Archives for August 2010

The Diet Doctor has a great tip about butter and ordering from a restaurant. Check it out.

Butter Me Up
Even if something isn’t doused in oil, you still may not be calorie-safe–it can have added butter or cream. Toasted buns are often covered in butter; even steaks have butter drizzled on them before they’re sent out. “And restaurants always finish sauces with butter or cream–even if the words butter or cream aren’t in the sauce’s name. For example, a white wine sauce is always finished with butter,” says Cooking Light’s Strynkowski.

Healthy tip: Be suspicious, be inquisitive, and make sure to get a straight answer from the server (who should ask the chef). Always invoke the “allergic reaction” or “medical condition” excuses to be on the safe side.

– Tip by Charles Stuart Platkin on active.com.

Here’s a great tip and insight on ordering at a restaurant in regards to oil.

Oil Slick
There’s oil on almost every restaurant dish, and while some oils (e.g., canola, olive) are healthier than others, they all have approximately 120 calories per tablespoon. So you may go to the trouble of ordering an egg-white omelet, believing you’re making a “healthy” choice, but it could be doused in oil.

Or you might order grilled or steamed vegetables, but they may have been marinating in oil for hours, if not all day. It’s difficult to get grilled or steamed veggies without oil, because they must be made to order–and that takes a lot of time in a busy kitchen. And certain vegetables are worse than others. “Eggplant, for example, absorbs a lot of oil–just poke it around in your dish, and see what comes out,” says Greely.

There’s oil in other “healthy” foods as well. Because fat and oil help preserve cooked food, busy restaurants usually partially cook poultry/fish and then coat it in butter/oil until it’s ready to be finished, says Billy Strynkowski, executive chef of Cooking Light magazine. “Even if you order your chicken ‘dry’ with the sauce on the side, poultry is always pan-fried in oil or clarified butter.”

Pasta, potatoes and rice, again, are often partially cooked and filmed with some type of fat so they stay fresh and don’t clump together, adds Juventino Avila, chef and instructor at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. Oh, and if you think that having simple rice and beans at your favorite Mexican restaurant is healthy, think again–the rice is fried, then steamed.

Healthy tip: Be aware of where you’re eating. Restaurants typically want to please their patrons; however, most of the time, unless the restaurant promotes itself as healthy, it just doesn’t have the equipment, materials, time or utensils to do it right, offers Avila.

Almost all the chefs agree: If you want it cooked a certain way, make sure to tell your server that you have an allergy (to butter, or whatever it is you want eliminated). This usually encourages the chef to make up a new batch of veggies, chicken, etc., without those added calories. Avila recommends calling the restaurant in advance and making sure it can provide the food exactly the way you want it prepared.

– Tip by Charles Stuart Platkin on active.com.

Not all grills are created equal. Say WHAT? Yup, just because you order something grilled at a restaurant doesn’t mean it’s healthy. Check out this great tip about grilling and ordering grilled food.

You’ve Been Grilled
That’s right, even the grill isn’t sacred. I don’t know how many times I’ve recommended that people order their food grilled. But according to food-safety expert Jeff Nelken, “Often times breakfast cooks save the bacon fat and use it on the grill to make lunch and dinner foods.” Also, the grill itself may not be what you think it is.

When we order foods grilled, most of us assume they’ll be cooked on an open flame, but many times it’s a flat-top grill, where some type of grease or oil is necessary to create an even cooking surface, increase the cooking speed and prevent the food from sticking.

Many restaurants will call a food “flame grilled” on the menu, but even so, the food or the grill may have been brushed with oil to prevent sticking. Even “grilled” fish/seafood is always brushed with some type of oil, says John Greely, chef at the famed 21 Club in New York City.

Healthy tip: Ask if they’re using a flat-top grill or a flame grill. If it’s flat-top, request your food grilled in a pan with cooking spray instead of oil. Nelken suggests telling the server you “just returned from the hospital and need the food prepared according to doctor’s instruction.”

Another option is frequenting restaurants where you can see the food being cooked in an open kitchen, says, Kimberly Johnson, R.D., a chef and instructor in the Nutrition and Hospitality Management Department at Syracuse University in Syracuse, NY.

– Tip by Charles Stuart Platkin on active.com.