Cleaning Eating at Panera Bread

Clean eating. It’s a relatively newer term, and most certainly a trendy one, that refers to eating unprocessed whole foods, free of additives and food colorings. For me clean eating is, buying and cooking with whole foods, choosing unrefined grains over refined ones, trying to follow the dirty dozen list for when to buy organic fruits and vegetables and avoiding packed processed foods that are packed with preservatives.

When you think of fast food restaurants, you don’t generally associate them with clean eating. That is the main reason, in addition to the cost, we generally don’t eat fast food. However, every once in a while I like to treat the kids to something and thankfully Panera Bread is one of their favorite places. Luckily, until now, we’ve always lived close to one. Even in small town Missouri we had one a few miles away.

So I was thrilled to find out that Panera Bread Company is the first national restaurant company in the US that has publicly shared an extensive list of ingredients that will be removed or never appear in their menu. They are committed to removing artificial additives (such as artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners and other preservatives) by the end of 2016! I am seriously SO excited about this!

They are already in the process of cleaning up their menu and really being transparent in all their ingredients. They have set a new vision committing to serving the freshest food possible and the artificial additives on the “No No List” will be removed across the Company’s food menu, from bakery to soups to salads and sandwiches. The list also includes substances like high fructose corn syrup, MSG, artificial trans fats and artificial sweeteners to name a few. There are more than 150 ingredients that will be affected (continue reading to see the full list of ingredients on the no no list)!

This is such exciting news and we can only hope their leadership on this topic will affect other restaurant chains. Quality over quantity? Yes please!

While Panera is still working on their menu, I decided to try a few of their salads for lunch. I am always partial to the Power Chicken Hummus Bowl Salad, but wanted to try a few different ones this time so I went with the Mediterranean Chicken and Quinoa Salad, the Fuji Apple Chicken Salad and the Chicken Cobb. I chose the half size of each and took them to-go so that the hubby and I could share them for dinner.

I had the trusty Panera app on my phone so that I could look up the nutrition information while I was in line waiting to order. It’s an awesome tool if you don’t already have it installed because you can also use their rapid pickup function and pre-order and pay from your phone, then choose which location you want to pick it up at. When you get there, it will be ready for you on a designated pick-up shelf so you literally just look for your name, grab and go! It’s a dream (especially for me when lugging the kids along with me).

I just love seeing real food at fast food places, avocado, olives, kale….yum

When you order the salads to-go, the dressing automatically comes on the side, however I recommend you always order the dressing on the side so that you can use less than what they would normally use. However, Panera has been working hard to clean up their dressings, read about it here and they all taste great. All of the half salads I chose had under 350 calories, 2 under 300 calories and were of course delicious.

[Tweet “Have you heard about the changes going on @PaneraBread? Great news! #paneragoodness #cleaneating”]

So keep an eye out for the all the changes to go into effect by the end of 2016. I am so excited I can hardly stand it! Way to go Panera.

Check out the full unacceptable food list HERE. and read more about their plans HERE.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a Panera Gift Card to buy this lunch from my partnership with the Cooking Light Bloggers Connection. All opinions are my own.