Other stealth health opportunities abound in the ever-creative domain of the pizza kitchen. In addition to the wealth of veggies already on most chains’ list of available toppings, pizza crust itself can be formulated with various combinations of dried tomatoes, red peppers, beets, spinach, and beans baked right in.

None of which is to suggest that more overt tactics for offering fruits and vegetables in quick-serve settings are off the table. To my knowledge, no major chain has ever tried offering tempura, the indescribably tasty deep-fried vegetables that are a staple of Japanese cuisine. And while white-tablecloth chefs continue to tinker with more healthful french fry alternatives, including garbanzo, carrot, and artichoke variations, the average quick-serve’s deep fryer is pretty much a stranger to legumes, cruciferous vegetables, and most other types of produce.

Other standard quick-service hardware items are equally well suited to the challenge of serving up fruits and vegetables in tasty ways. Grilled vegetables are practically unheard of in the fast-food world, despite the fact that they’re ideal for adding flavor, texture, color, and nutrition. Burger King’s broilers, for instance, could do a bang-up job of grilling Portobello mushroom caps and onions, and the combination would be far more exciting and tasty than a standard-issue veggie burger, which has proven to be a nonstarter in the quick-serve world. And what about the idea of grilled meat-and-vegetable skewers? Generally speaking, if you’ve got a grill, you’ve got a means of serving up vegetables that’s both healthful and appealing.

Breakfast, too, offers plenty of opportunities to employ fresh produce that are ripe for the picking. Most modern quick-serve breakfast sandwiches consist of meat, eggs, and cheese. But, as any omelet aficionado knows, the basic egg-and-fixins formula is easily jazzed-up with sautéed spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers, and the like. Hash browns, too, can be combined with onions, peppers, and other vitamin-rich fare to boost flavor and nutritional value. And there’s nothing stopping chains from using real fruit toppings or fillings in waffle, pancake, or French toast dishes.

Most modern fast-food and fast-casual concepts have made substantial progress on the nutrition front in recent years. From a vast array of grilled chicken sandwiches to freshly made salads that boast a victory garden’s worth of fine produce, their menus now contain numerous options that are leaner, lighter, and generally more attractive to weight-conscious, health-conscious consumers. But as several of the suggestions and examples above demonstrate, there are innumerable other ways to get more fruits and vegetables on the menuboard, and these needn’t entail a great deal of operational or supply-chain complexity. At this point, we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg (lettuce).