Last night, I had to run an errand for my wife. Her car was due for the 60,000 mile check-up, so she dropped it off at the dealer after work. I picked her up, but time was getting tight for her Body Pump class. The Body Pump craze has spread so fast that you have to register a half hour to an hour before the class begins. Even though time was short, it didn’t make sense to skip dinner. I didn’t want to risk her having dehydration issues like WeightLadder did earlier this week.

We thought about where we could go for a quick healthy dinner. And if you read my Lazy Man and Money site, you know that I was also looking for something cheap. That’s a tall order, but I think we made the decision in going to Taco Bell. Taco Bell is not typically at the tops of the “healthy eats” list, but in the last year, it’s gotten a lot better. They’ve figured out that simply by offering the option to substitute the cheese on anything on the menu with some pico de gallo, it can be a healthy meal. If you want this, you just ask for something Fresco style. They’ve even created a whole Fresco Menu, to make ordering easier.

I got a couple of the soft taco’s. That came in at 360 calories and 14 grams of fat. It ended up costing me under $3. My wife went for two chicken soft tacos which were 340 calories and only 8 grams of fat. The chicken version was probably a dollar or so more. From a combination of speed, health, and cost, it was so much better than we could have done at many other places.

We might be mixing a little more Taco Bell into our diets when we can’t cook things ourselves.

That said, McDonald’s needs to take it one step further… My fiancée, who likes to call herself, Energi Gal, is a fan of McDonald’s coffee. And why not, Consumer Reports named it the best coffee. The problem is that Energi Gal likes her coffee with milk in it rather than cream. It’s just the healthier choice. Most restaurants give you the milk option for no charge, but all the McDonalds out in California make you buy a milk jug. Back in Massachusetts, they would open up a milk jug and leave it behind the counter for all customers to take advantage.

Not only does it cost people money, it wastes milk. McDonald’s, you can do better.