Review of Wendy's Berry Almond Chicken Salad: Decent, But With Two Big Objections

The food at Wendy's is generally agreed to be the best among the national burger chains. While the hamburgers are much better at such regionals as In-N-Out and Five Guys, Wendy's offers a few maverick items that are actually worth eating. In Fork in the Road's 10 Fast-Food Items That Don't Totally Suck, the chain garnered two slots, for their chili (No. 5) and baked potato (No. 1).

As salads have become a popular lunch choice among dieters and office workers, it was inevitable that the big burger chains would make yet another attempt to add them to their menus. Not only do they feel like they could sell them to diners who currently get their lunches from salad bars or bring them from home, they hope these new items will cover them in glory for providing the consumer with "healthy" choices.

But serving up salads provides formidable obstacles to the chains. For one thing, you can't freeze the ingredients forever; things like lettuce and tomatoes are fundamentally perishable, and they contain bugs and other nuisances inconsistent with the inoffensive, homogenized nature of fast food. They also don't conform well to the factory methods promulgated by fast-food giants. Lettuce must be washed and kept fluffed up, and even then it goes bad after a couple of days.