Restaurant Food

When you are as health conscious as I am about what you put into your body, restaurants come up short in most cases.

Fast foods from restaurants like McDonalds™, Burger King™, and Taco Bell™ are full of sodium, fat and other preservatives that are usually unpronounceable.

Some of these fast food places offer healthy alternatives.  However, the healthy part is that most of these alternatives don’t have as much fat but are still loaded down with sodium and preservatives.

Chain restaurants such as Chili’s™, Applebee’s™, and Texas Roadhouse™, are as bad as the fast food places when it comes to fat and sodium levels.

Diatfacts.com gives a list of many restaurants, the foods they offer and their nutritional values.

Look at McDonald’s Asian Salad™ without the chicken and dressing –low calories and low sodium.  However, many people don’t eat it plain without the dressing or the chicken.  Big difference with the chicken but no dressing the calories aren’t so bad but the sodium levels are huge.  If you add the dressing the sodium levels go even higher. 

Now look at a Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad from Chili’s Bar & Grill™.  It’s worse than the one you can get from McDonald's™.

It is hard for the health conscious to eat out.  That’s why when we went to Florida we visited a friend of mine and his restaurant in Delray Beach, The Green Gourmet.  I will be writing a feature story on Chef Joey Giannuzzi and his wonderful restaurant soon.

What makes the Green Gourmet special?  Organic foods, alternatives to salt, and a chef who cares about his patrons on a personal level.  I’ve even walked away with one of his recipes that I will be sharing soon.

While not many areas have a restaurant like the Green Gourmet, there are ways of getting “healthier” alternatives at the chains.

When ordering:

• Ask that no extra salt be used when preparing your dish.
• When ordering a salad, ask for the dressing on the side and don’t use as much of it.
• Ask for just a simple vinaigrette for a dressing  instead of the heavier dressings.

In the comment section below, please feel free to tell me about your favorite restaurant or healthy alternatives you have found for eating out.