Happy Cheapskate: Deconstructing your salad

I know I'm kinda weird about this stuff. Trust me, I've been told.

But haven't you ever bought something at a fast food place and wondered just how much it would cost if you made the same thing at home?

As I continue my look at the Cost of Convenience, this week I'm going to deconstruct your lunch.

At least your salad. And maybe a sandwich.

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So, I first made the trip to a couple of fast food restaurants where the folks at work like to pick up a quick salad. Wendy and McDonald's were highly recommended.

I asked for the most popular salad at each place, took them home, took them apart and weighed the contents.

I noticed a couple of things straight away. First, you get a fair bit of lettuce. About a third of a head of romaine.

There's a fair bit of chicken, too. McDonald's had a nice-size portion of grilled chicken on its Tuscan Salad (with grilled chicken). It bills itself as chicken breast and tasted pretty good. Wendy's Apple Pecan Salad had more chicken but tasted more processed.

Then there are the tasty extras. Each salad had dried, sweetened cranberries and cheese. Wendy's came with apple and roasted pecans. McDonald's had tomatoes, sunflower seeds and a wisp of red pepper, onion and cucumber. The accompanying dressings were yummy; Wendy's fruity pomegranate had some fat (three grams) while Kraft's Creamy Balsamic from McD's had more (12 grams!).

Then I had to go about weighing all the separate ingredients, and figuring out how much it would cost to make similar salads from stuff you might have in the fridge.

As exact as I try to be, let's be clear: This isn't a perfect science. A bit of water or cheese stuck on a piece of lettuce could alter the weight slightly. But I was at my most diligent and highly attentive to detail.

Here are a couple of charts to show what I found.

I have to say, the cost of making these salads at home was much more than I thought it would be. The price of the chicken was the biggest factor. I made my calculations using chicken one finds in the deli section. It would likely be cheaper to use leftovers from a home-cooked chicken, but I didn't have any. (I could have cooked one, I suppose, but I'll only go so far for science.)

For good measure, I looked at the cost of a sandwich, too. 

It's a good thing it was conveniently available at the gas station because it sure was expensive! 

When calculating how much it would cost to make these items at home, there is a wide range of possible prices. Using packaged, pre-washed organic lettuce, for example, would cost a lot more than using a simple head of romaine. Both cost about $3.50 or $4.00, but I got three times the lettuce from the head of romaine. So that's what I used.

I did notice the salads and sandwiches at the grocery stores looked pretty good, and were cheaper, too.

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But when it comes to eating healthy food, including vegetables, I don't know if there's really any cheap way to do it.