Healthy restaurant= HIGH calories
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ashliedelgado wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »ashliedelgado wrote: »A rule of thumb a very fit pediatrician I work with shared with me - if the menu does not have nutrition information posted, she doesn't eat there. She figures in this day and age, if they aren't posting their nutrition information, they must be ashamed of it. I ran with it. So I look things up before going places to make my decision. It hasn't failed me yet.
If you're going by the seat of your pants, the wraps, the grains, the dressings, and just pack with veggies and lean meat if you want it to be low calorie. Nothing wrong with the grains or wraps, they just add the number up.
I guess she's not a fan of fine dining?
Or small, family-run places?
They've got young kids, so at this point, when they eat out it's more fast stuff. I never asked her about the fine dining. I'm sure it happens. There are always exceptions to rules. That's her rule of thumb, and it seems smart to me. If there is a quick joint to go to that doesn't post, there is going to be one down the street that does.
I suppose for someone that eats out frequently, this might be decent advice. At least that way you can control your calories. I don't mean to knock it.
We only go out on rare occasions, and it's almost always a treat. On those occasions I'd rather get something good, and special. Calories be damned.
Well, I'll knock it, just a little. I don't have a ton of faith in the personal rules of a "very fit" health-care professional who eats out at a lot of fast food places on the assumption that it's somehow better because the nutrition information is publicly available.
And that's not to knock fast food. I get to craving Whataburger from time to time. But I'm not going to have a "chain restaurant only" rule for myself in the interest of promoting sound choices.5 -
ashliedelgado wrote: »A rule of thumb a very fit pediatrician I work with shared with me - if the menu does not have nutrition information posted, she doesn't eat there. She figures in this day and age, if they aren't posting their nutrition information, they must be ashamed of it. I ran with it. So I look things up before going places to make my decision. It hasn't failed me yet.
If you're going by the seat of your pants, the wraps, the grains, the dressings, and just pack with veggies and lean meat if you want it to be low calorie. Nothing wrong with the grains or wraps, they just add the number up.
So much for local eating then. Or does she imagine local, family-owned restaurants can afford to pay a lab to evaluate calorie content every time they put a new dish on the menu?5 -
SpringLean wrote: »I need help with choosing meals at places like Panera and Freshiii. I hate restaurants that seem healthy but really aren't. This particular place didn't have the cals listed on the menu. I ordered a "healthy" wrap/burrito today with quinoa, lots of greens, chx breast and other vegetables but turns out it was over 600 calories!!! I could've just went to freakin' SHAKE SHACK and enjoyed my lunch. Smh. Lesson learned.
That's why I rarely eat out.
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SpringLean wrote: »I need help with choosing meals at places like Panera and Freshiii. I hate restaurants that seem healthy but really aren't. This particular place didn't have the cals listed on the menu. I ordered a "healthy" wrap/burrito today with quinoa, lots of greens, chx breast and other vegetables but turns out it was over 600 calories!!! I could've just went to freakin' SHAKE SHACK and enjoyed my lunch. Smh. Lesson learned.
I think the most bothersome part of your post is what I bolded. Did you not enjoy your lunch that you ordered? Why did you order it then? I don't eat things I don't enjoy, simply because I think they are "healthy". Life is too short to eat foods you don't enjoy - and as others have said, the calorie count is not an indication of whether something is healthy or unhealthy.9 -
Thank you everyone! I guess I assumed that healthy, largely meant low cal. Learned a lot from your responses. Thanks again
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snowflake954 wrote: »"Healthy" means nothing calorie wise.
Whoa, are you trying to say that Whole Foods products aren't low cal?
OP - Take a good look at the ingredients that it has, or ask. Drenched in sauce, added cheese, flour wrap, etc. etc. If anything it sounds like you had a very nutrient filled lunch that should leave you full till dinner.1 -
After looking up nutritional information at places like Modern Market, Snappy Salads, Panera, Cornery Bakery, etc. An easy way to guesstimate calories is this:
Go for Pick Two: Salad, Sandwich, Soup
Be ready for somewhere between 500-700 calories unless you eat soup and basic salad.
Whole Sandwiches are generally around 600 calories
Soups are between 200-400, vegetarian ones are lower like Tomato Basil
Full Salads are somewhere between 500-800
If you know you're eating out, try to look up the nutritional information before you go and plan your meal. I'm on the lower end of calories (because of my height) so 600 can be a lot unless I exercise or take away a snack.1 -
ashliedelgado wrote: »A rule of thumb a very fit pediatrician I work with shared with me - if the menu does not have nutrition information posted, she doesn't eat there. She figures in this day and age, if they aren't posting their nutrition information, they must be ashamed of it. I ran with it. So I look things up before going places to make my decision. It hasn't failed me yet.
If you're going by the seat of your pants, the wraps, the grains, the dressings, and just pack with veggies and lean meat if you want it to be low calorie. Nothing wrong with the grains or wraps, they just add the number up.
At least in the state where I live (California), restaurants are required to make nutritional information available only if they have a certain number of locations. It's a way to avoid placing an undue burden on smaller companies or people who only own one or two restaurants. It's fine to prefer to eat at chains that make it easier to control your calorie counts, but it's not okay to ascribe negative intentions to restaurants that aren't required to post their calorie counts. They're not hiding their information because they're ashamed of it; it's far more likely that they're a smaller company and can't afford to pay for nutritional analysis.8 -
SpringLean wrote: »Thank you everyone! I guess I assumed that healthy, largely meant low cal. Learned a lot from your responses. Thanks again
Just remember that calories are just a unit of energy...it's how much energy the food provides...nutrition is a whole other matter. Avocados for example are highly nutritious...but one avocado (not particularly voluminous food) is a whopping 230 calories or so. 1 ounce of almonds (very nutritious) which is basically a tiny handful is around 160 calories. A small 100g cooked serving of quinoa (nice healthy seed) is around 145 calories....and the list goes on.6 -
I'm eating for strength and go for the most nourishment/least junk vice low calories. I plan what I was going to eat for Easter dinner so that I knew what my calorie budget was. That means some some coleslaw, some deviled eggs, some ham, and ONLY ONE piece of pecan pie and no others because they don't taste good enough to "spend" my calories there. You can do the same and research what calories, sodium, food/junk are in "shrimp scampi" at Olive Garden and apply it to Joe's corner Italian restaurant to determine if you want to invest your calories there. Don't wait to do this until friends are asking where you want to go or when you are hungry. Do the research. My Easter dinner is already recorded in MFP. FYI: we spend half as much calories and money eating at home, and don't include ingredients that our grandmothers wouldn't recognize.0
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ashliedelgado wrote: »A rule of thumb a very fit pediatrician I work with shared with me - if the menu does not have nutrition information posted, she doesn't eat there. She figures in this day and age, if they aren't posting their nutrition information, they must be ashamed of it. I ran with it. So I look things up before going places to make my decision. It hasn't failed me yet.
If you're going by the seat of your pants, the wraps, the grains, the dressings, and just pack with veggies and lean meat if you want it to be low calorie. Nothing wrong with the grains or wraps, they just add the number up.
So much for local eating then. Or does she imagine local, family-owned restaurants can afford to pay a lab to evaluate calorie content every time they put a new dish on the menu?
Exactly. I get the theory and will sometimes go for the convenience option that has calorie counts over the one that doesn't, but her justification that "if they don't have them, they must be ashamed" is mindbogglingly ignorant of the industry.
It is wildly expensive to compile and update calorie counts. Smaller places change suppliers week to week depending on costs, ingredients depending on availability and freshness, and rejigging a kitchen so that every meal goes out close enough to identical like it's a production line is impractical, and I'm not even going to go into how disrespectful of chefs it is to imply that they should each operate their kitchens like a production line.
Furthermore, there is no legal requirement to have them for smaller or independent places, but if they choose to do so, they open themselves up to being sued by some jerk who comes in and eats their burger for 500 calories 5 times a week, gains weight, finds out it's actually 650 calories and blames them. Why would a business voluntarily open themselves to that?
The sense of entitlement which goes with "if they don't have the calories for my convenience, they must be ashamed" is palatable.
I really despair of the "all restaurants need calorie counts" movement that's going on. Way to ruin food as an experience, and crap all over chef's as creators and not just assembly line workers.
[/irked former small business and restaurant cook rant]10 -
janejellyroll wrote: »Putting grain inside another grain is always going to make it more caloric, even if the grains themselves are healthy. IT's like rice in burritos (why do we put carbs inside carbs? Rice in burritos is like a french fry sandwich?).
Healthy and low-calorie aren't the same. Heck, you can have a really unhealthy meal that's low-calorie.
Not gonna lie, I've had french fries on a sandwich and it was great. I wouldn't do it daily, but it was tasty.
Real arab shawerma sandwiches have fries stuffed in them. Absolute heaven.
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janejellyroll wrote: »Putting grain inside another grain is always going to make it more caloric, even if the grains themselves are healthy. IT's like rice in burritos (why do we put carbs inside carbs? Rice in burritos is like a french fry sandwich?).
Healthy and low-calorie aren't the same. Heck, you can have a really unhealthy meal that's low-calorie.
Not gonna lie, I've had french fries on a sandwich and it was great. I wouldn't do it daily, but it was tasty.
Real arab shawerma sandwiches have fries stuffed in them. Absolute heaven.
White bread sandwich with plain potato crisps and sauce was a hangover staple for my mid-20s...3 -
Putting grain inside another grain is always going to make it more caloric, even if the grains themselves are healthy. IT's like rice in burritos (why do we put carbs inside carbs? Rice in burritos is like a french fry sandwich?).
This is in the vein of serving breadsticks with pizza. Why do? Not like I'm opposed, but I'd rather just have more pizza.
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Alatariel75 wrote: »ashliedelgado wrote: »A rule of thumb a very fit pediatrician I work with shared with me - if the menu does not have nutrition information posted, she doesn't eat there. She figures in this day and age, if they aren't posting their nutrition information, they must be ashamed of it. I ran with it. So I look things up before going places to make my decision. It hasn't failed me yet.
If you're going by the seat of your pants, the wraps, the grains, the dressings, and just pack with veggies and lean meat if you want it to be low calorie. Nothing wrong with the grains or wraps, they just add the number up.
So much for local eating then. Or does she imagine local, family-owned restaurants can afford to pay a lab to evaluate calorie content every time they put a new dish on the menu?
Exactly. I get the theory and will sometimes go for the convenience option that has calorie counts over the one that doesn't, but her justification that "if they don't have them, they must be ashamed" is mindbogglingly ignorant of the industry.
It is wildly expensive to compile and update calorie counts. Smaller places change suppliers week to week depending on costs, ingredients depending on availability and freshness, and rejigging a kitchen so that every meal goes out close enough to identical like it's a production line is impractical, and simply not going to happen.
Furthermore, there is no legal requirement to have them for smaller or independent places, but if they choose to do so, they open themselves up to being sued by some jerk who comes in and eats their burger for 500 calories 5 times a week, gains weight, finds out it's actually 650 calories and blames them. Why would a business open themselves to that?
The sense of entitlement which goes with "if they don't have the calories for my convenience, they must be ashamed" is palatable.
[/irked former small business and restaurant cook rant]
Right there with you. A friend of mine runs a food truck/catering business, and his food is amazing - made with fresh ingredients and unique flavors. And he's not at all "ashamed" of what's in his food. He's quite proud of what's in his food, because he's using fresh, local ingredients and he's coming up with all of these recipes. If you ask him, he'll talk your EAR off about where he gets his produce and how he makes this or that and what's in it (he, uh, might not be the greatest at keeping his own trade secrets).
But no. He can't do a nutritional breakdown for you.4 -
JeepHair77 wrote: »ashliedelgado wrote: »A rule of thumb a very fit pediatrician I work with shared with me - if the menu does not have nutrition information posted, she doesn't eat there. She figures in this day and age, if they aren't posting their nutrition information, they must be ashamed of it. I ran with it. So I look things up before going places to make my decision. It hasn't failed me yet.
If you're going by the seat of your pants, the wraps, the grains, the dressings, and just pack with veggies and lean meat if you want it to be low calorie. Nothing wrong with the grains or wraps, they just add the number up.
Nah, I can't agree with this. My favorite places are mostly independently-owned and thus don't publish nutritional information. That doesn't mean that they're ashamed of their nutritional content. (I mean, shoot, Carls Jr. publishes their nutritional content, and they should be ashamed!)
I thought Panera DID publish theirs, though, was I mistaken? I don't eat there a ton, but I know there's a salad with chicken and apples and some sort of vinaigrette dressing that I love, and I'm sure the content there is pretty reasonable.
Generally, I think you can do a decent job of estimating the content of a lot of restaurant meals when the ingredients are simple and identifiable - avoid heavy, creamy sauces and dressings (since you've got no idea what's in there) and soups are probably similarly challenging (I'm not a big soup person, so I don't know what to say, there) but salads, sandwiches, grilled meats, simple vegetables, you can probably make a good enough estimate to log with some specificity. And I usually try to avoid doubling up on the empty carbs - substitute whatever chips/fries are offered with your sandwich for the salad or fruit cup. Your estimate won't be perfect, but if you're not doing it too terribly often, it won't make a difference.
They do..0 -
go online, look up nutrition count and plan - some places let you do a build your own meal (Subway you can build a sub through their website; Red Robin (burgers) has a meal builder); chipotle has their ingredient info in MFP that you can use (so do many other restaurants0
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I have to laugh at people (like that pediatrician) who think that just because there is a number on a website, that is going to be the number.
Obviously she never worked in a restaurant.
Chefs/cooks cook with their hands, not measuring spoons. A recipe may call for 100 calories in sauce or cheese or butter, and you may be getting a lot more (or less) than that.
Just enjoy your food when you eat out, but if you're trying to lose weight, maybe bring lunch from home most of the time.3 -
As someone who works in a place that serves food, I feel sorry for people who make it very clear that they don't want to eat what they are ordering but only doing it as it's "healthy" and/or they are "dieting".
Even something like plain chicken breast and vegetables are much, much higher in calories than you would expect. The aim of a restaurant is to get you in, pay 4x it would cost to make yourself and then come back and do it again. This means a lot of hidden fat, butter, salt, oil etc. to make even the plain meals tasty.
Honestly, if eating at a restaurant is a special occasion, just order what you actually will enjoy and be done with it.7
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