Heaven Sent?

7-Eleven's Hopping On The Health-Food Bandwagon. But Dallas Will Have To Wait For It.

Who says that the gas station food experience has to be all processed meats, chips, Slurpees and candies strategically placed in front of the register so you can't escape its sugary hold?

The Dallas-sprung international convenience store and fuel stop 7-Eleven, for one, is working to change this stigma, rolling out a line of healthy fresh foods courtesy of fitness guru Tony Horton in the Los Angeles market.

The line, appropriately named Tony Horton Kitchen, will consist of sandwich, salad and wrap options, as well as four cold-press juices — all inspired by the P90X executive's recent health-food venture. Items range in price from $4.75 to $6.50, making for affordable, healthier alternatives to the normal gas station dining experience.

With this news of yet another reason to look forward to 7-Eleven runs, we had to wonder: How soon could the line hit Dallas stores? After all, 7-Eleven is one of the great things to come out of the Metroplex. And its headquarters are located in the One Arts Plaza.

But a call from 7-Eleven media spokesperson Margaret Chabris sadly confirms that we can't start looking for these items in area stores just yet. The line is currently in a test run, only released to 104 Southern Californian stores in order to tweak it into perfection. It helps that the company also has refrigeration units in that region, making it easier to deliver fresh food to stores.

Furthermore, Chabris adds, if the test-run is successful, the line will expand throughout Los Angeles before expanding to San Diego and the rest of California before we can see it nationally or even here in North Texas. Yet there might still be hope that it could come our way sooner than later, provided customers respond well to this first release — especially since the company sells seven times more bananas than its top-selling candy bar.

For now, we remain hopeful that, if the trial run proves successful in California, Texas will become one of the next markets to introduce the healthy lines. That would at least make sense, given the chain's Dallas ties.

In the meantime, we'll have to find nutritional balance at the gas station some other kind of way. Like, says, with bananas.