Archive for the ‘Restaurants, Buffets, and Menus’ Category

The Signs Are Everywhere

How much time do you spend in the supermarket aisle confused by the labels on mayo — or yogurt — or milk?  Reduced fat, low fat, light, fat free, low in calories.  You need a spread sheet to sort out the calories and the nutritional stats.

The same thing is true on menus, in deli cases, and the little labels perched next to the choices in salad bars.  Are the calories in the low calorie tuna salad less than the calories in the reduced calorie?  Can you even believe those calligraphied labels behind the glass cases?

Check The List Of Ingredients

Most packaged food labels list ingredients in descending order by weight, not amount. The first ingredient listed has the greatest amount by weight, the last ingredient is the one with the least amount by weight.

Fatty Labels

Labels have to include the total amount of fat, saturated fat and unsaturated fat.  This carves the way for the low, reduced, and fat free categories.

• Low fat means 3 grams of fat or less per serving (or per 100 grams of food)

• Reduced fat means the food product contains 50% (or less) of the fat found in the regular version

• Less fat means 25% or less fat than the comparison food

• Fat free means the product has less than 0.5 grams of fat per serving, with no added fat or oil

Salty Labels

• Reduced sodium means at least 75% less sodium

• Low sodium means 140 milligrams of sodium or less per serving

• Very low sodium means 35 milligrams of sodium or less per serving

• Sodium free (salt free) means there is less than 5 milligrams of sodium per serving

Sweet Labels

• Sugar free means there is less than 0.5 gram of sugar per serving

• No sugar added means there’s no table sugar added but there may be other forms of sugar like dextrose, fructose, glucose, sucrose, maltose, or corn syrup

The Low down On Low, Light (Lite), Lean, and Reduced

• A label that screams reduced calorie means there’s at least 25% fewer calories per serving than in the regular product

• Low calorie means 40 calories or less per serving and less than 0.4 calories per gram of food

• Light (fat) means 50% or less of the fat than in the regular version

• Light (calories) means 1/3 fewer calories than the regular version

• Lean means less than 10 grams of fat, 4.5 grams of saturated fat, and 95 mg of cholesterol in a 100 gram serving of meat, poultry or seafood

• Extra lean means less than 5 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, and 95 mg of cholesterol in a 100 gram serving of meat, poultry or seafood

SocialDieter Tip:

Confused by the ins and outs of labeling?  Why shouldn’t you be – it’s downright confusing.  Try to be as savvy as possible. For instance, take the reduced fat label, which means a product contains at least 25% less fat than the original version. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that the reduced fat version is low fat. For instance, you buy what is labeled as a reduced fat muffin. If the fat content in the original full fat muffin is 30g, and the fat has been reduced to 15g, which, with a 50% reduction allows it to say it is reduced fat, the reduced fat muffin still has a fat content five times higher than the 3g of fat per serving that officially qualifies as low fat. The trick is to look carefully at the calorie count and fat breakdown on the nutrition label and note the numbers for each.  A check of the ingredients label will also give valuable information. Remember, these regulations are for packaged food, not prepared food like you find in salad bars and deli cases. Those foods may be labeled, but you are putting your trust in the preparer of the food to be approximately accurate (and truthful).  In New York City and other municipalities, fast and chain food outlets of a certain size must give caloric breakdowns.  The new Health Care Reform Act will require this nationwide for restaurants with more than 20 outlets.

If It Says Salad Does It Mean It’s Healthy?

Short answer:  No.  Maybe your salad is healthy and delicious, or maybe it’s just delicious and far from a healthy meal.

This is something I see all of the time:  You are in line at a buffet or waiting to order your meal in a cafeteria.  The person in front of you hems and haws over his or her choice – mumbling about trying to “be careful about calories.”  He or she then goes on to say, “Oh, I guess I’ll have a salad,” like it’s the best choice of “diet food” even though it’s not really what the belly and mind seem to be craving.

In the pursuit of cutting calories, the salad might be a far worse choice than, for example, a turkey or ham sandwich with mustard and veggies, or grilled chicken with veggies.

There are some very nice choices of healthy salads and there are some pretty bad choices, too.  In many cases you can do well or horribly in the same restaurant, depending on what you select to eat.

Here are some examples of fast/chain food salads — but remember that each is just one menu item.  In each restaurant you have plenty of other options.

Calorically Good To Reasonable Choices:

• Panera Bread’s BBQ Chopped Chicken Salad, with mild BBQ sauce, no dressing (350 calories, 10g fat)

• Wendy’s Chicken Caesar Salad with Grilled Chicken Fillet, with home-style garlic croutons (490 calories, 32g fat)

• McDonald’s Premium Southwest Salad with Grilled Chicken, without Creamy Southwest dressing (320 calories)

• Burger King’s Tendergrill Chicken Garden Salad with Ken’s Ranch Dressing (490 calories, 30g fat)

Then there’s the:  “how many calories, you’ve got to be kidding” salads.

• Outback Queensland Salad with Bleu Cheese Dressing (1075.8 calories, 81.6g fat)

• Cosi Signature Salad (130 calories, 45g fat)

• Ruby Tuesday’s Southwestern Beef Salad (1139 calories, 81g fat)

• Wendy’s Southwest Taco Salad (680 calories, 39g fat)

• Olive Garden’s Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad, without Caesar dressing (850 calories, 64g fat)

SocialDieter Tips:

If you are putting together your own salad at a salad bar – or making your own at home – here are some tips to keep your salad healthy and delicious.

• Dressings are not just decorative – they can be disastrous. If you have enough flavorful stuff in your salad, you may not even need dressing.  If you do, the creamy stuff usually is more caloric (you can always dilute it with vinegar).  Most vinegar has almost no calories so pour it on.  There are many choices of light or calorie free dressings.  Most places glop on dressing – you’d be surprised how little you need for taste. A dieter’s trick is to ask for dressing on the side and dip your fork into the dressing before you snare a mouthful of salad.
• Mayonnaise has around 90 calories a tablespoon.  Think about how much goes into chicken or tuna salad.  Use light mayo, mustard, or low fat yogurt instead.
• Go for reduced fat or fat free cheese instead of liberally sprinkling on the full fat stuff. ¼ cup of reduced fat (2%) shredded cheddar has 80 calories, 6g fat, 7g protein; fat free feta has  40 calories, 0g fat, 7g protein.
• If you are going out to order a salad order from a place that has low fat dressing choices and lean proteins (grilled chicken, tuna without mayo).  You can always use only half a package of salad dressing instead of a whole one.
• Lay off the croutons and wontons.  Sure, they’re crunchy, but you’re not getting anything nutritious from them.  Get your crunch from carrots, cucumbers, or a very light sprinkling of sunflower seeds or nuts (caloric but healthy).
• Salads with dark green lettuce and colorful vegetables add more vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals.
• Make your salad more of a meal by adding lean proteins: poultry (grilled), seafood, a hardboiled egg, or beans. Add whole grains like brown rice or quinoa, without dressing, to really beef it up. Leftover lean proteins and veggies can be chopped up and added to salad the next day. Keep a supply of canned tuna, anchovies, and beans for quick calorie sparing protein additions.
• Certain extras pile on calories.  You could have fries and a bacon cheeseburger for the same calories as a salad loaded with creamy dressing, shredded or crumbled cheese, bacon, avocado, mayonnaise salads, meat, nuts, and croutons. Instead, heap on tomatoes, asparagus, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, scallions, onions, mushrooms, peppers, cucumbers, arugula, spinach, and herbs. Olives add about 4 calories apiece – but, add an enormous amount of flavor and may help you forego dressing.
• Check out the nutritional info before you order – and remember to add in the totals for dressing, croutons, and other “extras.”  Some municipalities currently require calorie counts to be posted in fast/chain food restaurants.  The new health care bill will require posting in fast/chain food restaurants with more than 20 outlets. Almost all chain restaurants list their nutritional stats online.

KFC’s One-Of-A-Kind Bunless Sandwich

D-Day:  April 12^th, the premier day for KFC’s Double Down one-of-a-kind sandwich.  What is it?  A bunless sandwich made of two boneless white meat chicken filets stacked around two pieces of bacon, two melted slices of Monterey Jack and pepper jack cheese, and Colonel’s Sauce (mayonnaise based). As KFC says in its promo:  “this product is so meaty, there’s no room for a bun!”

Double Down, Two Ways

There are two versions of the Double Down: Original Recipe® or Grilled. According to KFC’s nutritional information:

Sandwich	Calories	Fat (g)	Sodium (mg)
KFC Original Recipe® Double Down	540	32	1380
KFC Grilled Double Down	460	23	1430

Is This Accurate Nutritional Information?

Aside from raising the hair on the back of the necks of  health conscious eaters, the accuracy of the caloric listed count is being disputed. KFC says that the Double Down has 1,380 milligrams of salt and ten grams of saturated fat — already 60 per cent and 50 per cent, respectively, of the U.S. government’s recommended daily allowance. An analysis done by the Vancouver Sun estimates that the sandwich logs in at 1,228 calories and more than an entire day’s worth of the recommended allowance for fat, cholesterol, sodium, and protein. It is, what Kelly Brownell, director at Yale University’s Rudd Center For Food Policy And Obesity, calls a salt bomb. Men’s Health Food and Nutrition editor and co-author of “Eat This, Not That: Best and Worst Foods in America, says that “independent labs are estimating that it has around 1,200 calories and over 50 fat grams, based on what’s in the other KFC sandwiches.”

What Does This Nutritional Gamble Cost?

The Double Down costs $5 or $6.99 as a meal deal with fries and a soda.  In a marketing move — maybe to show community commitment, KFC says that all the buns that would have been used if Double Down was not bunless will be donated to help feed America’s homeless.  It is interesting that KFC, previously called Kentucky Fried Chicken, trying for a healthier image, changed their official name to KFC, taking out the prominent “fried” and offering grilled choices. What, then, is this fatty and salty menu item?

SocialDieter Tip:

Double down is high in fat, a good deal of it saturated, and a pillar of salt.  It may also be a caloric nightmare depending on which analysis is accurate.  It certainly is a cardiologist’s nightmare.  Who knows what additives there are in the preformed chicken filets, the processed cheese, bacon, and sauce?  There are other healthier options on the menu at KFC:

Grillled chicken:  190 cal, 6g fat, 1.5g sat fat, 550mg sodium

Tender Roast Sandwich (no sauce):  300 cal, 4g fat, 1.5g sat fat, 660mg sodium

Tender Roast (with sauce):  410 cal, 15g fat, 3g sat fat, 790mg sodium

Grilled Chicken Ceasar Salad (without dressing and croutons):  200 cal, 6g fat, 3g sat fat, 570mg sodium

KFC Creamy Parmesan Caesar dressing (1 pkg):  260 cal, 26g fat, 5g sat fat, 540mg sodium

Parmesan Garlic Croutons (1 pouch):  70 cal, 3g fat, 0g sat fat, 140mg sodium

• Battle On:  who has the biggest burger? 
  

I love burgers – much more than steak of any kind.  So, I budget them into my food plan.  Holding the bacon, cheese, and fried onions cuts down on the calories – but for occasional indulgences it’s even possible to have those – just keep a close eye on the portion size.

According to the Tufts Health & Nutrition Letter (2/10), the fight for our dollars to purchase the biggest burger is on. The trade journal, Advertising Age, is calling the marketing war for the consumer’s bucks for big or biggest burger:  “Battle of the Big Burgers.”

• Bigger and biggest nutritional stats*

Applebee’s A1 Steakhouse Burger:  1085 Calories, 60g Fat, 80, Carbs, 52g Protein

Burger King Steakhouse XT:  970 Calories, 55g Carbs, other info N/A

Carl’s Jr.  $6 Burger:  890 Calories, 54g Fat, 58g Carbs, 45g Protein

Chili’s Classic bacon Burger:  1140 Calories, 72g Fat, 61g Carbs, 59g Fat

Denny’s Western burger:  1160 Calories, 65g Fat, 79g  Carbs, 63g Protein

Hardee’s $6 Thickburger:  950 Calories, 59g fat, 58g Carbs, 45g Protein

Krystal BA Double Bacon Cheese:  850 Calories, 59g Fat, 48g Carbs, 32g Protein

McDonald’s Angus Deluxe:  750 Calories, 39g fat, 61g Carbs, 40g Protein

Wendy’s Bacon Deluxe Triple:  1140 Calories, 71g Fat, 47g Carbs, 79g Protein

These burgers can range from 1/2 to 3/4 of most people’s usual daily caloric and fat (especially saturated fat) allowance, and I didn’t include the amount of sodium in each burger, which is equally alarming.

How to choose?  Sticking to ordering an ordinary hamburger might be your best bet if you exercise caution with the caloric fatty sides (French fries, onion rings) and not sugared drinks.  A McDonald’s regular burger:  250 Calories, has less calories than any other sandwich on it’s menu.  Burger King’s Whopper Jr. clocks in at 370 calories.

Don’t be misled by the healthier sounding veggie burger with it’s added on toppings.  Burger King’s Veggie burger has 420 calories and 16g Fat – it’s Whopper has 670 calories and 40g fat.  Ruby Tuesday’s Veggie Burger chalks up 952 Calories and 53g fat and it’s Classic Cheeseburger has 1160 calories and 81g total fat.

• SocialDieter Tip

If you know that your routine, maybe for workday lunches or after your kid’s soccer game, is probably going to include a stop at a fast food or casual dining chain, arm yourself with information by checking out the chain’s website for nutrition data.  Figure out ahead of time which choice is the best for you and then stick to it when you order.  If you haven’t figured out your preference before hand, chains in many states are now obliged to post in the restaurant the nutritional information for their products.  Bottom line: to save calories and fat, ignore the touted “big” or “biggest” burger (even if it’s the special) and order the small, ordinary burger and ask for extra onions, pickles, and other veggies.

*All data is from Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter February 2010

The weather forecast is all doom and gloom:  a foot and a half of snow, or torrential rain with 60 miles an hour wind gusts. Rush to the supermarket and, it seems, along with everyone else who lives in your town or city, buy bread and milk and then lots of other stuff.  You need to be prepared for the apocalypse — which in many cases doesn’t happen — and, unfortunately, sometimes does.

The weather comes and forces you to be housebound. Eventually you start going stir crazy, have to get out of the house. Maybe you have lost power.  So,  you venture out to eat.  Perhaps not during the height of the storm, but right afterwards.  The trick is to find someplace that is open and has power.  Wow — you find one.  Hmmm . . . what to order?  Gee, the fresh fish of the day sounds great.

Fresh fish? If there’s a foot and a half of snow, the snow plows are struggling to clear the main roads, the local waterway is iced over, trains and buses are running on limited schedules if at all, the airports are empty because there are no flights in or out, and even professional sports teams have cancelled their games, how is that “fresh” fish getting to your local restaurant?

A moment to analyze the menu is in order.  The chef may have a whole bunch of stuff languishing in the freezer in the back.  Okay, it may be fine, but it’s certainly not fresh.  And those leafy vegetables and berries — if the delivery trucks can’t drive through the streets, how did they get there?

If the chef ordered enough food before the storm and the restaurant’s business was way down because customers didn’t want to fight the weather, what happened to the unused food?  Restaurants are in business to make money.  Unsold food taking up space in the refrigerator and freezer does not bring in the bucks.  So, does the unused food appear in the days after the storm in a frittata or stew? Soup, cassoulet?   Of course, the frittata, stew, soup, or cassoulet  may still taste great, or maybe not.

Exercise some thought — and in some cases caution — when you make those menu choices during, or just after, blizzards, hurricanes, monsoons, and mudslides, and especially power outages!  Does grilled cheese and tomato soup sound good?