Healthiest food chains in the United States are being ranked and chosen by Grellin, a website that assesses restaurant chains based on the criteria of healthiness of their foods.
Grellin classify the assessment score as "grellin grade" that ranks the healthiest restaurants with a score of 100 while the worst unhealthy one has the grellin grade of zero.
Grellin aims at providing people the best information on where they can find the healthiest food chains in the United States. By providing this pertinent information, Americans become aware on the type of food they are actually consuming.
"We hope that people tend to go towards restaurants that have a higher percentage of their menu that is healthy," and that restaurants with more healthy items get more customers, Dr. Lenard Lesser, of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute told Live Science.
Grellin website was announced during the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association on Wednesday, Nov. 19.
According to the Grellin result, Au Bon Pain and Rubio's got the highest grellin grade of 57 and are considered the healthiest food chains in the United States while McDonald's , Taco Cabana, Starbucks, 7 Eleven got the poorest scores.
The healthiest food chains in the United States were evaluated by the researchers according to the nutrient content that each food contains. Presence of nuts, fruits and vegetables are also considered.
Foods that are regarded healthy have nutrient content of 64 and above and those that have 700 and lesser calories, according to Yahoo news.
Grellin website also indicates information on the nutritional content of healthy foods in a fast food chain and the recommended activity needed to burn those calories.
Here are the top scorers in the Grellin test that are considered the healthiest food chains in the United States:
Au Bon Pain and Rubio's (57)
Subway (54)
Bruegger's Bagels (48)
Cosi (47)
Panera Bread (44)
Jersey Mike's Subs and In-N-Out Burger (39)
Panda Express (37)
El Pollo Loco (36)
