Is there anyway to get a Rest service call to return a plain String?

I am writing a Rest service that checks to see if any providers are ingesting. If so return true and if not return false. I wouldn't mind if it returned a boolean but I couldn't find anything about it when doing research. This is the javascript that calls the rest service in a ajax call:

 var result = $.ajax({url:cdpeConfig.providerUrl+'/updateStatus',type: 'GET'});
  if (result=="true"){
        alert(result);
      }
  else{
        alert(JSON.stringify(result));
      }

the json.stringify is the only way I have been able to see what it returns. All I have seen it return is {"readyState":1} Here is the java:

`@GET
@Path("/updateStatus")
@Produces({MediaType.TEXT_PLAIN})
public String isIngesting(){
    String result = "false";
    List<Provider> providers = new ArrayList<Provider>();
    providers = providerManager.getAllProviders();
    for (Provider provider : providers) {
        if (provider.getUpdateStatus().toLowerCase().equals(CdpeEnum.UpdateStatus.INGEST.toString().toLowerCase()) ) {
            result = "true";
        }
    }
    return result;
}`