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WEEK SEVENTY-EIGHT :: What Are Some Good Foods To Choose When Dining Out? Eating out is something we all have in common. Whether it be because we don't feel like cooking ourselves, for a social event, or perhaps just to try something different for a change, we all have our reasons for dining out once in a while. Of course, there's nothing wrong with this as the dining experiences often tend to be enjoyable and fun, but it's not without problems. Many diners may find themselves in an awkward position as they try to pick out a meal the fits in with their dieting routine. This article is designed to help in making those choices so no one has to fear compromising their diet during their dining experiences. Do you choose your restaurants before going out so that you know they will have a healthy dish for you or do you pick from whatever options you have at that particular restaurant? Sometimes different situations call for different strategies. There are times that we decide to eat out instead of cooking for ourself. In this kind of situation we have complete power over the choice of dining location. At other times, a group of acquaintances might like to eat somewhere and you would get some say in a location. Still yet, we may have no choice if we'd like to join a group that already decided and is at a restaurant. As humans are social creatures, we may agree to go to locations that we are not particularly fond of, just to be able to eat with others. However, it's important to never let others compromise our goals. If you don't agree with others' choice, it won't be the end of the world to choose not to go with them. Many people will respect our decisions as long as we're open about them. Ideally, the best situations are the ones where we know our options before actually arriving at the restaurant. During these experiences, we can often avoid the stress that often accompanies choosing foods that agree with our dietary decisions. In the coming section, we explore different styles of cuisine in order to increase our comfort levels and get the most enjoyment out of our dining experiences. What are the healthiest choices at the following restaurants? The growing trend of globalization allows for us to try food from different cultures all over the world. Having such diverse selections are a blessing to take advantage of, however, some cultural preferences may push dishes to extremes that do not agree with our balanced diets. Here, we'll explore different styles of cuisine, and how to pick out the healthier items from each, creating a well balanced meal that we're comfortable eating. - American While the cuisine of the United States includes a wide range of ethnic foods since it is a nation comprised of immigrants, typically we think of barbecue, grilled, or fried style foods, especially meats, as American. Common additions include breads, potatoes, and fresh salads or vegetables. The style has a tendency to incorporate meats that may be less lean than desired. A good goal when eating at American restaurants would be to make selections with fat content in mind. Let's look at some healthy choices for specific locations. Subway In general Subway offers some of the healthiest sandwiches, salads, and wraps around. The basic way to make a calorie-considerate choice would be to stay away from selections with excess cheese, or that use meat like steak, bacon, meatballs, or salami. Picking the smallest portion size on whole wheat bread with moderate cheese and lean meat would be ideal. For example: 6" Roast Beef Sub (whole wheat bread, veggies, no sauce) Calories: 290 Fat: 5g Saturate Fat: 2g Carbohydrates: 45g Protein: 19g Sodium: 920mg Carl's Jr. This location makes healthy choices very difficult. Most everything on the menu is loaded with fat and high in calories. Avoiding Carl's Jr. altogether may be a good decision for those watching their food intake. However, there a couple of exceptional choices that one can make here. Examples: Charbroiled BBQ Chicken Calories: 370 Fat: 4g Saturated Fat: 1g Carbohydrates: 47g Fiber: 4g Protein: 35g Charbroiled Chicken Salad to Go Calories: 330 Fat: 7g Saturated Fat: 4g Carbohydrates: 17g Fiber: 5g Protein: 34g KFC The renowned fried chicken of KFC might be an unbalanced choice. Often the fat content is quite high with basically no carbohydrates or fiber. The best choice would most likely come from the sandwich menu. Example: Tender Roast® w/o sauce Calories: 270 Fat Calories: 45 Fat: 5g Saturated Fat: 1.5g Cholesterol: 65mg Sodium: 690mg Carbs.: 23g Fiber: 1g Sugars: 0g Protein: 31g McDonalds While known for its burgers, they are typically not the best choice on the menu. A high fat content is a common trait of menu selections. A good way to cut this back would be to choose grilled chicken over beef and cheese to create a more balanced meal. Examples: Caesar Salad with Grilled Chicken Calories: 210 Fat: 6g Saturated Fat: 3g Cholesterol: 70mg Sodium: 830mg Carbs: 11g Fiber: 3g Sugars: 4g Protein: 28g Chicken McGrill Calories: 400 Fat: 16g Saturated Fat: 3g Cholesterol: 70mg Sodium: 1010mg Carbs: 38g Fiber: 3g Sugars: 7g Protein: 27g TGIF Moving on to the the nicer of American style restaurants, TGIF offers many meals that are well balanced. The best bet to lowering calorie intake from a meal here, though, would be to choose something from the low-fat menu. Selections from here have approximately 10 grams of fat and 500 calories total. Examples: Zen Chicken Pot Stickers Shanghai Chicken Salad Santa Fe Chicken Salad Bruschetta Tilapia Outback Steakhouse Another nice restaurant, the Outback Steakhouse gives the diner many choices, allowing them to get a meal just the way they want it. Some suggestions for organizing a healthy meal might be to order a house salad, steamed vegetables, jacket, potato, or sweet potato prepared without toppings or butter as sides. Then, for an entree select the shrimp, chicken, or steak veggie grillers, outback special, outback lamb, or chicken on the barbie. Buffalo Wild Wings The bar and grill of Buffalo Wild Wings has a nice atmosphere, not to mention nice deals. Unfortunately nutritional information is unavailable for the foods here, but the best bet looks to be getting either a wrap or sandwich. Avoid extra sauces, creams, and cheeses while picking the grilled chicken over the breaded in order to get a balanced and nutritious meal. Hooters It's one of those places that happens to be appealing for reasons besides the food. They do not offer accurate nutritional information, but from experience, a lot of the food tends toward the greasy fried type. Best stick with one of the grilled chicken salads or grilled chicken sandwich, holding the fatty dressings, if you'd like to walk out with your stomach still at ease. - Chinese/Japanese/Vietnamese These Asian cuisines are characterized by the presence of a starch, either rice, noodles, or steamed buns. Accompanying the starch would be another dish consisting of meat and/or vegetables. Meals at Asian restaurants tend to be well balanced in terms of nutrients, but it's often necessary to watch portion size. Often times, they will give extra servings of rice since it's not very expensive or because it is considered the main part of the meal in many cultures. The other things to steer away from are the fried and fatty meats. Examples of some of the healthiest Asian cuisine choices: Szechuan Shrimp Shrimp with Garlic Sauce Stir Fried Vegetables Chicken Chow Mein The above selections all have lower levels of fat compared to some other dishes. When eaten with an appropriate amount of rice or noodles, they will provide a well balanced meal. However, shrimp dishes may be an issue for those watching their cholesterol. Chicken and tofu are often good low-fat substitutes for other meats. - Italian Popular foods of Italian origin include many pastas, breads, cheeses, and tomato based sauces. The dishes that tend to include only these types of food items are often not very balanced. They lack a protein source. Fortunately, there are many dishes which include chicken, shrimp, or other fish. All of these examples taken from The Olive Garden restaurant would be good. Examples of lunch sized entrees: Chicken Giardino Calories: 350 Fat: 7g Saturated Fat: 3g Protein: 26g Carbs: 40g Cholesterol: 50mg Sodium: 1180mg Other good lunch sized entrees: Grilled Chicken Spiedini Garlic-Herb Chicken con Brocolli Chicken Scampi Shrimp Fra Diavolo Venetian Apricot Chicken - Mongolian Mongolian food can be known for it's roasted meats accompanied by rice, noodles and vegetables. One famous Mongolian dish is roasted sheep. Based upon the nutritional information for the Mongolian Barbecue restaurant, I offer the following suggestions. -Avoid sesame, peanut, or vegetable oil sauces as they are high in fat and calories. -Choose soy, teriyaki, sweet & sour, marinara, lemon, or wine sauce. -Choosing lo mein over pasta noodles will yield less calories. -Good additions would be any of the vegetables. Tofu, egg, and potato additions add the most calories. -Selecting tofu would mean more protein, an egg, more fat, and a potato, more carbohydrates. -All seafood are generally good choices. -The only meat to stay away from would be sausage, as it contains twice as many calories as port, steak, chicken, lamb, or turkey. With 85% of these calories can be from fat in the sausage. - Thai Again we see rice as a staple component of Thai style dishes. Also common are curries, stir-fries and noodle dishes. Most Thai food is either stir-fried, steamed, or sometimes grilled, so the preparation method is not much of an issue. Following some of the same advice as before, watch portion sizes for the starches, as they are often considered the main course. Also try to select from seafood or a lean meat if available. - Mexican The style of food that hails from Mexico is characterized by its spicy flavors and pleasant varieties of colors. In addition to its appealing taste, Mexican food is often very abundant in protein, vitamins, and other nutrients. The trick to getting the most out of Mexican foods is to avoid the greasy, fatty foods and toppings. Taco Bell Any of the “Fresco Style” items are good choices. All of them are 350 calories or under, with less than 10 grams of fat. The tacos, gorditas, chalupas, and burritos all offer good nutrition, but have slightly more calories due to more fat content. Just try to avoid the express menu, the worst choices come from it. Chipotle Offering satisfying burritos and tacos, there are a couple of places that one can go wrong when making their selections. The biggest caloric additions come from the cheese, sour cream and guacamole. Avoiding these as well as extra chips would make for the healthiest meal at this location. What tips would you give to someone who is looking to eat healthy at a restaurant? As we have seen, many dining locations do not provide nutritional information. In other circumstances, the choices must be considered on the spot. In any case, there are general tips and guidelines to follow in order to get a meal suited to our health interests. Here are some of them: -Ask the waiter or waitress questions about how the food is prepared and try to request it a different way if the current methods are undesired. -Get a salad. The addition will add the often-lacking fiber component to many meals. It can also help fill you up and resist eating greater amounts of a greasy, fatty, or otherwise less desired food. Just make sure to avoid calorie-rich dressings, sour cream, and cheese additions as much as possible when eating a salad. -If getting a type of sandwich or burger, select a wheat or rye bread if available, providing the benefits of extra fiber. Also, hold the mayonnaise and other fatty dressings. Select lean meats with fish, turkey and chicken being best. A lot of fast food might have beef of questionable quality. -Look for menu choices that are marked as light or similarly for the health conscious patrons. -Avoid buffets. They just give reason to over-eat, particularly on unhealthy foods. -Don't settle for fried foods. This reduces unnecessary fat content. Choose steamed, boiled, or baked instead. -Only select soft drinks labelled as diet. Regular types contain many unwanted and empty sugar calories. -Resist alcoholic beverages. It just ends up as empty calories and can slow the digestive process. Additionally, the effects of alcohol may produce some loss of self-restraint, causing an undesired, overeating situation. -Choose smallest portion sizes available. If the meal that you are served looks a little large for one person, it probably is. Don't feel obligated to eat the whole thing. Feel free to take the left-overs home for another meal in the future. -Skip most appetizers and desserts. They are often less nutritional, fatty, or sugary. -Remember balance. This is the key to getting the most nutritional meal possible. The main way to accomplish balance in a meal is to select one serving of a clean starch like potatoes, rice, or pasta. Sides of beans or corn are also good choices for their nutritional value and addition of fiber. The next step would be to pick a clean protein source. Lean meats like turkey, chicken, or fish are excellent choices, but a nice steak once in a while doesn't hurt too much either. Vegetables or salads can be added as desired, provided the advice above is still heeded. The main source of calories should be from the carbohydrates and protein. Make these calories count and choose clean, quality foods. Which fast food place has the healthiest foods? Give examples. This was an easy choice after browsing through the nutritional information provided by several different establishments. Virtually every item on the Subway menu is less than 500 calories, with almost all of these being fresh, clean, and quality calories. Subway also offers a great variety of choices to suit most everyone's taste. They provide low-fat as well as low-carb selections. Possibly some of the best and most balanced choices come from the low-fat menu. Some examples taken from the low-fat menu: All choices are 6-inch sandwiches on Italian bread with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, green peppers, pickles, and olives. Item Ham Sandwich Oven Roasted Chicken Breast Roast Beef Sandwich Turkey Breast & Ham Sandwich Turkey Breast Sandwich Subway Club Sandwich Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki Veggi Delite Sandwich Calories 290 330 290 290 280 320 370 230 Fat 5g 5g 5g 4.5g 5g 6g 5g 3g Carbs 47g 47g 45g 46g 47g 47g 59g 44g Fiber 4g 4g 4g 4g 4g 4g 4g 4g Sugar 8g 9g 8g 7g 8g 8g 19g 7g Protein 18g 24g 19g 18g 20g 24g 26g 9g Visit the website at www.subway.com to view more selections and to further research nutritional information. Also an interesting read is Jared's transformation story. Apparently, he made amazing losses in body fat on a diet consisting mainly of Subway foods. Which has the worst? Give examples. One of the unhealthiest quick-service dining locations explored was definitely Carl's Jr. Their menu is loaded with gut-busting, fatty food with enormous calorie counts. Most of the sides might provide enough calories to be called a main dish. The selection of salad dressings is ridiculous, with the low-fat dressing still providing 260 calories, 150 of them being from fat. On top of all else, the desserts and shakes add up to 700 nutritionally empty fat and sugar calories. Examples: Item The Original Six Dollar Burger Calories 1010 Fat 66g Carbs 60g Bacon Swiss Crispy Chicken Sandwich 750 28g 91g Loaded Breakfast Burrito 49g 53g 810 Fiber 3g Sugar 18g 3g 3g Protein 40g 31g 39g The website, www.carlsjr.com, also provided an interactive nutritional calculator that is interesting to play with. I put together the following sample meal to demonstrate how unhealthy some choices can get when eating at Carl's Jr. Item Double Six Dollar Burger Calories 1420 Fat 101g Carbs 62 Fiber 3 Sugar 17 Protein 64 Garden Salad-To-Go House Dressing Medium French Fries Strawberry Ice Cream Shake 120 220 460 700 3g 22g 22g 33g 5 3 59 84 2 0 5 0 3 2 1 75 3 1 7 14 Total 2920 181g 213g 10g 98g 89g There you have it. Half the meal is fat. Half the carbohydrates are from sugar. This selection, all from Carl's Jr., is definitely lacking in nutritional value. Now that we've seen examples ranging from the best to the worst in food nutrition, we know there is a wide range of quality for the foods we consume. Hopefully, by following some of the healthy-eating guidelines outlined previously, you can make more confident dining decisions. References: www.subway.com www.carlsjr.com http://www.helpguide.org/life/fast_food_nutrition.htm http://www.3fatchicks.com/fast-food-nutrition/ http://www.cspinet.org/nah/09_02/best_worst.pdf http://www.askmen.com/sports/foodcourt_100/135_eating_well.html http://channels.netscape.com/homerealestate/feature.jsp?story=healthyfastfoods http://www.coolnurse.com/dieting_ff.htm http://walking.about.com/od/diet/a/blfastfood.htm http://www.bdsmongolianbarbeque.com/Nutrition.pdf http://www.shapefit.com/olive-garden-calories.html