Q:What are the challenges to healthy eating out?
A: The 4 main challenges to healthy restaurant eating are:
- Your food is in someone else's control. You are not in the kitchen and therefore can't oversee what goes in your food and how it's prepared. To exert control you'll need to speak up and make special requests as well as learn to outsmart the menu.
- Fat is melted, spread and poured. From the high fat ingredients cheese, sour cream, and oil; to fat laden preparations, such as, battered and fried, topped with cheese or cheese sauce; the fat content of foods can quickly top one day's allotment. Learn the words and menu preparations that mean high fat and control what's melted, spread and poured on your foods to trim and skim the fats.
- Sodium is sky high from salt and high sodium ingredients. Restaurant foods provide a larger portion of our sodium intake than ever...and our sodium intake is several times higher than the desired 2,300 milligrams a day. One fast food meal can deliver that dose of sodium.Salt is used to enhance the taste of foods and sodium-ladened prepared or partially prepared foods served in fast food and sit-down chain restaurants raise the sodium content. Steering clear of high sodium ingredients and toppings and keeping your hands off the salt shaker can help you lighten up on sodium.
- Portions are out of control…and getting bigger. Two for ones, meal deals, all you can eat buffets, bigger than ever burgers and more, have escalated portions (and therefore calories) out of control. Change the value proposition in your mind - think better food rather than more food. Then apply portion control skills and strategies (link to Q).
Discover the keys to healthy restaurant eating (link) and gain many more of strategies to master this essential life skill for today's world in my books:
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