How to Eat Less Fat When You're Eating Out
How to Eat Less Fat When You’re Eating Out
Eating a limited-fat diet is easy at home, but it is more challenging when you eat out. At first, it was an extra effort to eat out without eat- ing more fat than we wanted to consume.
After a while we found that eating out usually can be quite enjoy- able without going off our bad-fat budgets of 10 grams a day.
You may wonder how we can say this when meals are usually pre- pared by people who don’t understand that we really don’t want to eat fat-laden foods. It’s surprising how quickly people catch on and will go out of their way to prepare lowfat meals we can enjoy. Sometimes they try and don’t do very well. Even so, without doing or saying much, these experiences often turn into helpful learning experiences for the diners as well as the hosts.
A Big Plate of Fatty Food-Just for You!
You visit friends who don’t know of your aversion to fat and find they’ve prepared a steak with potatoes and gravy. What’s a person to do? Or, you are at a wedding reception where the healthiest thing available is cheesecake. It sometimes seems that those who planned the party had a contest to see who could serve the greatest amount of bad fat.
These are times when the only reasonable answers come from good common sense. The fact you are working from your own budget is a big advantage. When you know you will be eating out or going to a party, use very little of your bad-fat budget at breakfast and lunch. When you anticipate being served things like deep-fried chicken livers stuffed with cheese or baked Alaska with whipped cream, eat a good breakfast and lunch with almost no saturated fat. But what are you going to do about the chicken livers and baked Alaska?
Hopefully, you won’t be served such fatty foods and most recep- tions you attend will have some healthy choices. If healthy food is scarce, eat around the grossly fat stuff. Some not-so-fat things are almost always served at a meal like this-bread, salad and veggies. Nibble. You might even find enough to feel you are not being short- changed. If not, you may want to fix yourself something really good when you get home. Joking about your situation is not an option- that’s bad manners! Self-deprecating humor is merely disguised criti- cism of what is being served, so don’t do that, either! It’s not in the best interest of friendships or acquaintances to preach about your own lowfat eating requirements.
In most situations, just “fake it.” If the entrée is southern fried chicken, peel off the skin and take a few little bites of the white chicken meat inside. If it’s a big pork chop or spare ribs, trim off the fat and take a few small nibbles of the leanest meat you can find.
Remember, you can spend your bad-fat budget any way you want, so your secret is quantity-eat only small quantities. One of two things will happen-people will notice or they won’t. If they don’t, great. If they do, that could be even better. They may learn something. You may be surprised that the next time you are asked over to dinner, the people who fed you such a fatty meal will go out of their way to feed you something very good that contains little fat.
Another interesting phenomenon is that after friends know you know something about lowfat eating, when they choose something to eat for themselves that isn’t healthful, they will often make excuses and even apologize to you-as if you are their conscience! Don’t say a thing. Just watch to see what happens.
Look for “Heart-Healthy” or “Lowfat” on the Menu
When you go out to eat at a restaurant, it is usually easier to stick to your lowfat budget than when you have been invited to someone’s home. There’s always more variety at restaurants. More and more restaurants are offering lowfat entrées on their menus, sometimes flagged with a little red heart or footnoted as heart-healthy. These items often contain very little saturated fat, although sometimes the promise is better than what’s delivered.
Some restaurants have no lowfat entrées because whoever is man- aging the place doesn’t understand the need. Don’t be afraid to ask how something is prepared-or to make suggestions about how to do it better. In other words, if you don’t see anything on the menu that looks heart-healthy, explain what you want and ask them to fix it for you.
When asked, chefs and servers are usually very helpful. Most will make a special effort to please if you explain you are on a lowfat diet. Restaurant people are in business to satisfy you so you will leave a nice tip-and come back. Just ask. Keep it low-key, especially if there are several people at your table. Write out your special order or request on the back of a business card or on notepaper. Such a note with a few simple explanatory comments is an excellent way to get the message straight to the chef.
An especially easy lowfat request for most restaurants is baked or broiled salmon-without any butter or cheese sauces. When any salmon entrée has been on the menu, no one has turned down our requests to broil or bake it plain or with pepper and lemon. Ask the server to bring you some extra lemon or lime wedges or some seafood cocktail sauce. The same applies when ordering other types of fish. Instead of ordering French-fried shrimp or scallops, ask the chef to broil them-maybe even over mesquite if you are in a southwest-style restaurant. Salmon and tuna are particularly good broiled over mesquite or alder wood. Even if the specialty of a seafood house is fried fish and chips, a good chef will usually help you enjoy a good meal without breaking your fat budget.
The same is true with chicken. At home, you trim the fat and skin off the white chicken meat before you cook it, which is best. Many restaurants offer skinless chicken-breast entrées now. If they don’t, speak up! Unless you happen to be in a place that specializes only in fried chicken, most places will be accommodating. Some chicken franchises now offer broiled or rotisserie chicken. Most are cooked with the skin on and, even if much of the fat drips off as the chicken is turned, there is still fat left. You don’t have to eat the crusty skin. Trim off the skin and don’t eat too much of the white meat-espe- cially if fat has soaked in. Some places even have lowfat baked or broiled chicken breasts cooked without the skin.
If there’s no choice about chicken or fish that has been dipped in a batter and deep-fried, remember that this crust soaks up lots of oil. Sheer quantity is a problem-even if the menu proclaims that it is fried in “pure vegetable oil or canola.” More of this fat than you want penetrates into the meat. So if you are served greasy fried chicken or fish and you have no choice, peel off the crusted batter and skin and eat only a little of the white meat. Don’t think you are eating a lowfat dinner. It is much better to choose a place to eat where you can get broiled, poached or grilled fish.
Eating out without overloading on bad fat is easier than most peo- ple think. When you have a choice of restaurants, think about choos- ing a favorite buffet, but not necessarily always. When you go, look at the menu (or buffet) items and think through your choices carefully.
If you are at a restaurant and want to order something that’s not on the menu, build on something you think they might be able to eas- ily adapt from other items on their menu.
Be creative. Don’t be afraid to ask for your fish to be broiled or your chicken breast to be trimmed of all skin and fat before it is broiled. If you like seafood cocktail sauce, don’t be bashful about ask- ing for some for your salad.
If you are eating breakfast in a restaurant, oatmeal is almost always available. Ask for it to be served plain or with syrup, nonfat milk or applesauce. Orange juice and fruit are also usually available. If you want an omelet, order one made with no-cholesterol egg products. Use salsa, picante sauce or catsup to spice it up. You may want to treat yourself to a small slice of very lean ham to go with it.
Salad Bars Can Help
Some of our favorite places to eat out are buffets or restaurants that offer an extended salad bar. That provides a wide variety of good choices without having to negotiate with anyone except ourselves. Eating lowfat meals at a good buffet is a much easier experience than at most fast-food places and ordinary restaurants.
You’ve probably noticed more and more franchise salad-bar buf- fets opening up. They are usually much more than salad bars offering hot and cold pastas, peas and beans, plus a wonderful assortment of fruit, vegetables and traditional salad components. Many of these buf- fets have a lot of fat-filled food, especially at the dessert bar, but you may also find fat-free frozen yogurt. Even if they don’t, most buffets include a variety of fruits which can more than make up for skipping high-fat desserts.
Alternative Toppings
What if a restaurant doesn’t have a fat-free salad dressing for your salad? While this is possible, it is not nearly as likely now as it was a few years ago. There are usually plenty of other choices.
Try just plain vinegar on sliced tomatoes or on a tossed salad. Even better are salad vinegars with a touch of garlic or other seasonings. Salad vinegars or freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice are great zero- fat solutions to dressing a salad or an elegant serving of hot or cold vegetables. For a change, try salsa, picante sauce or catsup as a top- ping.
Another excellent fat-free salad topping that most restaurants have on hand is seafood cocktail sauce. If prepared cocktail sauce is not available, it is easily and quickly made by combining catsup with a lit- tle fresh (not creamy) horseradish and coarse pepper. This sauce is one of the things most people like about shrimp cocktails. Even with- out the shrimp, this cocktail sauce tastes good on a lettuce or spinach salad.
You may grow to like one of these alternatives even more than some of your favorite fat-filled bleu-cheese or thousand-island dress- ings. Whether you are at a friend’s home, a buffet or at a fancy sit- down restaurant, you need to be ready with alternatives to the typical butter or sour-cream toppings for baked potatoes and cheese sauces for vegetables and other fat-filled things.
What do you put on potatoes, rice or cooked vegetables when you’re eating out? Restaurants can usually provide lowfat diet spreads, if asked. Other options include chopped broccoli, cottage cheese or finely chopped fresh tomato. Others like plain catsup on their baked potato or small amounts of fat-free or lowfat salad dressing.
Fast-Food Restaurants
Eating at fast-food restaurants is a challenge. As we mentioned before, a big hamburger with cheese, a big order of fries and a milkshake can contain as much as 24 grams of saturated fat. That’s way too much bad fat whether at a fast-food place, in a sit-down restaurant or at home.
Your chances to get something to eat at a fast-food restaurant without too much fat are much better now than they were a few years ago.
Some fast-food places now even have salad bars. The very definition of fast-food focuses on a limited menu of things to be served in a hurry. That’s why the menus seem to specialize in fat.
At some fast-food chains, you can ask for and get a printed list of all their menu items listing the saturated fat in each one. Also watch out for big globs of mayonnaise and other sauces that add more fat grams!
Fried fish, chicken, pizza, fries and burgers as well as ice cream and shakes are very popular with children and adults. These things taste good. At least they taste good until you’ve been off a high-fat intake for a while. Then, if you load up on 20 to 40 grams of saturated fat in a meal, you could find all that fat leaves you feeling uncomfortable.
Choosing a fast-food restaurant with healthy options is impor- tant-not just for yourself, but for your family. Everyone with chil- dren or grandchildren knows how programmed they have become to wanting to eat at their favorite place. Advertising is extremely effec- tive, especially with the younger set, and hard to counter.
Overdoses of saturated fat are not just a problem for those of us who have been around for a while. Fat is not good for children either. The more effective we are at helping them make better choices about food, the less plaque will be deposited in their coronary arteries.
Fortunately, many ice-cream shops and fast-food restaurants are offering good-tasting nonfat or lowfat frozen yogurt and frozen- yogurt shakes. It may take some selling and persuading on your part to get the children who are important to you to choose these health- ier foods, but the effort could add years to their lives.
Lowfat Eating While Traveling
Eating while traveling provides interesting situations. When you’re driving, it’s usually possible to find a grocery market not far off the freeway. There are all kinds of fruits, vegetables, no-fat yogurt and lowfat deli items available for you to buy in a hurry to eat on the way.
If you are planning a cruise, most cruise lines offer magnificent dining-room menus and buffets. Have your travel agent phone, FAX or write for information on the lowfat menus that may be offered on the cruise you plan to take. Some cruise lines have listened to their passengers’ requests and provide excellent lowfat choices for salads and entrées, often with calorie and fat counts right on the menu. Of course, there will be plenty of fried foods, entrées smothered in cream, butter and cheese sauces, as well as high-fat gourmet desserts. Even so, the menus and buffets almost always include delicious salads, fresh fruits and a wonderful assortment of other lowfat foods.
Some in-flight food service has been cut back to a bag of peanuts or pretzels and a soft drink, so you may want to take along a box lunch of some of your favorite lowfat foods. When you are traveling during the hours airlines serve meals, you may be given à la carte choices— especially at breakfast. Other times, the airlines will give you two choices for their prepared meals-as long as the choices last. All of these usually contain more fat than you’ll want. Instead of leaving it to chance when you make airline reservations, ask your travel agent or airline representative if a meal is included on your flight. If so, order a low-fat, low-cholesterol meal when you book your ticket. If you travel much, your travel agent or frequent-flyer records can set up your account so lowfat meals are automatically ordered whenever you book a reservation.
Be sure to place your special meal requests several days before your flight or earlier when possible. It isn’t reasonable to expect the airline to get a special meal on board for you if you think about it just before your flight. Each airline has its own rules for how much advance notice is needed to get a special meal on your plane. Although most airlines are helpful about getting you the kind of meal you want, there are times when it doesn’t happen.
Once on the airplane, you may be asked to identify yourself so the stew- ardess will know who gets which spe- cial meal. Your name is on that tray. Although what you get won’t be totally perfect, it will come much closer to your lowfat eating plan than if you had not asked for a spe- cial meal. Even with your lowfat main course, expect a pat of butter, an ice-cream bar or a chocolate brownie to end up on your tray. Of course, you don’t have to eat them.
Plan Ahead for Banquets and Special Meetings
There are other times when you may feel trapped into eating whatever is being served. You may be able to plan ahead for meals you will be served at events like meetings and banquets. Organizations are often able to provide specially requested meals. Depending upon the kind of event, ask the organizers what menu choices are available for peo- ple who need special meals.
If you arrive at a banquet event and the menu seems fixed, quietly ask a head waiter or supervisor if they can provide an alternate-such as a seafood, fruit or vegetable platter. Once a fatty meal is served, you can choose not to eat what is served or you can eat only a small por- tion. Choosing not to eat everything is hard for some of us who were taught to clean up our plates and not waste a thing. It is even harder when you are hungry and a big juicy steak is put in front of you. Refusing the meal, sending it back or just leaving it untouched may seem unthinkable. The question is: Is it more wasteful to eat some- thing that will coat your coronary arteries with fat-or send it back to the kitchen uneaten?
Most of the time you really don’t need to send it back. You can do very well by trimming off all the visible fat, pushing aside any rich sauce and eating a reasonable amount of the juicy steak. Cut slices of the leanest part of the meat and eat tiny bites slowly. That way you’ll get some enjoyment from the flavor, which will probably be pretty good. The vegetables, bread and salad will round out the meal. You don’t have to eat everything that is served-even if this is what you were taught while you were growing up. When the dessert comes around, just assume that you’ll probably refuse it unless it’s something without much fat, such as raspberry sorbet.
Be imaginative. Apologies are never necessary. Of course, be ciative-as you enjoy eating out. It can be fun without too much bad fat. Enjoy!