Returning to restaurants — and to healthy eating

Many of us gave up eating in restaurants when the pandemic started. Perhaps it was due to concerns about COVID-19 exposure, favorite restaurant closings, finances, or just the joy of cooking at home.

Now that we return to the occasional restaurant or takeaway, it’s time to enjoy the foods we missed. And just like before the pandemic, it’s important to look for good nutrition when ordering.

Look online first

Thanks to online menus, the offers of most restaurants and food trucks are easy to see. Large restaurant chains even publish nutritional information. Take advantage of this by looking at the menus before eating out. This will give you an idea of ​​what healthy options are available to you and what to order.

If a restaurant doesn’t have an online menu, call ahead and ask what they are serving.

Watch out for unhealthy ingredients

Restaurant food is delicious for a reason: it’s usually full of salt, sugar, saturated fat, and refined grains (white flour, bread, or pasta).

Words that will alert you to these ingredients are:

• fried
• Sweet
• cheese
• Cream or cream
• Butter or Beurre Blanc (a butter sauce with shallots and white wine)
• Flour (in restaurants this usually means refined white flour, not whole wheat flour).
• breaded
• Beef, pork, lamb, veal.

When you see these words describing a menu item, look for something healthier. These options can include vegetarian or vegan options, fish or chicken. Why is that helpful? Eating fewer foods with unhealthy ingredients and focusing on healthier ingredients can lower your risk of weight gain and chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes.

Please help

If the menu doesn’t offer healthier foods, ask your waiter for help. Explain that you need a healthy diet and a meal that meets your guidelines.

That could mean

• Ask the kitchen to keep butter, sugar, or salt in your food, or at least use it gently.
• ask if it is possible to grill, bake, or poach foods instead of frying them or sautéing them in butter. (If a food needs to be sautéed, ask the cook if they can use olive oil instead of butter.)
• Make substitutions. For example:
  • If a creamy risotto tempts you, ask if there is brown rice or quinoa instead.
  • When you see Chilean sea bass with jalapeno beurre blanc, ask if salsa is used in place of the sauce.
  • If french fries are offered on the side, ask if you can get lettuce greens, beans, or fruit instead.

A little cheating

While a sensible diet is critical to health, it may be okay to have a less healthy meal on occasion.

“You don’t want to refuse to enjoy the food. If you feel like you are constantly lacking, eating well should be avoided McManus, director of the nutrition department at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, which is close to Harvard.

She recommends using the 90/10 rule: eat healthy 90% of the time and cheat on a healthy diet 10% of the time. Out of 21 meals in a week (three meals, seven days a week) that would be two meals.

Other ways to reduce the effects of large, fatty, sugary, and salty restaurant meals:

• Order half a serving or share a serving with a friend.
• Ask for sauce or salad dressing as a side dish and then simply drizzle over the food or dip a fork in for a few drops.

And remember to take your time with each bite: “Eating consciously helps you slow down, enjoy your meal, and listen to your body’s hunger signals so you don’t overeat,” says McManus.

And after the year we’ve had, you may want to really enjoy those moments.

As a service to our readers, Harvard Health Publishing offers access to our library of archived content. Please note the date of the last review or update for all articles. No content on this website, regardless of the date, should never be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.

source https://dailyhealthynews.ca/returning-to-restaurants-and-to-healthy-eating/