Eating Out Nutritionally Articles | Nutrition

By: Joe Dively

Most people believe that heading to a restaurant for dinner or special occasion means eating an unbalanced, overindulgent meal.  That simply isn’t true.  While it is a treat, eating out doesn’t have to mean giving up any attempt at eating a nutritious well-balanced meal.  No matter what style or type of restaurant you choose, the odds are they offer a few more healthy eating options along with the not-so-good-for-you options.  To make menu choices easier when eating out, here are a few basic nutritional tips to follow when sitting down to eat at a restaurant:

Choose steamed, Broiled, Baked or Poached vegetables, meats and seafood instead of fried or sautéed.  Avoid menu choices described as au gratin, buttered, breaded, casseroles, fried, crispy, hash, or rich.   While they might sound tasty, they are probably much higher in saturated fats and not nearly as good for you.

Start your meal with water and a salad.   Choose dark leafy greens and lots of colored vegetables for your salad, and be especially careful of high saturated fat foods from salad bars such as croutons, cheese, egg, olives, coleslaw, macaroni and potato salads, and the like.  Another important tip:  use low-fat dressing only and put it on the side for light dipping, you’ll use much less that way.  Drinking water with your meal will also help you feel fuller quicker and help you to avoid overindulging.  The high sugar content in some sweetened drinks may actually make you feel hungrier, causing you to eat more.

Leave the bread in the kitchen.  When your waiter brings the breadbasket, ask him to return it to the kitchen.  But, if you have to have the bread, top it with honey instead of butter or margarine.

Top sandwiches with healthy ingredients.  Always have your sandwiches topped with lettuce, tomato, pickles and mustard instead of mayonnaise, cheese, bacon and special sauces.   Also, opt for whole grain breads or rolls instead of white.

Share Dessert (or skip it altogether), and when you just have to have something sweet at the end of a good meal, opt for fresh fruit, frozen yogurt or sherbet instead.

Always leave something on your plate.  Serving sizes in restaurants today are well past the recommended amounts.  Eat to feel satisfied (but not full) and take the rest home in a doggie bag for lunch the next day.  Remember, the proper serving size for meat and fish should be no larger than a deck of cards (that equals about 3 ounces);  a ½ cup of cooked rice or pasta should look no larger than a baseball; 1 cup of raw leady vegetables about the size of your fist; and 1 teaspoon of butter or margarine is only the size of your thumb.  Just because the portions in front of you are huge doesn’t mean you have to eat it all at a single sitting.