicken Bacon Ranch is the least healthy of the quesadillas on offer at the convenience store chain.
Bacon and ranch are high in fats and sodium. Additionally, they ultimately just aren't heart-healthy. In fact, they both pop up in the list of foods WebMD considers bad for your heart. This is due to the ingredients used to make ranch dressing, as well as the saturated fats produced when bacon is cooked. When paired with two types of cheeses in quesadilla form, you can start to imagine why this item might not be the healthiest thing at Wawa. At the very least, ask them to hold the ranch dressing.
Buffalo Chicken Mac & Cheese Panini
This unhealthy dish is pretty monstrous indeed. As already noted, Wawa's buffalo sauce products are high in sodium and its macaroni and cheese dishes are high-carb substances. Combine those two things into a sandwich and you will get the Buffalo Chicken Mac & Cheese Panini, which contains 1,330 calories, 61 grams of fat, 22 grams of saturated fat, 4,110 milligrams of sodium, and 123 grams of carbohydrates. It's not the single most unhealthy item on the menu, but it may be one of the most indulgent.
Of course, putting mac and cheese on a sandwich is never a healthy idea. Along with over a day's worth of saturated fats and sodium, this is a carb-heavy meal. For an average 2000-calorie diet, the Mayo Clinic recommends a carbohydrate intake of around 45% to 65% of your daily calories. That allows you a lot of room to consume carbs, working out to somewhere between 225 and 325 grams per day, depending on a variety of factors. That being said, 123 carbs for a sandwich by itself is a mighty large number. It's safe to say that the bread and macaroni together are overkill.
For blood sugar reasons, this item should also be avoided. The processed and complex carbohydrates in this item have a high glycemic index, meaning they are more likely to increase the chances of type 2 diabetes and weight gain, according to the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
Read the original article on Daily Meal.
