Simon Says

Tips from Jeanie Marshal Foods' development chef Simon.

Eating out

When Eating out, there are a few things to think about that will help you keep fit and healthy. Eating out should always be an experience, and should not leave you feeling that you have over done it, we are under more and more pressure now to have a healthier lifestyle, so what can you do if like me you really enjoy good food…

A male daily intake of calories is 2555 so you can imagine if you have a 3 course lunch out it is not going to leave you with many calories for breakfast and dinner, that is without thinking about our daily salt intake and the dreaded saturated fat.

So you are at the restaurant, your taste buds are waiting to be aroused, what can I order?

Basic rule says stick to fish and chicken just because they are leaner than red meat and pork, grilled food is lighter than fried, you need to try to keep away from food that is covered in crumb, after all we are not six years old anymore so we don’t need chicken nuggets in our diet, we also need to get away from the need to have potatoes with every dish, pastry is another one we all love it but we need to avoid it, we have to try to remember salad is good, if we say it enough it may sink in, oh apart from ceaser salad that is with its oil soaked croutons its beautiful creamy garlic dressing and salty anchovies pure delight, some of the middle eastern salads are not good either coated in all that oil. As someone I know once said ” you are not a car so why do you need so much oil to run”. Another big no no is cream a lot of chefs will us e coppeuas amounts of it in their cooking along with 100% artuary clogging continental butter.

Eating Out One way round this is to eat your carbs (pasta, potatoes) for your lunch rather than dinner, if you can share food with somebody then that is a bonus, “half the calories” and when it comes to dessert look for the fruit option, or even better have a small amount of cheese, then finish off with a coffee or even better one of the hundreds of different teas that are made available to us now, obviously avoiding the petit fours, they will undo all your good work very quickly.

A lot of chefs are now responding to the need for lighter meals the “healthy option” by introducing smaller portions, smaller plates, tapas style picky food so we can choose a better balanced and varied selection of interesting food, even with the new generation of Chefs out there are giving us gels, foams and mousses which are all lower in fat but still giving us fantastic flavours to arouse our taste buds.

So when you go out to eat, it is not like eating at home, you won’t go back for another helping, finish off the left over’s later, you cant raid the fridge, well you could but I would imagine the chef would have something to say about that! And if you walk to and from the restaurant you have won the battle. Now all I need is someone to help me with what I eat when I am home for dinner!!